enough to quicken the sympathies, whilst and can expect only the rebuke of Bellerothere is nothing to abate the courage or the phon who fell headlong. It is to be a cougenial freshness of the heart. In the latter, rage founded in faith and fortified by the after the suffering has been for a long time judgment-intellectual, spiritual, reasonable unmixed and unintermitting, there will be such as shall be attendant upon endeavours hardly anything left alive in the heart except directed towards the highest objects: for the desire to escape from pain; and if the when is it that a rich guerdon waits on minds sympathy with pain be not deadened (which that dare?—Only it probably will be in the general prostration and self-involvement of the feelings,) then there will be the desire to escape from that also. And here we must again bring the 'Excursion' to our assistance : Unoccupied by sorrow of its own, Thus, to resume the sonnet, it is not from grief that the poet's friend is exhorted to free himself, not from grief the natural tribute to calamity, but from dejection and darkness, and as their necessary consequent, 'the unprofitable yoke of care.' For let no man suppose that he can surrender himself to an undue and interminable sorrow without be cares. If aught be in them of immortal seed, It is to the intrepidity of high and sacred 'Consolatories writ With studied argument, Extolling patience as the truest fortitude,** do not produce the patience they extol, pretent. For excellent and commendable though cisely because they extol it to this false exit be, there are few cases of affliction in which, so soon as the earliest stage is past, something better than patience may not be looked to with better hope, and patience be met with coming the slave of petty, fretful, miserable tions must be awakened; the resiliency of by the way. Active energies, high aspiraTo put on perpetual mourning is to the heart must be called upon rather than its put on the livery of a very abject servitude. passive strength,-and oftentimes when the And again the exhortation is addressed, not admonition to be patient would do little else to one who was subjugated by some constitutional weakness or malady conspiring with tions as are contained in this sonnet (and at than impose silence upon grief, such exhortacircumstances to make sorrow immedicable-greater length in the Fourth Book of the Exfor to such a man exhortation would be ad- cursion') may-not in poetry merely, but in dressed in vain—but to one whose despond- practice and in very deed, be found full of ency was in some measure wilful, a mistaken consolation--animating, exalting, invigoratman who was voluntarily devoting himself to ing, and sorrow, and whom to enlighten might be to reanimate; for that such was the case in question is clearly intimated in those two lines (so exquisitely musical) which precede the close of the sonnet 'Droop not thou, Erroneously renewing a sad vow In the low dell 'mid Roslin's faded grove.' 'able to drive All sadness but despair.' This sonnet was addressed to a man of poetical talents who had the world before him, and the 'gales of youth' to bear him forward. Let us turn now to a tribute rendered in the same form to a great man whose career was * Sampson Agonistes. The principal aim of the sonnet having been this exhortation to the exercise of intellectual + The tribute has been recently repaid by one powers, the rewards and conditions of true who is (we believe) a relative, in another walk of genius are noticed incidentally. The re-art, Miss Gillies, the painter. Her portrait of Mr. wards are promised to 'minds that dare:' but Wordsworth is the only representation of him we which presents us with the real man as the courage is not to be that of temperament he lives and breathes. It is engraved by M'Innis -for such courage is rash and presumptuous, and published by Moon, have seen rapidly drawing to a close :-In the autumn strain, Saddens his voice again, and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might goes; dealing therefore with thoughts untried in 'Sheltered, but not to social duties lost; and exercising his judgment in the only way which tends to its rectification-with the Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue consciousness, namely, that according as it Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, concludes there will follow joy or sorrow, Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true, Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea, loss or gain, injury, anger and resentment, or Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope!'--p.213. love and gratitude, on the part of some friend, Let it be written in the literary annals of neighbour, or well-known individual who is this age at least, if not of others, that the men frequently met with face to face. From the who were greatest in intellect amongst us were judgment so exercised and the knowledge also great in heart and spirit, and lived to-accruing with the exercise, comes practical gether delighting in each other's society and wisdom, and by duly generalising from pracrejoicing in each other's fame. Nor was it tical wisdom we advance to philosophic wisthe fellowship of a 'school' which united dom. But the principle which lies at the them. This has been supposed of Mr. Words. root of all is, that thoughts should either worth, Mr. Coleridge, and Mr. Southey; order to be justly determined. tend towards acts or issue out of them, in though never of Sir Walter Scott; and yet it could scarcely have been more absurd to class him with them as forming a school, than to class them with each other. The truth is that these four men came together merely because they were the men of the greatest literary genius in their generation, and because, being also men of large natures, any spirit of rivalry or jealousy was utterly foreign to their dispositions. Such men Such men could not but be congenial associates, not owing to any peculiarity of genius common to them or any of them, but in spite of very great diversity. Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Coleridge are the two in whom most points of resemblance might be discerned, the genius of both being essentially philosophic; and yet how wide is the difference!-the one living, amongst books and amongst the wonderful creations of his own mind, a life of thinking for thinking's sake, led by the infirmities of his constitution to turn away from realities, with singular force and truth the intellectual charac- Excursion, book v. 'Give to no unproportioned thought his act," | ordinarily used, yet certainly in giving prac tical effect to right feelings and just judgis a negative injunction, to which may be ments, and in communicating, by conscienappended an affirmative and a converse of tiousness in conduct, an habitually consciequal truth. Give to each well-proportion- entious justness to the operations of the reaed thought his act' is the affirmative: the son and the understanding. Endeavour converse (if it can be so called) is, Give thus to live,'-we should say to such aspiryour thoughts their acts, and they will have ants in Mr. Wordsworth's own words, thereby the better chance to be well-propor-Endeavour thus to live; these rules regardi tioned. For when a thought is to have an These helps solicit; and a stedfast seat act and a consequence, its justness will be Shall then be yours among the happy few the quality principally regarded by the Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal airthinker whereas, if it is to be merely a Sons of the morning.'* meditative effort, to end in itself or in The Sonnets (with the exception of the another thought, or in being written down Ecclesiastical series) bear witness, more diin prose or rhyme, its novelty or brilliancy rectly perhaps than any of Mr. Wordsworth's will have a principal instead of a secondary other writings, to a principle which he has place in the estimation of the thinker; and asserted of poetical, as strongly as Lord Baby the habit of thus thinking without acting, con of physical philosophy-the principle and therefore without fear of consequences, that the Muse is to be the servant and inthe justness of the judgment will be impaired, terpreter of Nature. Some fact, transaction, and neither practical nor philosophic wisdom or natural object, gives birth to almost every will be attained in their highest degrees. one of them. He does not search his mind Of course we do not mean to say that, for for subjects; he goes forth into the world, the purposes of a writer, there must not be and they present themselves. His mind much thinking which neither begins nor lies open to nature with an ever wakeful ends in acting, nor perhaps has any direct susceptibility, and an impulse from without reference to it; but what we do contend for will send it far into the regions of thought; is, that the habits of the mind must be formed but it seldom goes to work upon itself. by the thinking which has this reference, if not celibate, but there is to be any such gift of genuine insight' as may constitute a great ethical writer, whether in prose or poetry. 'Wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion." It is Of which union poetry is the legitimate offspring; and it is owing to this love and passion that the most ordinary incidents and objects have inspired an interest in the poet, and that so soon as the impassioned character of his mind had made itself felt and understood, he was enabled to convey the same interest with wonderful success to It is thus to the cultivation of Mr. Wordsworth's mind in real life that we attribute his pre-eminence as a philosophic poet; for with him the justness of the thought is always the first consideration: what is commonplace, so it be but true, has its due place and proportion in his mind; and the degree to which plain and acknowledged truth enters into his writings gives them their his readers. breadth, and perhaps, when they are regard- It is true that it was many years before ed as a whole, even adds to their originality; this success was brought about to the extent for there is no mind so rare, nor consequent- of a popular acceptation, and also that to ly so original, as one which is intellectually this day there are readers to whom his capable of the most brilliant aberrations, poems convey nothing; and we have to acand is yet so tempered by the love of truth knowledge that amongst this number, rapidly as to give old truths their place along with diminishing as it is, there are still some men of new, and so warmed by the same love as to distinguished abilities. It is not difficult to acmake all truths impressive. And Mr. count for the general neglect of Mr. WordsWordsworth's example, if not his precepts, worth's poetry during the first quarter of the may suggest to the poetical aspirants who present century. That was a period when abound in our times, that poetry, in its high- the poetry of reflection was so much out of est kinds, is the result not merely of a talent fashion that verse had almost ceased to be or an art, nor even only of these combined regarded as a vehicle for thought, and even with a capacious mind and an ardent imagi- thoughtful men had recourse to it as if the nation, but also of a life led in the love of very intention were to divert themselves truth-and if not in action, as the word is from thinking-hung over a stitched pam • Shakspeare, in Hamlet. Excursion, book iv. phlet of rhyme with the sort of charmed ear that the Sonnets may answer this purpose with which they would have listened to a best: they have not, like many of the other first-rate performer at the Opera-waited poems, peculiarities of manner which whilst impatiently for another stitched pamphlet to they charm one reader will baulk another; come upon the stage three months afterwards they are highly-finished compositions, distin-and being hurried away by their enthu- guished, as regards the diction, only by an siasm as one stitched pamphlet came out aptitude which can hardly fail to be approved after another, almost mistook the 'primi can-whatever may be the particular taste of the tatori' in this line for the lights of the age, reader; and they are at the same time so variand their 'lean and flashy songs' for divine ed in subject and sentiment, that specimens illuminations. Such was the bewilderment might be adduced from them of almost every of those times nor is it difficult to conceive kind of serious poetry to which the sonnet that some intelligent men, whose intellectual can lend itself. constitution was not strong, may have had their taste so vitiated during the prevalence of this fashion as never to have recovered a natural appetite. But there are men of a very different order from these, who are still unconverted, and whose case it is not so easy to understand-men too robust in their frame of mind to have been debilitated by the errors of youth, too free and generous in their temper to feel bound by past commitments, and who nevertheless do in all sincerity fail to make anything out from Mr. Wordsworth's poetry. Had the value of the poetry consisted in some peculiar vein of fancy, had it been a matter of versification, or had it resolved itself into a particular strain of sentiment or opinion, we should have said 'This is not for the universal ear; it will naturally hit some minds and miss others;' and of many of Mr. Wordsworth's poems this may be said fairly; and we know very well that some of those which make the strongest impression on one reader will make none whatever upon another. But when we look to the main body of Mr. Wordsworth's works, and perceive that they are addressed to the mind of man at large, and that with a great variety of manner and verse they deal for the most part with matters of universal interest, we do feel at a loss to explain the existence of that remnant of intellectual men who are still inaccessible. We should have thought that, verse and all embellishment apart, when one considerable understanding was brought to bear upon another, in subject matter to which all understandings apply themselves, nothing but the curse of Cassandra could have prevented some result from being obtained. So it is, however; and it is chiefly for the sake of meeting this remnant on what appears to us to be the best ground, that we have undertaken to review the 'Sonnets ;'-meeting them, not in the spirit of 'compelling them to come in,' but for a fair trial whether it be not possible to get rid of such an intellectual anomaly as their standing out seems to us to be, and to bring together minds which are worthy of each other. And we imagine We have quoted hitherto one sonnet in art, two that are doctrinal, and one which may be called occasional. The majority of the four hundred and forty-four which have been published are of a mixed character, in which the doctrinal predominates; it is on these principally that we should wish to dwell, and we shall revert to them presently, but, in the mean time, we will make room for some lighter kinds; and first for two which are linked together in the series on the River Duddon—the former of them descriptive, the latter pastoral-both (as usual) suggested by a natural object-the steppingstones in a stream-and both connecting it with the circumstances of human life which are incident to it : The struggling rill insensibly is grown concluded, as a matter of course, that languages in which vowels and liquids predominate must be better adapted to poetry, and that the most mellifluous language must be also the most melodious. We must be allowed to think, however, that this is but a rash and ill-considered condemnation of our native tongue. Poetry has been often com This series on the River Duddon is a register of the thoughts which may be suggested to a poet in tracking this stream from its source in the mountains to its junction with the sea. We have seen what may occur when it flows in human society, and Childhood, Youth, and Age step across it. But there is a previous stage of its course in which it flows through a remote and untrod-pared to embroidery, and when a language den solitude, and then everything that is to be seen being what it had been from time immemorial, the poet's fancy is carried far back into the past: What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled, What hopes came with him? what designs were spread Along his path? His unprotected bed er nursed is all of one texture, and that texture nothing but silk and satin, the skilful hand will have but little advantage, and the workmanship of finer art will not stand out so distinctly from ordinary fabrics. Nor indeed will such a language supply adequate materials to the hand of art. In dramatic verse more particularly, our English combinations of consonants are invaluable, not only for the purpose of reflecting grace and softness by contrast, or accelerating the verse by a momentary detention, but also in giving expression to the harsher passions, and in imparting keenness and significancy to the language of discrimination, and especially to that of scorn. Shakspeare, for instance, what a blast of sarcasm whistles through that word, Thrift, Thrift, Horatio!' with its one vowel and five consonants, and then how the verse runs on with a low, confidential smoothness, as if to pol-give effect to the outbreak by the subsequent suppression In hideous usages, and rites accursed, the dead? No voice replies; both air and earth are mute; no more Than a soft record, that, whatever fruit Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore, How simple and yet how full is the diction In -the funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.' We are not, be it observed, insisting, as some philologists have done of late years, on a preference for the Saxon element of our language as affording a purer and better English than any other; on the contrary, we hold that English is essentially a highly composite language; that it derives its force, as well as its richness, from the great variety and diversity of its constituents, and that it will be best written by him who avails himself of all its elements in their natural proportion, tempering one with another. And when we say their natural proportion, we mean that which comes naturally to the individual writer; for, after all, art and instruction can do little more in this matter than to remove theories of style out of the way, and leave a writer to his own intuitive ear and perceptions to find him the better or worse style which is suitable to him. Mr. Wordsworth's diction appears to us to be neither Saxon nor Latin particularly, but abounding in all the treasures of our vocabulary, and making the music which no man can make who has but one string to his fiddle. To return to the Sonnets. What is a spinning-wheel?' is a question which may |