...comes at last to the main attack, which he has so often feinted, on Wordsworth's astounding dictum that "there neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition." After clearing his friend (and patient) from an insinuation of paradox, he becomes a little "metaphysical"...

...and elsewhere is sufficient proof that he would not have assented to Wordsworth's doctrine, that " there neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition." Collins means what we should perhaps rather call sincerity : "the voice of Nature and genuine emotion...

...ever found the terms characteristic of his own innovation. He said : " It may be safely affirmed that there neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition." Boldly, but not safely ; and the substitution of " metrical composition " for "poetry" is distinctly...

...of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions." 3. There neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition." 397. Elements of Truth. — The most, perhaps, that can be said in favor of these principles is that,...

...prose or in verse. And this leads him to the enunciation of his famous and interesting paradox : that there neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition. If this only meant disapprobation of all the tiresome and foolish distortions of language, to which...

...can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. We will go farther. It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference...between the language of Prose and metrical composition. ... I here use the word ' Poetry ' (though against my own judgment) as opposed to the word Prose, and...

...ever found the terms characteristic of his own innovation. He said : " It may be safely affirmed that there neither is nor can be any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition." Boldly, but not safely; and the substitution of " metrical composition " for "poetry" is distinctly...

...directness and from the unsophisticated character of such men (Pref. pp. 45, 48-49) ; the other, that 'there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and [that of] metrical composition.' Let us again remind ourselves that Wordsworth's theories take their...

...general principle in the following passage: — " I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition. We are foud of tracing the resemblance between poetry and painting, and, accordingly, we call them...

...says Wordsworth in this famous preface (third edition, 1802), " that it may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference...between the language of prose and metrical composition. ... If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of themselves constitute a distinction which...