The revival of the one ripened into a restoration of
simpler manners and old beliefs; the other was the spirit of the storm.
When they had both become recognized powers, neither appreciated the work
of the other. A few years after this date Byron wrote of Wordsworth, to a
common admirer of both: "I take leave to differ from you as freely as I
once agreed with you. His performances, since the _Lyrical Ballads_, are
miserably inadequate to the ability that lurks within him. There is,
undoubtedly, much natural talent spilt over the _Excursion_; but it is
rain upon rocks, where it stands and stagnates; or rain upon sand, where
it falls without fertilizing." This criticism with others in like strain,
was addressed to Mr. Leigh Hunt, to whom, in 1812, when enduring for
radicalism's sake a very comfortable incarceration, Byron had, in company
with Moore, paid a courteous visit.
Of the correspondence of this period--flippant, trenchant, or
sparkling--few portions are more calculated to excite a smile than the
record of his frequent resolutions made, reasseverated, and broken, to
have done with literature; even going the length on some occasions of
threatening to suppress his works, and, if possible, recall the existing
copies.
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