Let us take Klopstock,[353]
Lessing,[354] Schiller, Uhland,[355] Ruckert,[356] and Heine[357] for
Germany; Filicaja,[358] Alfieri,[359] Manzoni,[360] and Leopardi[361]
for Italy; Racine,[362] Boileau,[363] Voltaire, Andre Chenier,[364]
Beranger,[365] Lamartine,[366] Musset,[367] M. Victor Hugo (he has been
so long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted to
name him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and
excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real
poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here
again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind
him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the
whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more
brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal.
Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in
interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to
theirs.
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