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yet seen.
Her friend
Ripley, who succeeded her in the “Tribune” and held such sway for many years, was not, in the finer aspects of the art, to be compared with
Margaret Fuller.
Passing from her single phrases and
obiter dicta to her continuous criticisms, I should name her second paper on
Goethe in the
Dial;
1 as ranking next to that on
Mackintosh; and should add, also, her essay on “Modern British poets” in “Papers on literature and Art;” and the “dialogue” between Aglauron and
Laurie in the same volume.
In this last there are criticisms on
Wordsworth which go deeper, I venture to think, than anything
Lowell has written on the same subject.
I do not recall any other critic on this poet who has linked together the poems “A complaint” and the sonnet beginning
There is a change and I am poor,
and has pointed out that these two give us a glimpse of a profounder personal emotion and a deeper possibility of sadness in
Wordsworth than all else that he has written put together.
There are also admirable remarks on
Coleridge and on
Shakespeare; and how fine in thought, how simply and admirably stated, is this conclusion:--
Were I, despite the bright points so numerous in their history and the admonitions of my own conscience, inclined to despise my fellow-men, I should have found
