Note 439 — Chapter I · WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE: THEIR COMPANIONS AND ADVERSARIES.

It is unlucky that Guest’s English Rhythms came too late in the evening of his day for him to carry out his expressed purpose of reviewing it. He evidently recognised its extraordinary value as a Thesaurus: and his summary of the earlier part as “worthless” is of course not deliberate or final, though it is a very natural expression in reference to Guest’s astonishing heresies on Shakespearian and Miltonic prosody. I know no one—not even Gray—who seems to have had, before the whole range of English verse was known, juster notions on the whole of English prosody. Even his wanderings after hexameters are not fatal.