xlvi INTRODUCTION. Wordsworth. Both of them recognized the claims of natural poetry ; both essayed to catch its secret ; and both fell into a profoundly classical habit, as witness, in Wordsworth's case, the Laodamia and certain parts of the Excursion, — noble utterance, but through and through poetry of the schools. Like Goethe, Wordsworth turned to ballads mainly to teach himself and to help his own work as an artist in verse. Like Goethe, he echoes Herder's doctrine of spontaneity. All good poetry, he tells us,^ is " the spontaneous overflow of powerful feel- ings " ; but presently comes the definition of poetry as "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge," . . . " the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science," — and we are with the schools again. Wordsworth can do for our purpose no more than Goethe did ; and it is hardly otherwise with a German poet of whom Wordsworth speaks in terms of respect and admiration, the unfortunate Burger. Biirger, however, at least continued Herder's work in getting a public for the ballad, and was single-hearted in his devotion to poetry of the people ; he hit its tone better in his. own verse, and gave a better critical account of it, than did his happier brothers of the laurel. " Lenore " had more vogue than any one ballad of Goethe's, and its author made the su- preme effort among all modern poets to catch the delight and the secret of a lapsing form. Moreover, in certain essays and prefaces on the nature of poetry, whereby he came into sharp conflict with Schiller, he laid down his confession of faith. Poetry, he contended, belongs not to learning, but to the people. He did not care so much for Herder's notion of nationality, of a folk in verse, as he did for the idea of tradition and unlettered poetry. What he calls " the epos of nature " must be the standard for every 1 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Digitized by LjOOQIC
