The greatness shew'd the owner. So I went
To fetch a sacrifice out of my fold,

Thinking with that, which I did thus present,
To warm his love, which, I did fear, grew cold.
But as my heart did tender it, the man
Who was to take it from me, slipt his hand,
And threw my heart into the scalding pan;
My heart that brought it (do you understand ?)
The offerer's heart. Your heart was hard, I fear.
Indeed 'tis true. I found a callous matter
Began to spread and to expatiate there :
But with a richer drug than scalding water
I bath'd it often, ev'n with holy blood,

Which at a board, while many drank bare wine,
A friend did steal into my cup for good,
Ev'n taken inwardly, and most divine
To supple hardnesses. But at the length
Out of the caldron getting, soon I fled
Unto my house, where to repair the strength
Which I had lost, I hasted to my bed;
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults,
(I sigh to speak)

I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts,
I would say thorns. Dear, could my heart not break,
When with my pleasures ev'n my rest was gone?
Full well I understood who had been there :
For I had given the key to none but one:
It must be he. Your heart was dull, I fear.
Indeed a slack and sleepy state of mind
Did oft possess me; so that when I pray'd,
Though my lips went, my heart did stay behind.
But all my scores were by another paid,
Who took my guilt upon him. Truly, friend,
For aught I hear, your master shews to you
More favor than you wot of. Mark the end!
The font did only what was old renew:
The caldron suppled what was grown too hard:
The thorns did quicken what was grown too dull:
All did but strive to mend what you had marr'd.
Wherefore be cheer'd, and praise him to the full
Each day, each hour, each moment of the week
Who fain would have you be new, tender, quick !”

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CHAPTER XX

The former subject continued.

I HAVE no fear in declaring my conviction, that the excellence defined and exemplified in the preceding Chapter is not the characteristic excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's style; because I can add with equal sincerity, that it is 5 precluded by higher powers. The praise of uniform adherence to genuine, logical English is undoubtedly his; nay, laying the main emphasis on the word uniform, I will dare add that, of all contemporary poets, it is his alone. For in a less absolute sense of the word, I should certainly 10 include MR. BOWLES, LORD BYRON, and, as to all his later writings, MR. SOUTHEY, the exceptions in their work being so few and unimportant. But of the specific excellence described in the quotation from Garve, I appear to find more, and more undoubted specimens in the works of others; 15 for instance, among the minor poems of Mr. Thomas Moore, and of our illustrious Laureate. To me it will always remain a singular and noticeable fact; that a theory which would establish this lingua communis, not only as the best, but as the only commendable style, should have proceeded 20 from a poet, whose diction, next to that of Shakespeare and Milton, appears to me of all others the most individualized and characteristic. And let it be remembered too, that I am now interpreting the controverted passages of Mr. W's. critical preface by the purpose and object, which he may 25 be supposed to have intended, rather than by the sense which the words themselves must convey, if they are taken without this allowance.

A person of any taste, who had but studied three or four of Shakespeare's principal plays, would without the name

affixed scarcely fail to recognise as Shakespeare's a quotation from any other play, though but of a few lines. A similar peculiarity, though in a less degree, attends Mr. Wordsworth's style, whenever he speaks in his own person; or whenever, though under a feigned name, it is clear that he 5 himself is still speaking, as in the different dramatis personæ of the "RECLUSE." Even in the other poems, in which he purposes to be most dramatic, there are few in which it does not occasionally burst forth. The reader might often address the poet in his own words with reference to the persons 10 introduced:

It seems, as I retrace the ballad line by line,

That but half of it is theirs, and the better half is thine." Who, having been previously acquainted with any considerable portion of Mr. Wordsworth's publications, and 15 having studied them with a full feeling of the author's genius, would not at once claim as Wordsworthian the little poem on the rainbow?

'The child is father of the man, &c."

Or in the "Lucy Gray?"

"No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor;

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door."

Or in the "Idle Shepherd-boys"?

Along the river's stony marge

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The sand-lark chaunts a joyous song;
The thrush is busy in the wood,

And carols loud and strong.

A thousand lambs are on the rocks,

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All newly born! both earth and sky

Keep jubilee, and more than all,
Those boys with their green coronal;
They never hear the cry,

That plaintive cry! which up the hill
Comes from the depth of Dungeon Gill."

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Need I mention the exquisite description of the Sea Loch in the "Blind Highland Boy"? Who but a poet tells a tale in such language to the little ones by the fire-side as

"Yet had he many a restless dream

Both when he heard the eagle's scream,
And when he heard the torrents roar,
And heard the water beat the shore
Near where their cottage stood.
Beside a lake their cottage stood,
Not small like ours, a peaceful flood,
But one of mighty size, and strange,
That, rough or smooth, is full of change,
And stirring in its bed.

For to this lake, by night and day,
The great sea-water finds its way
Through long, long windings of the hills,
And drinks up all the pretty rills

And rivers large and strong :

Then hurries back the road it came-
Returns on errand still the same;
This did it when the earth was new;
And this for evermore will do,

As long as earth shall last.

And with the coming of the tide,
Come boats and ships that sweetly ride,
Between the woods and lofty rocks;
And to the shepherds with their flocks
Bring tales of distant lands."

I might quote almost the whole of his "RUTH," but take 30 the following stanzas:

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But, as you have before been told,

This stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,
And with his dancing crest,

So beautiful, through savage lands
Had roamed about with vagrant bands
Of Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky,
Might well be dangerous food

For him, a youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he found
Irregular in sight or sound,
Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seemed allied
To his own powers, and justified

The workings of his heart.

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought,

The beauteous forms of nature wrought,
Fair trees and lovely flowers;

The breezes their own languor lent;

The stars had feelings, which they sent
Into those magic bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween
That sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high intent :

For passions, linked to forms so fair

And stately, needs must have their share
Of noble sentiment."

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But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compositions, 25 which already form three-fourths of his works; and will, I trust, constitute hereafter a still larger proportion ;-from these, whether in rhyme or blank-verse, it would be difficult and almost superfluous to select instances of a diction peculiarly his own, of a style which cannot be imitated, without 30 its being at once recognised as originating in Mr. Wordsworth. It would not be easy to open on any one of his loftier strains, that does not contain examples of this; and more in proportion as the lines are more excellent, and most like the author. For those, who may happen to have been 35 less familiar with his writings, I will give three specimens