WORDSWORTH'S YOUTH[1]
A French critic, M. Émile Legouis, has written a singularly interesting study of Wordsworth's youth. Of M. Legouis's general qualifications, it need only be said that he has a thorough knowledge of English literature, and a minute acquaintance with all the special literature bearing upon Wordsworth's early career. He fully appreciates the qualities which, though they have endeared Wordsworth's poetry to his own countrymen, have hardly made him one of the cosmopolitan poets. I do not, however, propose to say anything of Wordsworth's general merits. M. Legouis's study is concerned with one stage in Wordsworth's development. Wordsworth was in France at the crisis of the Revolution, and there, as we know from the Prelude, became the enthusiastic admirer of Michel Beaupuy, afterwards a general and an incarnation of republican
- ↑ La Jeunesse de Wordsworth. Par Émile Legouis. Paris, 1896. An English translation appeared in 1897.
