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

"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."

But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compositions,

"the eagle's

last stanza to "safely." In the first I venture to prefer scream," which my father wrote, to "the eagles," as it is written by Mr. Wordsworth-because eagles are neither gregarious nor numerous, and the first expression seems to mark the nature of the bird, and to bring it more interestingly before the mind, than the last. S. C.]

[P. W., ii., p. 106. S. C.]

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 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 less familiar with his writings, I will give three specimens taken with little choice. The first from the lines on the BoY OF WINANDER-MERE,—who

"Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him.-And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
With long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of mirth and jocund din! And when it chanced,
That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene 8

7 [There was a Boy. P. W., ii., p. 79. S. C.] 8 Mr. Wordsworth's having judiciously adopted 66 concourse wild" in this passage for a wild scene" as it stood in the former edition, encourages me to hazard a remark, which I certainly should not have made in the works of a poet less austerely accurate in the use of words, than he is, to his own great honor. It respects the propriety of the word "scene," even in the sentence in which it is retained. Dryden, and he only in his more careless verses, was the first, as far as my researches have discovered, who for the convenience of rhyme used this word in the vague sense, which has been since too current even in our best writers, and which (unfortunately, I think) is given as its first explanation in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, and therefore would be taken by an incautious reader as its proper sense. In Shakspeare and Milton the word is never used without some clear reference, proper or metaphorical, to the theatre. Thus Milton; "Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm

A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend

Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view."*

* [Par. Lost, iv., 1. 139. S. C.]

I object to any extension of its meaning, because the word is already more equivocal than might be wished; inasmuch as in the limited use which I recommend, it may still signify two different things; namely, the presence of particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from obScenery, and the characters and actions presented on the stage during the scurity only by keeping the original signification full in the mind. Thus

9 [Part of this poetical description has been altered or

"Prepare thee for another scene,"*

expanded thus;

And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,-with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din!
Of silence, such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence-
And, when there came a pause

dares to

I fear it is presumptuous even to express a feeling which hardly
be an opinion, about these fine verses (one of the most exquisite specimens
of blank verse that I know, and fit to be placed beside the most exquisite
lence) and yet I cannot forbear to express the feeling, that the latter part
specimens from Milton, though different from them in the kind of excel-
of this quotation stood better at first; or that any improvement,-if any
there be,-in the first of the two altered lines, is dearly purchased by the
comparative languor which has thus been occasioned in the second :-
Of silence such as baffled his best skill

seems to me almost prose in comparison with

which presents the image (if so it may be called) at once without dividing

it, while the spondaic movement of the verse

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,

corresponds to the sense.

Neither can I think that " mirth" is here a superfluity

even in addition to

"chanc'd," which Milton uses just in the same way in Paradise Lost?t the mere logic of thought does not exact; and what is the objection to 'jocund din ;" the logic of poetic passion may admit or even require what The utter silence of the owls after such free and full communications, is

* [Par. Lost, xi., 1. 637. S. C.]

† Book ix., 1. 575.

The second shall be the noble imitation of Drayton1o (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the lines To JOANNA."

-"When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space,
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld

That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.
The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,
Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again!
That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,
And the tall Steep of Silver-How sent forth
A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone.
Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky
Carried the lady's voice!-old Skiddaw blew
His speaking trumpet !-back out of the clouds
From Glaramara southward came the voice:

And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head!"

The third, which is in rhyme, I take from the SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE, upon the restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honors of his Ancestors.12

-"Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;

as good an instance of chance, or an event of which we cannot see the cause, as the affairs of this world commonly present; and the word seems to me particularly expressive. S. C.]

10 Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill,
Upon her verge that stands, the neighboring valleys fill;
Helvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw,
From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew,
From whose stone-trophied head, it on the Wendross went,
Which, tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent.
That Brodwater, therewith within her banks astound,

In sailing to the sea, told it to Egremound,

Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long
Did mightily commend old Copland for her song.

Drayton's POLYOLBION: Song XXX.
12 [Ib., p. 154. S. C.]

11 [P. W., ii., p. 289. S. C.]

Armor rusting in his halls

On the blood of Clifford calls;—
"Quell the Scot,' exclaims the Lance!
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the Shield-

Tell thy name, thou trembling Field!-
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!

Happy day, and mighty hour,

When our Shepherd, in his power,

Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword.

To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing Star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war?”

"Alas! the fervent harper did not know,

That for a tranquil Soul the Lay was framed,
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

The words themselves in the foregoing extracts, are, no doubt, sufficiently common for the greater part. But in what poem are they not so, if we except a few misadventurous attempts to translate the arts and sciences into verse? In THE EXCURSION the number of polysyllabic (or what the common people call, dictionary) words is more than usually great. And so must it needs be, in proportion to the number and variety of an author's conceptions, and his solicitude to express them with precision. But are those words in those places commonly employed in real life to express the same thought or outward thing? Are they the style used in the ordinary intercourse of spoken words? No! nor are the modes of connexions; and still less the breaks and transitions. Would any but a poet-at least could any one without being conscious that he had expressed himself with noticeable vivacity-have described a bird singing loud by, "The thrush is busy in the wood?"-or have spoken of boys with a string of club-moss round their rusty hats, as the boys "with their