And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.”

And pages

352 to 354 of the same ode.*

“O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast :-
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings ;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our moral Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised !
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
are yet a master-light of all our seeing ;
Uphold us—cherish—and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence; truths that wake

To perish never ;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy !
Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal see
Which brought us hither ;
Can in a moment travel thither,--
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore

* [P. W. v. pp. 512-4.–S. 0.1

And since it would be unfair to conclude with an extrach, which, though highly characteristic, must yet, from the nature of the thoughts and the subject, be interesting or perhaps intelligible, to but a limited number of readers; I will add, from the poet's last published work, a passage equally Wordsworthian ; of the beauty of which, and of the imaginative power displayed therein, there can be but one opinion, and one feeling. See White Doc, page 5.*

“ Fast the church-yard fills ;-anon
Look again and they all are gone;
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard :-
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty.voice !
They sing a service which they feel:
For 'tis the sunrise now of zeal ;
And faith and hope are in their prime

In great Eliza's golden time.”
“A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within ;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.
-When soft !—the dusky trees between,
And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground-
And right across the verdant sod,
Towards the very house of God;
Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary Doe!
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven!

* (P. W. iv, pp. 48–50. tions.-S. C.1

There are now two or three slight alter tv

The following analogy will, I am apprehensivo, appear dim and fantastic, but in reading Bartram's Travels I could not help transcribing the following lines as a sort of allegory, or connected simile and metaphor of Wordsworth's intellect and genius.“ Tho soil is a deep, rich, dark mould, on a deep stratum of tenacious clay; and that on a foundation of rocks, which often break through both strata, lifting their backs above the surface.* The trees which chiefly grow here are the gigantic, black oak; mag. nolia grandi-flora; fraximus excelsior; platane; and a few stately tulip-trees.” What Mr. Wordsworth will produce, it is not for me to prophesy : but I could pronounce with the liveliest convictions what he is capable of producing. It is the First GENUINE PHILOSOPHIC Poem.†

* (Travels through North and South Carolina, &c., and the Cherokee country, &c., by W. Bartram, 1792, p. 36. At p. 397 of this book Mr. Wordsworth may have found his authority for the strawberry gathering of the Cherokee girls spoken of in Ruth. He told of girls—a happy rout !” &c.-S. C.]

+ [Mr. Coleridge has spoken of “the poem so completely Wordsworth's commencing

Three years she grew in sun and shower." It is indeed exquisitely Wordsworthian, and there are many others of our great post which, like this, some in an equal degree, are characterized by a most transparent diction which holds, as in a crystai wrine, a subtle strain of thought and feeling, that seems so intimately united with the peculiar words in which it is uttered as to be almost oue with them. Such are the

The preceding criticism will not, I am aware, avail to over come the prejudices of those, who have made it a business to attack and ridicule Mr. Wordsworth’s compositions.

Truth and prudence might be imaged as concentric circles, The poet may perhaps have passed beyond the latter, but he has confined himself far within the bounds of the former, in designaling these critics, as "too petulant to be passive to a genuine poet, Lines to H. C. six years old. The Highland Girl, She was a Phantom of delight, and others.

Due honor is done to Peter Bell, at this time, by students of poetry in general, but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest admirers, do not quite satisfy me in their admiration of the Wagoner, a poem which my dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to the former. Ich will meine Denkungsart hierin niemanden aufdringen, as Lessing says: I will force my way of thinking on nobody, but take the liberty, for my own gratification, to express it. The sketches of hill and valley in this poem have a lightness and spirit-an Allegro touch—distinguishing them from the grave and elevated splendor which characterizes Mr. Wordsworth’s representa tions of Nature in general, and from the pensive tenderness of those in The White Doe, while it harmonizes well with the human interest of the piece: indeed it is the harmonious sweetness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by its special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold brief touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere to Keswick; it commences with an evening storm among the mountains, presents a lively interior of a country inn during midnight, and concludes after bringing us in sight of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen by daybreak"Skiddaw touched with rosy light," and the prospect from Nathdale Fell “hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn :" thus giving a beautiful and well. contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine observer and eloquent describer of various classes of natural appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and affections on canvass, or even successful in the introduction of human figures into their foregrounds: whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr. Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest; cer tainly, in the Wagoner, the little sketch of human nature which occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling back-ground, the picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in Tam O'Shanter, parts of Voss's Luise or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon ; though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very beautifully.-- S. C.]

a

and too feeble to grapple with him ;*** men of palsied imagina tions, in whose minds all healthy action is languid ;*** who, therefore, feed as the many direct them, or with the many are greedy after vicious provocatives."'*

So much for the detractors from Wordsworth's merits. On the other hand, much as I might wish for their fuller sympathy, I dare not flatter myself, that the freedom with which I have declared my opinions concerning both his theory and his defects, most of which are more or less connected with his theory, either as cause or effect, will be satisfactory or pleasing to all the poet's admirers and advocates. More indiscriminate than mine their admiration

may be : deeper and more sincere it can not be. But I have advanced no opinion either for praise or censure, other than as texts introductory to the reasons which compel me te form it. Above all, I was fully convinced that such a criticisn was not only wanted ; but that, if executed with adequate ability, it must conduce, in no mean degree, to Mr. Wordsworth's repu tution. His fume belongs to another age, and can neither be accelerated nor retarded. How small the proportion of the desects are to the beauties, I have repeatedly declared ; and that no one of them originates in deficiency of poetic genius. Had they been more and greater, I should still, as a friend to his liter. ary character in the present age, consider an analytic display of them as pure gain; if only it removed, as surely to all reflecting minds even the foregoing analysis must have removed, the strange mistake, so slightly grounded yet so widely and industriously propagated, of Mr. Wordsworth's turn for simplicity! I am not half as much irritated by hearing his enemies abuse him for vulgarity of style, subject, and conception; as I am disgusted with the gilded side of the same meaning, as displayed by some affected admirers, with whom he is, forsooth, a “sweet, simple poet!" and so natural, that little master Charles and his younger

sister are so charmed with them, that they play at “Goody Blake," or at “ Johnny and Betty Foy!"

Were the collection of poems, published with these biographie cal sketches, important enough (which I am not vain enough to

[Supplement to the Preface. P. W. iii. p. 322. The next paragraph to this sentence, with a small foot-note, is with drawn; respecting which see the Introduction.-S.C.]