'Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is sure, Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss; Sends the pale convict to his last retreat Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete- This sonnet is entitled 'Conclusion,' though it is followed by another, entitled 'Apology,' with the transcription of which we terminate the grave and responsible but welcome task, of bringing before the public opinions of such high authority upon such a momentous theme : Against all barriers which his labour meets Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way In the thirteenth sonnet Mr. Wordsworth anticipates that a time may come when the punishment of death will be needed no longer: but he wishes that the disuse of it should grow out of the absence of the need, not be imposed by legislation. We have stated We are now about to conclude our remarks already what is our own belief, and the on Mr. Wordsworth's Sonnets. It has been tenour of the evidence taken in 1836, as to our chief object and endeavour, as we have the state of feeling in the country. But if already said, to justify the now nearly uniwe are in error, or if a change shall take versal fame of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, in place, and public sentiment shall bear strong- the eyes of a few dissentients, whose intelly against punishment by death, there will be lectual rank and position make it both natuan amply sufficient, if not an undue, leaning ral and important that they should go along on the part of Judges and Secretaries of with the world when the world happens to State towards a conformity with it, and Ju- go right. To such men the opinion of the ries will in general have a sufficient reliance world on poetical matters is not of high auupon that leaning to encourage them to conthority; nor is it so, as we imagine, to Mr. vict where they ought. And, on the other Wordsworth himself. But there is a dishand, if the consequence of a premature le- tinction to be taken between the world's gislative abolition should be to multiply opinion when it is obtained by captivation, crimes to a fearful extent and place life in and the same opinion when it has formed itunusual jeopardy, public opinion might be self by slow and difficult growth, and the thrown violently to the other side-the gradual conquest of prejudice. Lord Bacon legislation of a weak and short-sighted bene- says the maxim of Phocion as to moral matvolence might be reversed in the natural ters may be well transferred to intellectual course of things by the legislation of passion, that, if the multitude shall assent and apor at least by a severe legislation passionately plaud, a man should forthwith examine himadministered and then our last state would self to find wherein he has erred:* but this be worse than the first. * Optimè traducitur illud Phocionis à inoribus ad intellectualia; ut statim se examinare debeant homines, quid erraverint aut peccaverint, si multitu. do consentiat et complaudat.'-Novum Organum, i. 77. those who ran might read. To detain for a brief moment these runaway readers is the proper aim of those who are snatching at a transient popularity; and this writing for a cursory perusal has been the bane of literature in our times and the ruin of art. But neither to this aim nor to this way of writing has Mr. Wordsworth ever lent himself. In his earlier efforts we find him wishing to write that which 'The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased;' and in his valedictory effusion at the end of this volume, in which he speaks of having drawn together and classified the Sonnets, like flowerets Each kind in several beds of one parterre,'— is to be understood of assent and applause by worth's poetry, and which throughout our acclamation, not of the diligent and cultivat-remarks it has been our purpose to impress; ed approval which grows upon the popular namely, that it is to be read studiously. Mr. mind, in the first instance from deference to Wordsworth never intended so to write that the authority to competent judges, and afterwards from the genuine and heartfelt adoption of that judgment when the better part of the popular mind has been brought to the serious study of what is good. Upon that approval, coming sooner or later, but seldom very soon, the fame of Lord Bacon himself, and of Phocion, and of every other great man rests. In the case of some of the greatest English poets of former times, fame, in the loftiest sense at least of that word, was postponed till it was posthumous. In the case of Mr. Wordsworth it would have been so, had his life not been a longer one than theirs; for it is only within the last few years that the latent love of his poetry, which was cherished here and there in secret places amongst the wise and good, has caught and spread into a general admiration. Had Mr. Wordsworth died, like Shakspeare, at fiftythree years of age, he would have died in he says he has thus disposed them in order confident anticipation, no doubt, of a lasting fame, but without any witness of it in this world. Had he died, like Milton, at sixtysix years of age, he would have seen more than the beginnings of it certainly, but he would not have seen it in all the fulness to which it has now attained. But if he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he would not see the time come when there were no able and learned men indisposed or disqualified, by some unlucky peculiarity, for the appreciation of his poetry: for the human intellect, even when eminently gifted, seems in peculiar cases to be subject to some strange sort of cramp, or stricture, and whilst in the full vigour of its general powers, to be stricken with particular incapacities, which, to those who are not affected by them, are as incomprehensible as the incapacity (which sometimes occurs) of the visual sense to distinguish between red and green. We have known men of acknowledged abilities to whom Milton was a dead letter, or, rather, let us say, in the case of whom the living letter of Milton fell upon a dead mind; and one like instance we have known in which Dryden was preferred to Shakspeare. It is often, we are aware, in vain to minister to a mind in this state; but all such are not incurable, and we have been desirous to do what might be in our power to reduce the number of cases. that Studious regard with opportune delight.' Those who read the Sonnets in this studious spirit will not often find that they are detained by the style longer than they would themselves wish to be for the sake of dwelling upon the thoughts. Occasional obscurity there may be; the sonnet is a form of poetry in which style is put under high pressure, and it is no part of our purpose to represent Mr. Wordsworth as an impeccable poet: but a poet who writes for posterity, though he will bestow infinite labour upon perspicuity, will not sacrifice to it the depth and comprehensiveness which, whilst it is indispensable to the truthfulness of his conceptions, may be often irreconcilable with absolute distinctness of expression. Those writers who never go further into a subject than is compatible with making what they say indisputably clear to man, woman, and child, may be the lights of this age, but they will not be the lights of another. ART. II.-Incidents of Travel in Central And there is one caution which we should wish more especially to convey to those who have yet to learn, and who are sincerely de- IN his former publication, Incidents of sirous to learn, to appreciate Mr. Words-Travel in Egypt, Arabia, &c.,' Mr. Stephens described himself as a young American; and | tel, we received, through Mr. Goff, the consul there were throughout the book many indi- of the United States, an invitation from his excations that he was new to the world: there cellency Colonel M'Donald to the governmentwas, also, that want of taste and steadiness of the brig for our luggage. As this was the first house, and information that he would send to purpose which accompanies youth; trivial appointment I had ever held from government, matters were sometimes made too important; and I was not sure of ever holding another, I dethere was much uncalled-for expenditure of termined to make the most of it, and accepted pathos, and many gay and humorous passages at once his excellency's invitation. There was broke down, not from defect of intrinsic merit, a steam-boat for Yzabal, the port of Guatimala, but for want of a practised hand to do them lying at Balize, and on my way to the governjustice. Four added years have done great ment-house I called upon the agent, who told things for the author. The present volumes added, with great courtesy, that, if I wished it, me that she was to go up the next day; but have all the lively spirit and gay healthy- he would detain her a few days for my convenminded tone of the former ones, with hardly ience. Used to submitting to the despotic regua shade of their faults. There is more steadi-lations of steam-boat agents at home, this seemness and reality in the tone of the narrative, ed a higher honour than the invitation of his and the style is more chastened.* excellency; but not wishing to push my fortune too far, I asked a delay of one day only. spe He tells us in his preface that he is indebted to President Van Buren for the opportunity of presenting these volumes to the public; and that the appointment which he received procured him the protection without which he could not have accomplished the objects of his journey. What was the cific purpose of his 'special confidential mission' to the government of Central America, he leaves in diplomatic obscurity; but he tells us that it did not require a residence at the capital, and that the object of his mission being fulfilled or failing, he was at liberty to travel.' Accompanied by Mr. Catherwood, an able draftsman and an experienced antiquarian traveller, he embarked at New-York for Balize, on the 3d of October, 1839; and he contrives before he has fairly left that town to put us in good humour with himself and his volumes. This kindly feeling grows stronger as we proceed; and long before we close the book we look upon its author not only as a very agreeable traveller, but as a familiar friend. end of the town, with a lawn extending to the "The government-house stands at the extreme water, and ornamented with cocoa-nut trees. Colonel M'Donald, a veteran six feet high, and one of the most military-looking men I ever saw, received me at the gate. In an hour the dory arrived with our luggage, and at five o'clock we we made an excursion in the government pitsat down to dinner.. The next morning pan. This is the same fashion of boat in which the Indians navigated the rivers of America before the Spaniards discovered it. European ingenuity has not contrived a better, though it has, about forty feet long, and six wide in the centre, perhaps, beautified the Indian model. Ours was trunk of a mahogany tree. running to a point at both ends, and made of the Ten feet from the stern, and running forward, was a light wooden top, supported by fanciful stanchions, with curtains for protection against sun and rain: it had large cushioned seats, and was fitted up almost as neatly as the gondolas of Venice. It was on a seat, with paddles six feet long, and two manned by eight negro soldiers, who sat two stood up behind with paddles as steersmen. A few touches of the paddles gave brisk way to the pit-pan, and we passed rapidly the whole length of the town. It was an unusual thing for his excellency's pit-pan to be upon the water: citizens stopped to gaze at us, and all the This excited our Africans, who with a wild negroes hurried to the bridge to cheer us. chant that reminded us of the songs of the Nubian boatmen on the Nile, swept under the bridge, and hurried us into the still expanse of a majestic river. Before the cheering of the ne*Mr. Stephens's language is correct, clear, and groes died away we were in as perfect a solitude concise, and singularly free from American peculiar- as if removed thousands of miles from human ities; but we regret to find that the hideous vul- habitations. The Balize river, coming from garisin of left,' used as a neuter verb, has floated sources even yet but little known to civilized over from Wapping to New York-and that he man, was then in its fulness. On each side was very often uses the verb to realize, where Addison or a dense, unbroken forest; the banks were overGoldsmith would say think, conceive, or under-flowed; the trees seemed to grow out of the stand; a neologism, probably, of puritanical origin, water, their branches spreading across so as alfor which Webster's Dictionary produces no au thority but that of the American divine, Dr. Dwight. The description of Balize is vividly given; and the quiet easy humour with which he expatiates on his own official dignity shows light and skilful hand: a 'While longing for the comfort of a good ho The public have received this present very graciously. The American sale of the book reached the number of 12,000 copies within four months from the publication. idle most to shut out the light of the sun, and reflected in the water as in a mirror. The sources of the river were occupied by the aboriginal owners, wild and free as Cortez found them. We had an eager desire to penetrate by it to the famous lake of Peten, where the skeleton of the conquering Spaniard's horse was erected into a Nevertheless, again, as coolly as if I had been god by the astonished Indians; but the toil of brought up to it, I designated the places I wishour boatmen reminded us that they were pad-ed to visit, and retired. Verily, thought 1, if dling against a rapid current. We turned the these are the fruits of official appointments, it is pit-pan, and with the full power of the stream, not strange that men are found willing to accept a pull stronger, and a chant louder than before, them.'-vol. i., pp. 20-24. amid the increased cheering of the negroes, swept under the bridge, and in a few minutes were landed at the government-house. On the second day the travellers reach the Rio Dolce, which is thus sweetly described :— passage, still invited us onward. Could this be In order that we might embark at the hour appointed, Colonel M'Donald had ordered dinner at two o'clock. Perhaps I am wrong, but I should do violence to my feelings did I fail to wooed us on, and in a few moments we entered 'A narrow opening in a rampart of mountains express here my sense of the Colonel's kindness. Before rising, he, like a loyal subject, proposed the Rio Dolce. On each side, rising perpendic the health of the queen; after which he ordered ularly from 300 to 400 feet, was a wall of living the glasses to be filled to the brim, and, standing dense, unbroken foliage to the top; not a spot of green. Trees grew from the water's edge, with up, he gave "The health of Mr. Van Buren, barrenness was to be seen; and on both sides, President of the United States," accompanying from the tops of the highest trees, long tendrils it with a warm and generous sentiment, and the descended to the water, as if to drink and carry earnest hope of strong and perpetual friendship life to the trunks that bore them. It was, as its between England and America. I felt at the moment, "Čursed be the hand that attempts to name imports, a Rio Dolce, a fairy scene of Tibreak it;" and albeit unused to taking the Pre- tan land, combining exquisite beauty with colosAs we advanced the passage sident and the people upon my shoulders, I ansal grandeur. swered as well as I could. The government turned, and in a few minutes we lost sight of the dory lay at the foot of the lawn. Colonel sea, and were enclosed on all sides by a forest M'Donald put his arm through mine, and told wall; but the river, although showing us no me that I was going into a distracted country; the portal to a land of volcanoes and earthquakes, that Mr. Savage, the American consul at Guatimala, had, on a previous occasion, protected time we looked in vain for a single barren spot; torn and distracted by civil war? For some the property and lives of British subjects; and, if danger threatened me, I must assemble the at length we saw a naked wall of perpendicular Europeans, hang out my flag, and send word to rock, but out of the crevices, and apparently out him. I knew that these were not mere words of the rock itself, grew shrubs and trees. Sometimes we were so enclosed that it seemed as if of courtesy, and in the state of the country to Оссаwhich I was going felt the value of such a friend the boat must drive in among the trees. at hand. With the warmest feelings of grati- sionally, in an angle of the turns, the wall sank, tude I bade him farewell, and stepped into the and the sun struck in with scorching force, but dory. At the moment flags were run up at the in a moment we were again in the deepest All was as quiet as if man government staff, the fort, the court-house, and had never been there before. The pelican, the the government schooner, and a gun was fired from the fort. As I crossed the bay, a salute of stillest of birds, was the only living thing we thirteen guns was fired; passing the fort the saw, and the only sound was the panting of our soldiers presented arms, the government schoon- steam-engine. The wild defile that leads to the er lowered and raised her ensign, and when I excavated city of Petra is not more noiseless or mounted the deck of the steam-boat, the captain, its sterile desolation, while here all is luxuriant, more extraordinary, but strangely contrasted in with hat in hand, told me that he had instruc- romantic, and beautiful. For nine miles the tions to place her under my orders, and to stop wherever I pleased. The reader will perhaps passage continued thus one scene of unvarying ask how I bore all these honours. I had visited beauty, when suddenly the narrow river expandmany cities, but it was the first time that flags and studded with islands, which the setting sun ed into a large lake, encompassed by mountains and cannon announced to the world that I was illuminated with gorgeous splendour. We rcgoing away. I was a novice, but I endeavoured to behave as if I had been brought up to it; and mained on deck till a late hour, and awoke the to tell the truth, my heart beat, and I felt proud: next morning in the harbour of Yzabal !'-vol. i., for these were honours paid to my country, and PP. 33, 34. not to me. To crown the glory of the parting The journey from Yzabal to Zacapa, on scene, my good friend Captain Hampton had charged his two four-pounders, and when the the route to Guatimala across the Mico steam-boat got under way he fired one, but the Mountains, was laborious. After passing a other would not go off. The captain of the few straggling huts, and crossing a marshy steam-boat, a small, weather-beaten, dried-up plain sprinkled with small trees, they entered old Spaniard, with courtesy enough for a don of a dense, unbroken forest, the track full of old, had on board one puny gun, with which he deep puddles and mud-holes, the roots of the would have returned all their civilities; but trees rising two or three feet above the ground alas! he had no powder. . . .. At ten shade. o'clock the captain came to me for orders. I and crossing the path in every direction, those have had my aspirations, but never expected to of the mahogany-trees in particular, high at be able to dictate to the captain of a steam-boat. the trunk, and with sharp edges traversing rocks and the roots of other trees. The ascent began precipitously by a narrow gully, worn by the feet of mules and the washing of torrents. It was so deep and narrow that the sides were above the heads of the travellers, and they could barely pass in single file. If any one of the mules stopped, all behind were blocked up, and unable even to turn. It was the end of the rainy season, and the mountain in the worst state in which it was possible to cross it, for at times it is impossible altogether. When near the top they met a solitary traveller. He was a tall, darkcomplexioned man, with a broad-brimmed Panama hat rolled up at the sides, a striped woollen jacket with fringe at the bottom, plaid pantaloons, leather spatterdashes, spurs, and sword, and was encrusted in mud from head to foot. He was mounted on a noble mule with a high-peaked saddle, and the butts of a pair of horseman's pistols peeped out of the holsters. To their surprise he accosted them in English: he had set out with muleteers and Indians, but had lost them in some of the windings of the woods, and was seeking his way alone. His mule had thrown him twice, and she was now so frightened that he could scarcely urge her along: he himself was dreadfully exhausted, and asked them for brandy, wine, or anything to revive him. Great was their astonishment when he told them that he had been two years in Guatimala negotiating' for a bank-charter, that he had got it, and was then on his way to England to sell the stock! I was dozing, when I opened my eyes, and saw Arrived at Zacapa, Mr. Stephens, in conse quence of the reports which reached him of the disturbed state of Guatimala, determined to postpone his visit to that place, and in the mean time to direct his steps to the ruined city of Copan, one of the principal objects of interest with him. In this as in some other parts of the book we cannot forbear smiling at the easy way in which our young diplomatist rounds off the corners of his political functions to suit his antiquarian propensities. We have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Stephens was an able and zealous public servant, but we doubt whether Burleigh, or his royal mistress either, would have selected a At Encuentros, on the banks of the Mota-professed antiquary for an embassage through gua river, which Mr. Stephens speaks of as one of the noblest in Central America, surrounded by giant mountains,' and rolling through them, broad and deep, with the force of a mighty torrent, they take up their abode for the night in the house of the great man of the place : We a land of ruined cities; and certainly were • The don received us with great dignity in a single garment, loose, white, and very laconic, not quite reaching his knees. The dress of his wife was no less easy; somewhat in the style of the old-fashioned short gown and petticoat; only the short gown and whatever else is usually worn under it were wanting, and their place supplied by a string of beads, with a large cross at the end. A dozen men and half-grown boys, naked, except the small covering formed by rolling the trousers up and down, were lounging about the house; and women and girls in such extremes of undress, that a string of beads seemed quite a covering for modesty. The general reception-room contained three beds, made of strips of cowhide interlaced. The don occupied one: he had not much undressing to do, but to be seen and the door of the cabildo was what little he had he did by pulling off his shirt. barricadoed to prevent the entrance of strag Another bed was at the foot of my hammock.gling cattle. Having torn it open and taken "the |