I come back to M. Renan's praise of glory, from which I started. Yes,
real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by the
Amphictyonic Court[352] of final appeal, definite glory. And even for
poets and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arriving
at the right award, the right award comes at last, the definitive glory
rests where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory is
good and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the
nation which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself it
can seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, long
before his glory crowns him.
Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainly
his lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great and
steady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized
at home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that
the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and
Milton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the
most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the
present time.
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