Not uninformed by fantasy and look
That threaten the profane ;—a pillar'd shade
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose deck'd
By unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes

May meet at noon-tide-Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight-Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow-there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scatter'd o'er
With altars undisturb'd of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glamarara's inmost caves."

within them, and waxes not old:"* it is this which half gives to them a majestic personality, and dimly figures out their attributes. By the same process, the imaginative faculty, aiming at results less sublime but more definite and complete, gave individual shape to loves, graces, and affections, and endowed them with the bread of life. By this process, it shades over the sorrows which it describes by the beauties and the graces of nature, and tinges with gentle colouring the very language of affliction. In the second mode of its operation, on the other hand, it moves over the universe like the spirit of God on the face of the waters, and peoples it with glorious shapes, as in the Let the reader, when that first glow of intuiGreek mythology, or sheds on it à consecrating tive admiration which this passage cannot fail radiance, and imparts to it an intense sym- to inspire is past, look back on the exquisite pathy, as in the poems of these more reflective gradations by which it naturally proceeds from days. Although a harmonizing faculty, it can mere description to the sublime personification by the law of its essence only act on things of the most awful abstractions, and the union which have an inherent likeness. It brings of their fearful shapes in strange worship, or out the secret affinities of its objects; but it in listening to the deepest of nature's voices. cannot combine things which nature has not The first lines-interspersed indeed with epiprepared for union, because it does not add, thets drawn from the operations of mind, and but transfuses. Hence there can be no wild therefore giving to them an imaginative tinge incongruity, no splendid confusion in its works. -are, for the most part, a mere picture of the Those which are commonly regarded as its august brotherhood of trees, though their very productions in the metaphorical speeches of sound is in more august accordance with their "Irish eloquence," are their very reverse, and theme than most of the examples usually promay serve by contrast to explain its realities. duced of “echoes to the sense." Having comThe highest and purest of its efforts are when pletely set before us the image of the scene, the intensest elements of the human soul are the poet begins that enchantment by which it mingled inseparably with the vastest majesties is to be converted into a fitting temple for the of the universe; as where Lear identifies his noontide spectres of Death and Time, by the age with that of the heavens, and calls on general intimation that it is "not uninformed them to avenge his wrongs by their com- by fantasy and looks that threaten the promunity of lot; and where Timon "fixes his fane"-then, by the mere epithet pillared, gives everlasting mansion upon the beached shore us the more particular feeling of a fane-then, of the salt flood," that "once a day with its by reference to the actual circumstances of the embossed froth the turbulent surge may cover grassless floor of red-brown hue, preserves to him," scorning human tears, but desiring the us the peculiar features of the scene which vast ocean for his eternal mourner! thus he is hallowing-and at last gives to the Of this transfusing and reconciling faculty-roof and its berries a strange air of unrejoicwhether its office be to "clothe upon," or to spiritualize-Mr. Wordsworth is, in the highest degree, master. Of this, abundant proofs will be found in the latter portion of this article; at present we will only give a few examples. The first of these is one of the grandest instances of noble daring, completely successful, which poetry exhibits. After a magnificent picture of a single yew-tree, and a fine allusion to its readiness to furnish spears for old battles, the poet proceeds:

ing festivity-until we are prepared for the
introduction of the phantasms, and feel that
the scene could be fitted to no less tremendous
a conclave. The place, without losing one of
its individual features, is decked for the recep-
tion of these noon-tide shades, and we are pre-
pared to muse on them with unshrinking eyes.
How by a less adventurous but not less de-
lightful process does the poet impart to an
evening scene on the Thames, at Richmond,
the serenity of his own heart, and tinge it with
softest and saddest hues of the fancy and the
affections! The verses have all the richness
of Collins, to whom they allude, and breathe a
more profound and universal sentiment than
is found in his sky-tinctured poetry.

"How richly glows the water's breast
Before us tinged with evening hues,
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past so smiling!
And still perchance, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterer beguiling.

"Such views the youthful bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb

And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?
"Glide gently thus, for ever glide,

O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side

As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream! for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow,

As thy deep waters now are flowing.

"Vain thought!-Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart,

How bright, how solemn, how serene!"

The following delicious sonnet, inspired by the same scene, is one of the latest effusions of its author. We do not here quote it on account of its allusion to one of the most delightful of poets-nor of the fine unbroken ligament by which the harmony listened to by the later bard is connected with that which the earlier drank in, by the lineage of the songsters who keep up the old ravishment-but of that imaginative power, by which a sacredness is imparted to the place and to the birds, as though they performed unresting worship in the most glorious of cathedrals.

"Fame tells of groves from England far away'
Groves that inspire the nightingale to trill
And modulate, with subtle reach of skill
Elsewhere unmatch'd, her ever-varying lay;
Such bold report I venture to gainsay:
For I have heard the choir of Richmond-hill
Chanting with indefatigable bill;
While I bethought me of a distant day;
When haply under shade of that same wood,
And scarcely conscious of the dashing oars
Plied steadily between those willowy shores,
The sweet-soul'd Poet of the Seasons stood-
Listening, and listening long, in rapturous mood,
Ye heavenly birds! to your progenitors."

The following "Thought of a Briton on the subjugation of Switzerland," has an elemental grandeur imbued with the intensest sentiment, which places it among the highest efforts of the imaginative faculty.

"Two voices are there; one is one of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven,
Thou from thine Alpine holds at length are driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft;
Then cleave, O cleave, to that which still is left:
For, high-soul'd maid, what sorrow would it be,
That mountain-floods should thunder as before,
And ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful voice be heard by thee!"

We have thus feebly attempted to give some glimpse into the essence of Wordsworth's powers of his skill in delineating the forms of creation of his insight into the spirit of man-and of his imaginative faculty. How he has applied these gifts to philosophical poetry, and what are the results of his contemplation, by their aid, on the external universe

•Wallachia is the country alluded to.

| human life-individual character-the vicissitudes of individual fortune-society at large -and the prospects of the species-we shall next proceed more particularly to examine.

The spirit of contemplation influences and directs all Wordsworth's poetical faculties. He does not create a variety of individual forms to vivify them with the Promethean fire of dramatic genius, and exhibit the living struggle of their passions and their affections in opposition to each other, or to destiny. "The moving accident is not his trade." He looks on humanity as from a more exalted sphere, though he feels his kindred with it while he gazes and yearns over it with deepest sympathy. No poet of ancient or modern times has dared so entirely to repose on the mere strength of his own powers. Others, indeed, have given hints of the divinest truths, even amidst their wildest and most passionate effusions. The tragedies of Sophocles, for example, abound in moralities expressed with a grace and precision which often ally the sentiment to an image and almost define it to the senses. In Shakspeare the wisdom is as much deeper as the passion is intenser; the minds of the characters, under the strongest excitements of love, hope, or agony, grow bright as well as warm, and in their fervid career shed abroad sparkles of fire, which light up, for an instant, the inmost sanctuaries of our nature. But few have ventured to send into the world essentially meditative poems, which none but the thoughtful can truly enjoy. Lucertius is the only writer of antiquity who has left a great work of this description; and he has unhappily lavished the boundless riches of genius on doctrines which are in direct opposition to the spirit of poetry. An apostle of a more genial faith, Wordsworth, stands pre-eminentlyalmost alone-a divine philosopher among the poets. It has been his singular lot, in this late age of the world, to draw little from those sources of interest which incident and situation supply-and to rest his claim to the gratitude and admiration of the people on his majestical contemplations of man and the uni

verse.

His

The philosophical poetry of Wordsworth is not more distinct from the dramatic, or the epic, than from the merely didactic and moral. He has thrown into it as much of profound affection, as much of ravishing loveliness, as much of delicate fantasy, as adorn the most romantic tales, or the most passionate trage dies. If he sees all things "far as angel's ken," he regards them with human love. imagination is never obscured amidst his reasonings, but is ever active to imbody the beautiful and the pure, and to present to us the most august moralities in "clear dream lime conclusions by a painful and elaborate and solemn vision." Instead of reaching subprocess, he discloses them by a single touch, he fixes them on our hearts for ever. So inthat he feels the spirit of good however deeply tense are his perceptions of moral beauty, hidden, and opens to our view the secret springs of love and of joy, where all has appeared barren to the ungifted observer. He can trace, prolong, and renew within us, those

mysterious risings of delight in the soul which | never was by sea or land," and which yet is "may make a chrysome child to smile," and which, when half-experienced at long intervals in riper age, are to us the assurances of a better life. He follows with the nice touch of unerring sympathy all the most subtle workings of the spirit of good, as it makes its little sanctuaries in hearts unconscious of its presence, and blends its influences unheeded with ordinary thoughts, hopes, and sorrows. The old prerogatives of humanity, which long usage has made appear common, put on their own air of grandeur while he teaches us to revere them. When we first read his poetry, we look on all the mysteries of our being with a new reverence, and feel like children who, having been brought up in some deserted palace, learn for the first time the regality of their home-understand a venerableness in the faded escutcheons with which they were accustomed to play-and feel the figures on the stained windows, or on the decaying tapestry, which were only grotesque before speaking to their hearts in ancestral voices.

The consecration which Wordsworth has shed over the external world is in a great measure peculiar to his genius. In the Hebrew poetry there was no trace of particular description-but general images, such as of tall cedars, of green pastures, or of still waters, were alone permitted to aid the affections of the devout worshipper. The feeling of the vast and indistinct prevailed; for all in religion was symbolical and mysterious, and pointed to "temples not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." In the exquisite masterpieces of Grecian inspiration, free nature's grace was almost excluded by the opposite tendency to admire only the definite and the palpable. Hence, the pictures of nymphs, satyrs, and deities, were perpetually substituted for views of the magnificence of earth and heaven. In the romantic poetry of modern times, the open face of nature has again been permitted to smile on us, and its freshness to glide into our souls. Nor has there been wanting "craft of delicate spirits" to shed lovelier tinges of the imagination on all its scenes-to scatter among them classical images like Ionic temples among the fair glades and deep woods of some rich domain-to call dainty groups of fairies to hold their revellings upon the velvet turf-or afford glimpses of angel wings floating at eventide in the golden perspective. But the imagination of Wordsworth has given to the external universe a charm which has never else, extensively at least, been shed over it. He has not personified the glorious objects of Creation-nor peopled them with beautiful and majestic shapes-but, without depriving them of their own reality, has imparted to them a life which makes them objects of affection and reverence. He enables us at once to enjoy the contemplation of their colours and forms, and to love them as human friends. He consecrates earth by the mere influences of sentiment and thought, and renders its scenes as enchanted as though he had filled them with Oriental wonders. Touched by him, the hills, the rocks, the hedge-rows, and the humlest flowers shine in a magic lustre," which

strangely familiar to our hearts. These are not hallowed by him with "angel visits," nor by the presence of fair and immortal shapes, but by the remembrances of early joy, by lingering gleams of a brightness which has passed away, and dawnings of a glory to be revealed in the fulness of time. The lowliest of nature's graces have power to move and to delight him. "The clouds are touched, and in their silent faces does he read unutterable love." He listens to the voice of the cuckoo in early spring, till he “ 'begets again the golden time of his childhood," and till the world, which is "fit home" for that mysterious bird, appears "an airy unsubstantial place." At the root of some old thorn, or beneath the branches of some time-honoured tree, he opens the sources of delicious musing, and suggests the first hints which lead through a range of human thoughts to the glories of our final destiny. When we traverse with him the "bare earth and mountains bare," we feel that "the place whereon we are standing is holy ground;" the melancholy brook can touch our souls as truly as a tragic catastrophe; the splendours of the western 'sky give intimation of "a joy past joy;" and the meanest flowers, and scanty blades of grass, awaken within us hopes too rapturous for smiles, and "thoughts which do often lie too deep for tears."

To give all the instances of this sublime operation of the imaginative faculty in Wordsworth, would be to quote the far larger portion of his works. A few lines, however, from the poem composed on the Banks of the Wye, will give our readers a deep glimpse into the inmost heart of his poetry, and of his poetical system, on the communion of the soul of man with the spirit of the universe. In this rapturous effusion-in which, with a wise prodigality, he hints and intimates the profoundest of those feelings which vivify all he has created-he gives the following view of the progress of his sympathy with the external world :

"Nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements, all gone by)
To me was all in all-I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow'd from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts
Have follow'd, for such loss I would believe
Abundant recompense. For I have learn'd
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Not harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A spirit which disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of mind:
A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

"Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath elsewhere known its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God that is our home;
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,

of our past being the symbols and assurances of our immortal destiny! The poet has here spanned our mortal life as with a glorious rainbow, terminating on one side in infancy, There are none of the workings of our and on the other in the realms of blessedness poet's imaginative faculty more wonderful beyond the grave, and shedding even upon in themselves, or more productive of high the middle of that course tints of unearthly thoughts and intense sympathies, than those colouring. The following is the view he has which have for their objects the grand ab- given of the fading glory of childhood-drawn stractions of humanity-Life and Death, Child-in part from Oriental fiction, but imbodying hood and Old Age. Every period of our being the profoundest of elemental truths :is to him not only filled with its own peculiar endearments and joys, but dignified by its own sanctities. The common forms of life assume a new venerableness when he touches themfor he makes us feel them in their connection with our immortality—even as the uncouth vessels of the Jewish law appeared sublime to those who felt that they were dedicated to the immediate service of Heaven. He ever leaves us conscious that the existence on whose beginning he expatiates, will endure for ever. He traces out those of its fibres which are eternal in their essence. He discovers in every part of our earthly course manifold intimations that these our human hearts will never die. Childhood is, to him, not only the season of novelty, of innocence, of joyous spirits, and of mounting hope-but of a dreamlike glory which assures to us that this world is not our final home. Age to him, is not a descent into a dark valley, but a "final eminence," where the wise may sit "in awful sovereignty" as on a high peak among the mountains in placid summer, and commune with Heaven, undisturbed by the lesser noises of the tumultuous world. One season of life is bound to another by "the natural piety" which the unchanging forms of nature preserve, and death comes at last over the deep and tranquil stream as it is about to emerge into a lovelier sunshine, as "a shadow thrown softly and lightly from a passing cloud."

The Ode in which Wordsworth particularly developes the intimations of immortality to be found in the recollections of early childhood, is, to our feelings, the noblest piece of lyric poetry in the world. It was the first poem of its author which we read, and never shall we forget the sensations which it excited within us. We had heard the cold sneers attached to his name we had glanced over criticisms, "lighter than vanity," which represented him as an object for scorn "to point its slow unmoving finger at"-and here-in the works of this derided poet-we found a new vein of imaginative sentiment opened to us-sacred recollections brought back on our hearts with all the freshness of novelty, and all the venerableness of far-off time-the most mysterious of old sensations traced to a celestial originand the shadows cast over the opening of life from the realities of eternity renewed before us with a sense of their supernal causes! What a gift did we then inherit! To have the best and most imperishable of intellectual treasures-the mighty world of reminiscences of the days of infancy-set before us in a new and holier light; to find objects of deepest veneration where we had only been accustomed to love; to feel in all the touching mysteries

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The Youth that daily farther from the east
Must travel still is Nature's priest,

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!"

But the following is the noblest passage of the whole; and such an outpouring of thought and feeling-such a piece of inspired philosophy-we do not believe exists elsewhere in human language:—

"O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was 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 fluttering or at rest,
With new-born hope for ever 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 realiz'd,
High instincts, before which our mortal 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 us, and make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
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 sea
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.'
After this rapturous flight, the author thus
leaves to repose on the quiet lap of humanity.

and soothes us with a strain of such mingled solemnity and tenderness, as "might make angels weep:"

"What though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy

Which having been, must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And oh ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish'd one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they ;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

The genius of the poet, which thus dignifies and consecrates the abstractions of our nature, is scarcely less felicitous in its pictures of society at large, and in its philosophical delineations of the characters and fortunes of individual man. Seen through the holy medium of his imagination, all things appear "bright and solemn and serene"-the asperities of our earthly condition are softened away -and the most gentle and evanescent of its hues gleam and tremble over it. He delights to trace out those ties of sympathy by which the meanest of beings are connected with the general heart. He touches the delicate strings by which the great family of man are bound together, and thence draws forth sounds of choicest music. He makes us partake of those joys which are "spread through the earth to be caught in stray gifts by whoever will find" them-discloses the hidden wealth of the soul-finds beauty everywhere, and "good in every thing." He draws character with the softest pencil, and shades it with the pensive tints of gentlest thought. The pastoral of The Brothers-the story of Michaeland the histories in the Excursion which the priest gives while standing among the rustic graves of the church-yard, among the mountains, are full of exquisite portraits, touched and softened by a divine imagination which human love inspires. He rejoices also to exhibit that holy process by which the influences of creation are shed abroad in the heart, to excite, to mould, or to soften. We select the following stanzas from many passages of this kind of equal beauty, because in the fantasy of nature's making "a lady of her own," the object of the poet is necessarily developed with more singleness than where reference is incidentally made to the effect of scenery on the mind:

"Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, a lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take,
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own!

Myself will to the darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;
And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean on air

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face!"

But we must break off to give a passage in a bolder and most passionate strain, which represents the effect of the tropical grandeur and voluptuousness of nature on a wild and fiery spirit-at once awakening and half-redeeming its irregular desires. It is from the profound of human affections is disclosed poem of "Ruth,"-a piece where the most amidst the richest imagery, and incidents of wild romance are told with a Grecian purity and daring youth are thus represented as in of expression. The impulses of a beautifu spired by Indian scenery:

"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, seem'd 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 gorgeous bowers.

Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween
That sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high intent;
For passions link'd to forms as fair
And stately, needs must have their share
Of noble sentiment."

We can do little more than enumerate those pieces of narrative and character, which we esteem the best in their kind of our author's works. The old Cumberland Beggar is one