“Thou hast a nest, for thy love and thy rest And though little troubled with sloth Drunken lark! thou would’st be loth To be such a traveller as I. Happy, happy liver! _With a soul as strong as a mountain river Pouring out praise to th’ Almighty giver,_ Joy and jollity be with us both! Hearing thee or else some other, As merry a brother I on the earth will go plodding on By myself cheerfully till the day is done.” The incongruity, which I appear to find in this passage, is that of the two noble lines in italics with the preceding and following. So vol. II. page 30. “Close by a Pond, upon the further side, He stood alone; a minute’s space I guess, I watch’d him, he continuing motionless To the Pool’s further margin then I drew; He being all the while before me full in view.” Compare this with the repetition of the same image, the next stanza but two. “And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, Beside the little pond or moorish flood Motionless as a Cloud the Old Man stood, That heareth not the loud winds when they call; And moveth altogether, if it move at all.” Or lastly, the second of the three following stanzas, compared both with the first and the third. “My former thoughts returned; the fear that kills; And hope that is unwilling to be fed; Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills; And mighty Poets in their misery dead. But now, perplex’d by what the Old Man had said, My question eagerly did I renew, ‘How is it that you live, and what is it you do?’ “He with a smile did then his words repeat; And said, that gathering Leeches far and wide He travell’d; stirring thus about his feet The waters of the Ponds where they abide. `Once I could meet with them on every side; ‘But they have dwindled long by slow decay; ‘Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may.’ While he was talking thus, the lonely place, The Old Man’s shape, and speech, all troubled me In my mind’s eye I seemed to see him pace About the weary moors continually, Wandering about alone and silently.” Indeed this fine poem is especially characteristic of the author. There is scarce a defect or excellence in his writings of which it would not present a specimen. But it would be unjust not to repeat that this defect is only occasional. From a careful reperusal of the two volumes of poems, I doubt whether the objectionable passages would amount in the whole to one hundred lines; not the eighth part of the number of pages. In THE EXCURSION the feeling of incongruity is seldom excited by the diction of any passage considered in itself, but by the sudden superiority of some other passage forming the context.