Of the poem which enjoyed so singular a fate, Lord Houghton has quietly remarked that it could not have been written by a man with a strong sense of humour. This is true of every part of it, of the stiff and self-sufficient preface, and of the grotesque prologue, both of which in all probability belong to 1819, no less than of the story itself, in its three cantos or parts, which bear the stamp of Alfoxden and 1798. The tale is not less improbable than uninteresting. In the first part, a very wicked potter or itinerant seller of pots, Peter Bell, being lost in the woodland, comes to the borders of a river, and thinks to steal an ass which he finds pensively hanging its head over the water; Peter Bell presently discovers that the dead body of the master of the ass is floating in the river just below. (The poet, as he has naively recorded, read this incident in a newspaper.) In the second part Peter drags the dead man to land, and starts on the ass's back to find the survivors. In the third part a vague spiritual chastisement falls on Peter Bell for his previous wickedness. Plot there is no more than this, and if proof were wanted of the inherent innocence of Wordsworth's mind, it is afforded by the artless struggles which he makes to paint a very wicked man. Peter Bell has had twelve wives, he is indifferent to primroses upon a river's brim, and he beats asses when they refuse to stir. This is really all the evidence brought against one who is described, vaguely, as combining all vices that "the cruel city breeds." That which close students of the genius of Wordsworth will always turn to seek in _Peter Bell_ is the sincere sentiment of nature and the studied simplicity of language which inspire its best stanzas. The narrative is clumsy in the extreme, and the attempts at wit and sarcasm ludicrous. Yet _Peter Bell_ contains exquisite things. The Primrose stanza is known to every one; this is not so familiar: _The dragon's wing, the magic ring, I shall not covet for my dower. If I along that lowly way With sympathetic heart may stray And with a soul of power_. Nor this, with its excruciating simplicity, its descriptive accent of 1798: _I see a blooming Wood-boy there, And, if I had the power to say How sorrowful the wanderer is, Your heart would be as sad as his Till you had kiss'd his tears away! Holding a hawthorn branch in hand, All bright with berries ripe and red; Into the cavern's mouth he peeps-- Thence back into the moonlight creeps; What seeks the boy?--the silent dead!_ It is when he wishes to describe how Peter Bell became aware of the dead body floating under the nose of the patient ass that Wordsworth loses himself in uncouth similes. Peter thinks it is the moon, then the reflection of a cloud, then a gallows, a coffin, a shroud, a stone idol, a ring of fairies, a fiend. Last of all the poet makes the Potter, who is gazing at the corpse, exclaim: