He was intimate with Southey, and
anticipated that he would rival Milton. Then his taste was at all times
peculiar. He seldom worshipped the Idol which the multitude had set up. I
was never able to prevail on him to admit that "Paradise Lost" was greater
than "Paradise Regained;" I believe, indeed, he liked the last the best.
He would not discuss the Poetry of Lord Byron or Shelley, with a view of
being convinced of their beauties. Apart from a few points like these, his
opinions must be allowed to be sound; almost always; if not as to the
style of the author, then as to the quality of his book or passage which
he chose to select. And his own style was always good, from the beginning,
in verse as well as in prose. His first sonnets are unaffected, well
sustained, and well written.
I do not know much of the opinion of others; but to my thinking the style
of Charles Lamb, in his "Elia," and in the letters written by him in the
later (the last twenty) years of his life, is full of grace; not
antiquated, but having a touch of antiquity. It is self-possessed, choice,
delicate, penetrating, his words running into the innermost sense of
things. It is not, indeed, adapted to the meanest capacity, but is racy,
and chaste, after his fashion.
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