highest kind of nobleness and magnificence. Mr Wordsworth has not followed out the national spirit in this, but has turned off into a totally different sphere of reflection, from whence no kind of strength appears great, because all strength is limited, and cannot appear sublime, if contrasted with strength a single degree above it. His contemplative Platonism searches for some image of perfection to admire, and perceives that the beauty of no limited being can consist in strength, but in its conformity to the moral harmony of the universe. Hence he can see no greatness in the movements of the mind, if they tend to no higher object than self-aggrandisement, which has ever its bounds that make it appear little; and, therefore, those objects, which appear to him endowed with poetical beauty, are often such as appear homely to the eyes of others who measure them by a different standard. The small admiration he entertains for the undisciplined energies of human nature leads him to a somewhat contemptuous estimation of active life, even when conduct is submitted to the restraints of morality. He thinks little has been done for the mind, unless those internal movements, also, which are without result in action, have been tuned into beauty and regularity, and a complete balance and subordination esta blished among the feelings by dint of long continued meditation. On this subject his ideas cannot fail to recal to remembrance those Indian doctrines, which taught that the first step towards the perception of high moral truth, was the establishment of a certain stillness and equability within the mind. But Mr Wordsworth should have proposed these Braminical notions else where; for they are totally at variance with the stirring and tumultuous spirit of England. No philosophy or religion, purely contemplative, has ever taken a strong hold of the English mind; and no set of English devotees, however much they professed to be dead to the world, have been able to keep their hands out of temporal affairs. They have always found something that called for their interference, and have exchanged the pleasures of abstract contemplation, for the zeal of partizanship. Mr Wordsworth seems averse to active life, chiefly, because he is afraid of losing sight of impressions which are only to be arrived at in the stillness of contemplation; and because he sees a risk, that the lower and coarser feelings being stirred into activity, amidst the bustle, may lose their subordination, and rise up so as to obscure the bright ideal image of human nature, which he would wish to retain always before him. Notions like these, however, must always appear ridiculous to the majority in England, where life is estimated as it produces external good or mischief. But, although Mr Wordsworth's ideas have not met with a very flattering reception, he seems no way blind to the manly integrity and substantial excellences of character that adorn his country, and which have so deep a root there, that, as Madame de Stael observes, they have never ceased to flourish even, under the influence of speculative opinions, which would have withered them up elsewhere. Indeed, the moral speculations of England have been very much a separate pastime of the understanding, which began and ended there, without ever drawing a single reflection from the depths of human nature. A remarkable trait in the history of our philosophy is, that Christianity has been as it were transposed by Paley into a more familiar key, and adapted throughout to the theory of utility; so that David Hume himself might almost play an accompaniment to it. And Paley has obtained great deal of credit, for the performance of this good office to his countrymen. One of the causes which have prevented Mr Wordsworth's writings from becoming popular, is, that he does not confine himself, like most other poets, to the task of representing poetical objects, or of moving our sympathies, but, also, proposes and maintains a system of philosophical opinions. In most of his poems, and in the Excursion especially, he scarcely makes poetry for its own sake, but chiefly as a vehicle for his doctrines, and the spirit of these doctrines is, unfortunately for his success, at variance with the philosophy at present most fashionable in this country. Although possessed of the requisite genius, he does not seem to care for composing poems, adapted to the exclusive purpose of taking hold of the feelings of the people; and, among the philosophers, he is rejected, because he holds a different language from them. Besides, the habits of thought, in which he chiefly delights, are not calculated to produce that strength and vividness of diction, which must ever constitute one of the chief attractions of poetry. Imagination seems insufficient of itself to produce diction always nervous and poetical, without the aid of human passion and worldly observation. It is from these that the greatest poignancy of words must spring. As for the saltness of sagacity and wit, Mr Wordsworth looks down upon it as a profane thing, and is well entitled to do If he were to descend into so low a region as that of jesting, he would probably succeed no better than old David Deans did, when he attempted a joke at his daughter's marriage dinner. But, as Mr Wordsworth never jests, so his writings, perhaps, have some claim to be exempted from the pleasantries of others; which, indeed, can scarcely be directed with much success or effect against a person who faces ridicule so systematically, and who has always counted upon it beforehand. So. Mr Wordsworth has been thought to have more affinity to Milton than any other poet. If this is the case, the affinity is rather in manner than in substance. Milton has no idealism, not even in the Paradise Regained, where there was most scope for it. His poetry is, for the most part, quite literal; and the objects he describes have all a certain definiteness and individuality, which separates them from the infinite. He has often endeavoured to present images, where every thing should have been lost in sentiment. It is generally agreed, that among the most successful parts of Paradise Lost, are those which represent the character of the fallen angel; and yet these sublime and tragical soliloquies are founded chiefly on personal feeling; which, although it may be made a source of consummate pathos and dramatic beauty, is certainly not the region of the human mind, from whence the highest possible impressions are to be drawn. Terrible acts of divine power, and, on the other hand, force of will, and obdurate pride in the rebel spirits, are the highest moral elements exhibited; but, if we look to what composes some of the finest passages in Wordsworth, we shall be inclined (theoretically at least) to prefer them to the best of Milton, as conveying more exalted meaning, strike the reader of his poetry; and we incapable of concealment, that every transgression is not only known to conscience, and all the gods, but felt with a sympathetic shudder by those elements themselves which we call inanimate, by the sun, the moon, the fire, the air, the heaven, the earth, the flood, and the deep, as a crying outrage against nature, and a derangement of the universe." Whoever wishes to understand Mr Oh then what soul was his, when on the tops Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth, And in their silent faces did he read "All things there Breathed immortality; revolving life The relation which the consideration of moral pain or deformity bears to this far-extended sympathy with the universe, is alluded to in another passage of the Excursion. My friend, enough to sorrow you have given ; * there. I well remember that those very plumes, that wall, By mist and silent rain-drops silver'd o'er, That what we feel of sorrow and despair, Notions like those of Mr Words worth are evidently suited only to a life purely contemplative; but that universality of spirit, which becomes true philosophy, should forbid, in persons of different habits, any blind or sudden condemnation of them. No individual can say what are all the internal suggestions of the human faculties, unless he has varied his mode of existence sufficiently to afford fit opportunities for their developement.The facts of consciousness are admitted to be as much facts as those of the senses; but, at the same time, we cannot get individuals to agree what they are, and, while things remain in this state of uncertainty, the first duty is certainly that of liberality of mind. Wordsworth's habit of dwelling as much upon the rest of the universe as upon man, has given his poetry an air of greater joyfulness and sunshine, than it could have possessed if human life had been his more constant theme. He turns with ever new delight to objects which exhibit none of the harshness and discrepancy of the human world. "The blackbird on the summer trees, Let loose their carols when they please, One who had died of a broken heart. 5 "With nature do they never wage A foolish strife; they see "Down to the vale this water steers, When he does turn his attention upon life, we find always the most beautiful echoes of Christian tenderness and sorrow. In an elegy, suggested by a picture representing a storm, he alludes to the bitter recollection of a domestic loss which had befallen him, and is pleased to see the image of pain reflected in external na ture. "Oh 'tis a passionate work!-Yet wise and well; Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That hulk that labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, the pageantry of fear. And this huge castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves. Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind; Such happiness, wherever it is known, Is to be pitied for 'tis surely blind. But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be born, Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. Not without hope we suffer and we mourn." Surely nothing can be finer than this. It is impressed with the true character of that kind of social sentiment, which is drawn from a source not liable to fail. In his sonnets, we see what form citizenship is made to assume, when growing up in contiguity with the other habits of mind cultivated by Wordsworth. How these compositions, so pregnant with feeling and reflection, upon the most interesting topics, should not have been more generally known, is a problem difficult to be solved. The following is one of them, containing reflections on the moral effects of slavery. "There is a bondage which is worse to bear Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall, Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary Thrall: "Tis his who walks about in the open air, One of a Nation who, henceforth, must wear Their fetters in their Souls. For who could be, Who, even the best, in such condition, free From self-reproach, reproach which he must share With Human Nature? Never be it ours To see the Sun how brightly it will shine, And know that noble Feelings, manly Powers, Instead of gathering strength must droop and pine, And Earth with all her pleasant fruits and flowers Fade, and participate in Man's decline. As Mr Wordsworth's habits of thought, and not his merely poetical powers, were meant to form the subject of this discussion, we have not adverted to some of his detached performances, which are master-pieces in their way. These would offer a separate subject for criticism. But, as they are little known (in Scotland especially), we shall quote the whole of one of his most exquisite minor pieces. RUTH. "WHEN Ruth was left half desolate “ And she had made a Pipe of straw, "Beneath her Father's roof, alone Pleased with herself, nor sad nor gay, A military Casque he wore "From Indian blood you deem him sprung; And bore a Soldier's name; "With hues of genius on his cheek,' "He was a lovely Youth! I guess And, when he chose to sport and play, "Among the Indians he had fought; Of pleasure and of fear; "He told of Girls, a happy rout! Who quit their fold with dance and shout, To gather strawberries all day long; "He spake of plants, divine and strange, -Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam "The Youth of green savannahs spake, Of islands, that together lie "And then he said, How sweet it were A fisher or a hunter there, A gardener in the shade, Still wandering with an easy mind "What days and what sweet years! Ah me! Our life were life indeed, with thee And all the while,' said he, to know "Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me, My helpmate in the woods to be, Our shed at night to rear; Or run, my own adopted Bride, And drive the flying deer! "Beloved Ruth !'-No more he said. Sweet Ruth alone at midnight shed A solitary tear: She thought again-and did agree With him to sail across the sea, And drive the flying deer. "And now, as fitting is and right, We in the Church our faith will plight, Even so they did; and I may say "Through dream and vision did she sink, "But, as you have before been told, So beautiful, through savage lands “The wind, the tempest roaring high, "Whatever in those Climes he found A kindred impulse, seemed allied "Nor less to feed voluptuous thought The breezes their own langour lent; "Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween For passions linked to forms so fair "But ill he lived, much evil saw A Man who without self-control "And yet he with no feigned delight "But now the pleasant dream was gone; No hope, no wish remained, not one, They stirred him now no more; As lawless as before. "Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, They for the voyage were prepared, And went to the sea-shore; But, when they thither came, the Youth |