And Wordsworth insisted, quite as strongly as his severest critics, upon finish, upon literary art as discriminable from the substance. While he was blaming Byron, Campbell, and other eminent poets for its lack, his assailants were loud in the same charge against him; they protested that whatever other merits the new poetry might have, that of artistic finish was surely not one. Jeffrey wrote in 1807 that Wordsworth "scarcely ever condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his versification." But Wordsworth, in a letter lately first published, criticises Campbell's "Hohenlinden" in a way that shows him by no means unstudious of form. He writes thus to Mr. Hamilton:[C] "I remember Campbell says, in a composition that is overrun with faulty language, 'And dark as winter was the _flow_ of Iser rolling rapidly'; that is, 'flowing rapidly.' The expression ought to have been 'stream' or 'current.' ... These may appear to you frigid criticisms," he adds; "but depend upon it, no writings will live in which these rules are disregarded." This is good doctrine, and we have seen Wordsworth striving to realize it in his practice. He did realize it to a certain extent; if his style was not always eloquent, not always poetical, it was generally better English than that of his popular contemporaries. And yet a critic in "The Dial," following, as recently as 1843, the lead of Jeffrey in this blame of Wordsworth, could write of him as follows:[D] "He has the merit of just moral perception, but not that of deft poetic execution. How would Milton curl his lip at such slip-shod newspaper style! Many of his poems, as for example the 'Rylstone Doe,' might be all improvised.... These are such verses as in a just state of culture should be _vers de Société_, such as every gentleman could write, but none would think of printing." That passage is worth reading twice; note the condescension of the praise, the flippancy of the blame, the inaccurate English and French; and what a jaunty misquotation of Wordsworth's title! It was not very profitable censure; but Wordsworth received much criticism by which he was glad to profit. Let us look at some of the cases in which he turned the strictures of friends or of enemies to account. The changes that he made in deference to criticism are striking, and so too are some of the cases in which he refused to profit by criticism. I will speak of both. [Footnote C: "Prose Works," III., 302.] [Footnote D: "The Dial," Vol. III., p. 514.]