And it is interesting to
note that the objection has been evaded by posterity in a manner which
confirms Coleridge's criticism. The 'inward eye' is almost universally
remembered apart from its context, and interpreted as a description of
the purely spiritual process to which alone, in Coleridge's opinion, it
was truly apt.
The enumeration of Wordsworth's excellences which follows is masterly;
and the exhilaration with which one rises through the crescendo to the
famous: 'Last and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift of
_Imagination_ in the highest and strictest sense of the word ...' is
itself a pleasure to be derived only from the gift of criticism of the
highest and strictest kind.
The object of this examination has been to show, not that the
_Biographia Literaria_ is undeserving of the high praise which has been
bestowed upon it, but that the praise has been to some extent
undiscriminating. It has now become almost a tradition to hold up to our
admiration Coleridge's chapter on poetic diction, and Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch, in a preface that is as unconventional in manner as it is
stimulating in most of its substance, maintains the tradition.
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