"Nicholson argues that the "Guide" was the outcome of the loss of Wordsworth's poetic vision of nature and a turning outwards into hard facts in order to preserve his sanity after "years, perhaps, of disillusion, disappointment, of spiritual impotence..." Another aspect of it was the link to the ideas of Uvedale Price, mentioned above, whom Wordsworth knew and who proposed a "conservative, historicising and non-interventionist aesthetic".The "Guide" ran to five editions during Wordsworth's lifetime and proved to be very popular.