Dante he admitted to be an exception; but he considered that Shelley, and almost all others who had endeavoured to out-soar the humanities, had suffered deplorably from the attempt.

I once heard him say, 'I have often been asked for advice by young poets.

All the advice I can give may be expressed in two counsels.

First, let Nature be your habitual and pleasurable study, human nature and material nature; secondly, study carefully those first-class poets whose fame is universal, not local, and learn from them: learn from them especially how to observe and how to interpret Nature.' Those who knew Wordsworth only from his poetry might have supposed that he dwelt ever in a region too serene to admit of human agitations.

This was not the fact.