Preface to Lyrical Ballads Analysis

When I first saw this wall of text, I thought, "Oh man, more extremely difficult junk to understand." But, interestingly enough I found this wall of text to be somewhat enjoyable to read. I had to reread a few paragraphs because I zoned out, but other than that I enjoyed learning one man's opinions on other men from the same time period.
At first, Wordsworth writes about how the first volume of poems was released as an experiment. I believe that his was trying to figure out what made a good poem and what people enjoyed reading. Following that short statement, Wordsworth begins to explain how his friends helped him in learning about poetry. "...I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of..." What Wordsworth means is that he asked his Friends opinion's on what made a good poem. They then gave him a few examples. I believe that after reading those poems, Wordsworth realized that his Friends gave him poems with the exact same style as his own poetry. It really didn't cause any variety to form in his own style. This is when we get to see the first glimpse of self-admiration by Wordsworth. It occurs throughout the preface. Another interesting observation is that Wordsworth capitalized poetry and Friends. I think this might be to show respect for his friends but I really don't have a clue. It could be a typo, who knows.
Following Wordsworth realization that his friend's poems do not add variety to his own style, the reader gets to see Wordsworth critique a fellow poets poem. The poem was written by Thomas Gray, and Wordsworth doesn't think much of it. He writes, "It will easily be perceived that the only part of this Sonnet which is of any value is the lines printed in Italics: it is equally obvious, that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word "fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose." From this quote, we can see that Wordsworth believes that Gray's poetry is really no different than prose. He believes that only a few lines are truly poetic and add style to the poem.
After Wordsworth is done criticizing Gray, he moves on to say that poetic language on a whole is bad. I really don't understand why he would say this after he got done trying to find ways to add variety to his own style. But nonetheless, it was interesting to read what he had to say about how the author must dictate mood and his own personal style. I really think that the main point of this preface was to emphasize the importance of a unique and personal style for every poet. Without that, Wordsworth would probably think the poem was awful.