Note 344 — XX—POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

In his ‘Essay Supplementary to the Preface’ in the edition of his Poems of 1815 Wordsworth wrote: ‘The Germans, only of foreign nations, are approaching towards a knowledge of what he [i.e. Shakespeare] is. In some respects they have acquired a superiority over the fellow-countrymen of the poet; for among us, it is a common—I might say an established—opinion that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be “a wild irregular genius in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties.” How long may it be before this misconception passes away and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judgment of Shakespeare . . . is not less admirable than his imagination? . . .’