Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE EXCURSION. 279
here below; and Crabbe with all his defects stands immeasur-
ably above Wordsworth as the Poet of the Poor.
Tickler. Good. And yet the youngsters in that absurd
Magazine of yours set him up to the stars as their idol, and
kiss his very feet as if the toes were of gold.
North. Well, well ; let them have their own way a while. I
confess that the ' Excursion ' is the worst poem of any character
in the English language. . . . And
then how ludicrously he
overrates his own powers. This we all do ; but Wordsworth's
pride is like that of a straw-crowned king of Bedlam. For
example, he indited some silly lines to a hedge-sparrow's nest
with five eggs, and years after in a fit of exultation told the
world in another poem equally childish that the Address to the
Sparrow was " one strain that will not die." ^
One of the amazing things in this most extraordinary
and unprovoked assault was, that Wilson
himself was the first of the " youngsters " who had
" set up to the stars " the poet whom he thus fell
upon with so much apparent rancour : and
that no
comprehensible reason had ever been suggested for
the sudden change of sentiment. " Scott's poetry
puzzles me," he says in the same astounding chapter
"it is often very bad. Except when his martial soul
is up, he is but a tame and feeble writer." One cannot
but surmise that his capacious yet wayward brain was
temporarily "possessed," and that he did not know
what he was saying. The moment, too, was a most
extraordinary one for such an utterance. Immediately
before he concocted this article we have a glimpse of
him in one of Lockhart's notes describing the return
journey from Ireland in attendance upon Scott. They
landed in Wales, and afterwards proceeded to the
^ ' Maga,' September 1825.
;