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character might have become in his circumstances'. The demand for the Excursion' was so limited that an edition of 500 copies sufficed for six years, and another edition of 500, was the total requirement for the next seven years. * It was of this work that Southey writes to Scott, 'Jeffrey, I hear, has written what his admirers call a crushing review of the "Excursion". He might as well seat himself upon Skiddaw and fancy he crushed the mountain'.

We read that Thersites railed indiscriminately at the Grecian Heroes, until a blow from the fist of Achilles silenced him for ever. Southey aims another blow at the Thersites of Literature, where he says, 'there are critics who are everlastingly picking out single lines, and condemning their cadence as bad. This might be true if the line could possibly stand alone. But were I to cut off one of the critic's fingers and tell him it was only fit for a tobacco-stopper, that would be true also because the act of amputation made it so'. Wordsworth himself calmly remarked, 'Let the age continue to love its own darkness, I shall continue to write, with, I trust, the light of heaven upon me'.

The necessity of repelling unjust contempt forces the most modest man into a feeling of pride and selfconsciousness, but there were many of the poet's friends, who, while admiring the manly avowal which he everywhere made of the sense he entertained of his own merit, yet wished he had left unwritten those supplemental prefaces to his poems, which contained

Upon the completion of Madoc', Sir Walter Scott wrote to Southey, I hope you have not and don't mean to part with the copyright. I do not think you and Wordsworth understand the book-selling animal well enough, and wish you would one day try my friend Constable, who would give any terms for a connexion with you'.

tone and style of the speakers; but, as Wordsworth's design was to represent them all as lofty-minded or highly-intellectual characters, we can only say they all speak as if they were Wordsworths, but can hardly apply, in this instance, the good-humoured banter of Goldsmith, who said of Dr Johnson, that if he were to write a dialogue between fishes, he would make his minnows speak as if they were whales.

On this topic the Rev. E. P. Hood writes, ' Exception has been taken to its colloquial style, even by some of its admirers, in that it is a conversation, it betrays want of dignity; let the same charge be preferred against all the writings of Plato. The Poet, it is said, should give utterance to his own thoughts without calling in the aid of dialogue; but, surely, minds entirely emancipated from the trammellings of old methods, will only find in the mode by which the great doctrines of this poem are unfolded, one of its most prominent beauties. In its lovely Historical Episodes and Legends; in its curious paintings of mental life and progress; in its noble discourses against despondency, and upon immortality; in its fine aphorisms of lofty thought and wisdom, are presented for it a claim to a place among the very dearest productions of genius in our language'.

As to the Pedlar, who plays such a conspicuous part in the 'Excursion', Wordsworth says, 'Had I been in a class which would have deprived me of a liberal education, it is not unlikely that being strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my "Wanderer" passed the greater part of his days. At all events, I am called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person, is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own

character might have become in his circumstances'. The demand for the 'Excursion' was so limited that an edition of 500 copies sufficed for six years, and another edition of 500, was the total requirement for the next seven years. * It was of this work that Southey writes to Scott, ‘Jeffrey, I hear, has written what his admirers call a crushing review of the "Excursion". He might as well seat himself upon Skiddaw and fancy he crushed the mountain'.

We read that Thersites railed indiscriminately at the Grecian Heroes, until a blow from the fist of Achilles silenced him for ever. Southey aims another blow at the Thersites of Literature, where he says, 'there are critics who are everlastingly picking out single lines, and condemning their cadence as bad. This might be true if the line could possibly stand alone. But were I to cut off one of the critic's fingers and tell him it was only fit for a tobacco-stopper, that would be true also because the act of amputation made it so'. Wordsworth himself calmly remarked, ' Let the age continue to love its own darkness, I shall continue to write, with, I trust, the light of heaven upon me'.

The necessity of repelling unjust contempt forces the most modest man into a feeling of pride and selfconsciousness, but there were many of the poet's friends, who, while admiring the manly avowal which he everywhere made of the sense he entertained of his own merit, yet wished he had left unwritten those supplemental prefaces to his poems, which contained

* Upon the completion of 'Madoc', Sir Walter Scott wrote to Southey, I hope you have not and don't mean to part with the copyright. I do not think you and Wordsworth understand the book-selling animal well enough, and wish you would one day try my friend Constable, who would give any terms for a connexion with you'.

severe reproaches on the bad taste of the times, fearing that they might be ascribed to personal feeling and disappointment.

A proposal was, about this time, made to Wordsworth, to exchange his office of Distributor of Stamps for the more lucrative post of Collector for the town of Whitehaven, but he was not to be tempted from the charms of Rydal Mount to reside in a dingy town by a mere increase of salary. The place had become dear to him; he loved the rocky and wooded heights which sheltered his pleasant abode, and made a bold framework to the more distant scenery. The house itself was sufficiently raised on the slope of a hill to look down upon Rydal Church; to the south, the little town of Ambleside revealed its lurking place by its wreaths of blue smoke, while beyond, an extensive view of Windermere completed the prospect. The terrace in front of the house, the steps leading from it, gay with the favourite wild-flowers which he suffered partially to cover them, the lawn,

'A carpet, all alive

With shadows flung from leaves to strive

In dance amid a press

Of sunshine'

these, with many other immediate surroundings of the house, have found due record in the poet's verse.

When desirous of greater seclusion, he had the choice of another terrace-walk behind the house, and, facing northward, where spaces judiciously kept open between majestic trees, afforded charming glimpses of the diminutive but lovely Rydal Water. Here, resting in his fir-cone summer-house, as often as he murmured forth his half-formed melodies' a turtle-dove responded

from its cage, or, as he more choicely expresses it, 'from her osier mansion near'. To complete the picture we must add luxuriant shrubberies, and brilliant and fragrant parterres, of which, however, the poet could only enjoy the brilliancy and not the perfume, the sense of smell having been denied him.

Passing through the garden gate we enter a meadow into one of whose banks nature has built a rough mass of stone, on which Wordsworth was tempted to have some lines inscribed, which now read as an affecting epitaph for himself.

In these fair vales hath many a tree,

At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,

Was rescued by the Bard:
So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender hearted,
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.

In addition to the beauties of his own small domain, Wordsworth had, at all times, welcome access to the adjoining grounds of Rydal Park; and here again his poems show how he revelled in the natural charms of the region, and delighted to study, from some covert nook, one or other of the beautiful cascades which attract so many visitors

'To mark its eddying foam-balls, prettily distrest
By change of form and want of rest,

Or watch with mutual teaching

The current as it plays,

In flashing leaps, and stealthy creeps,

Adown a rocky maze'.

With such alluring scenes at hand, and with his en

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