February 1828

A very unaccountable poem, that Pelican Island. A mixture of greatness with defects that don't appear to be slovenliness, like the slovenly greatness of Dryden, so much as want of deli- cate poetic perception ; but all along, at inter- vals, glitter lines that might decorate Paradise Lost. And there 's a general grandeur of con- ception. But in the minor poems he is decidedly an ordinary genius again. It is the singular merit of the Pelican Island that 'tis original both in the design, which perhaps makes all its great- ness, and in the execution. It is a poem worth ten Excursions, being generally a complete con- trast to Wordsworth's verses. These abounding in fact, and Wordsworth wanting. These seizing coarse and tangible features for description or allusion, and Wordsworth the metaphysical and evanescent. This teaching body, andWordsworth soul. This using a very large encyclopediacal dic- tion, and Wordsworth affecting that which may be proper to the passions in common life. It seems to me that who could write this could write ten times as well. Milton would write it off in un- premeditated manuscript and lay it up as a block to be hewn and carved and polished. But Milton would as soon have hanged himself as published it as it stands. Had it been found and printed by Montgomery's executors, instead of Mont- gomery, it would not surprise. The puzzle is that there 's quite a large portion of the Poem is mere extemporaneous blank verse, only fit for the fount of a newspaper.