poems to which any value can be attached." With these admissions, we may fearlessly assert, that a poet - one who is really such—is no ordinary man; nor are his compositions the prompt and spontaneous expressions of his own every-day feelings. No; they are the most hidden ideas of his soul, discovered in his happiest moments, and apparelled in his selectest language. Will such a being, then, array the most pure, sublime, and perfect conceptions of his superior mind, in its highest fervour, only with "the real language of men in a state of vivid excitement?" Compare the lofty narratives of Milton, the luxuriant descriptions of Thomson, the solemn musings of Young; nay, even the soliloquies, and not unfrequently the dialogues, of Shakspeare, in which characters and passions are portrayed with unparalleled force and feeling compare these with "the real language of men in a state of vivid excitement," on the very same subjects, or in precisely the same situations, however animated, interested, or stimulated they may be. The fact is, that poetical sensibility will, on all occasions -except in the bold, brief, instinctive expression of the highest degree of agony or rapture suggest language more lively, affecting, and fervent, yet not a whit less natural, than passion itself can inspire in minds less tremblingly alive to every touch of pain or pleasure. Hence the delight communicated by poetry is, in general, more intensely transporting than any that could be derived from the unassisted contemplation of the objects themselves, which are presented to us by the magic of the author's art. Of that art his

language is the master-secret; and by this charm he transfuses into frigid imaginations his warmer feelings, and into dull minds his brighter views, on subjects and of things which might otherwise only indifferently affect them in nature and reality.

Mr. Wordsworth himself, though not a popular writer nor one who ever can be, in the popular sense of the phrase, till the boasted march of intellect has made much more way than it is likely to do for half a century to come; - Mr. Wordsworth himself has established a reputation of the proudest rank the surest basis upon the admiration of the most intellectual class of readers, who can distinguish what is exquisite from what is puerile, what is grand from what is obscure, and what is imaginative from what is merely fanciful, in his own multifarious productions. But how has he accomplished this? Certainly not by limiting his practice within his theory. He possesses as much as any man living the power of awakening unknown and ineffable emotions in the bosoms of his fellow-creatures; and he has exercised this power much oftener than that smaller craft of fashioning "Lyrical Ballads" and Tales, of which mean men are the actors, and their peculiarities the themes of verse, in phraseology such as they might be supposed to employ, if, instead of being taught to speak in rude prose from their infancy, they had

lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came." His "Cumberland Beggar," "Tintern Abbey," and "Lines on the Naming of Places," unpromising as the subjects might appear at first sight, with many

other of his profound and curious speculations, have taught us new sympathies, the existence of which in human nature had scarcely been intimated by any poet before him. In these his most successful efforts he has attired, in diction of the most transcendent beauty, thoughts the most recondite, and imaginations the most subtle. Thus:

"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 and grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that 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 man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels

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

Again,

"Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee, in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee; and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or pain, or fear, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me!"

This is no more the language than these are the thoughts of men in general "in a state of excitement:" language more exquisitely elaborate, and thoughts more patiently worked out of the very marble of the mind, are rarely, indeed, to be met with either in prose or rhyme. For such tales as "Andrew Jones," "The Last of the Flock," "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," &c., the real language of men may be employed with pleasing effect; but when our poet would "present ordinary things in an unusual way," he is compelled to resort to gorgeous, figurative, and amplifying terms, and avail himself of the most daring licences of poetic diction. Thus :

"The winds, that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gather'd now, like sleeping flowers."
"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a nun,
Breathless with adoration!"

"Flowers laugh before thee in their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads."

"The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, The winds come o'er us from the fields of sleep."

I need not insist more on the necessity of using, in poetry, a language different from, and superior to, "the real language of men," even under the strongest excitement, since our author himself is so often compelled, nay, rather chooses voluntarily, to employ it for the expression of ideas which without it would be incommunicable. One instance of the happy use of the simplest language by Mr. Wordsworth must

be given, in justice to him. The poem of the "Old Cumberland Beggar" is, perhaps, the master-piece of his early volumes. In this we have the description of an ancient parish pensioner, not receiving pay, but collecting doles from the friendly cottagers as well as the wealthier inhabitants in his daily rounds; welcomed every where, and every where relieved, a harmless, helpless, quiet-paced, and quiet-tongued old man, whose presence is a blessing to the neighbourhood, by making the humblest, as well as the highest, feel how good it is to do good. For

"Man is dear to man; the poorest poor

Long for some moments, in a weary life,

When they can know and feel, that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers out

Of some small blessings

As needed kindness;

- have been kind to such

for this single cause,

That we have all of us a human heart.

"Such pleasure is to one kind being known, My neighbour, when, with punctual care, each week, Duly as Friday comes, though press'd herself By her own wants, she, from her store of meal,

Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old mendicant; and, from her door,
Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hopes in heaven."

Dr. Darwin's Theory of Poetic Style.

The late Dr. Darwin, a poet of very different cast from Mr. Wordsworth, tells us, that the essential difference between prose and poetry consists, not solely in the melody or measure of language, because