or I should have referred to that as an expression, not altogether unintelligible, of the discrepancy which must ever exist between those minds which are commonly styled rational, (as the received definition of common sense is insensibility to uncommon sense,) and that of Coleridge. As to myself, if I understand nothing beyond the execution of those "singularly wild and original poems," I could not tell my gratitude for the degree of refinement which Taste has received from them. To those who cannot understand the voice of Nature or Poetry, unless it speak in apothegms, and tag each story with a moral, I have nothing to say. My own greatest obligation to Coleridge I have already mentioned. It is for his suggestive power that I thank him.

Wordsworth! beloved friend and venerated teacher; it is more easy and perhaps as profitable to speak of thee. It is less difficult to interpret thee, since no acquired nature, but merely a theory, severs thee from my mind.

Classification on such a subject is rarely satisfactory, yet I will attempt to define in that way the impressions produced by Wordsworth on myself. I esteem his characteristics to be-of Spirit,

Perfect simplicity,

Perfect truth,

Perfect love.

Of mind or talent,

Calmness,

Penetration,

Power of Analysis.

Of manner,

Energetic greatness,

Pathetic tendernesss,

Mild, persuasive eloquence.

The time has gone by when groundlings could laugh with impunity at "Peter Bell" and the "Idiot Mother."

Almost every

line of Wordsworth has been quoted and requoted; every feel. ing echoed back, and every drop of that "cup of still and serious thought" drunk up by some "spirit profound;" enough to satisfy the giver.

Wordsworth is emphatically the friend and teacher of mature years. Youth, in whose bosom "the stately passions burn," is little disposed to drink with him from the

66 urn

Of lowly pleasure.”

He has not an idealizing tendency, if by this be meant the desire of creating from materials supplied by our minds, and by the world in which they abide for a season, a new and more beautiful world. It is the aspiration of a noble nature animated by genius, it is allied with the resolve for self-perfection; and few, without some of its influence, can bring to blossom the bud of any virtue. It is fruitful in illusions, but those illusions have heavenly truth interwoven with their temporary errors. But the mind of Wordsworth, like that of the man of science, finds enough of beauty in the real present world. He delights in penetrating the designs of God, rather than in sketching designs of his own. Generally speaking, minds in which the faculty of observation is so prominent, have little enthusiasm, little dignity of sentiment. That is, indeed, an intellect of the first order, which can see the great in the little, and dignify the petty operations of Nature, by tracing through them her most sublime principles. Wordsworth scrutinizes man and nature with the exact and searching eye of a Cervantes, a Fielding, or a Richter, but without any love for that humorous wit which cannot obtain its needful food unaided by such scrutiny; while dissection merely for curiosity's sake is his horror. He has the delicacy of perception, the universality of feeling which distinguish Shakspeare and the three or four other poets of the first class, and might have taken rank with them had

he been equally gifted with versatility of talent. Many might reply, "in wanting this last he wants the better half."

To this

I cannot agree. Talent, or facility in making use of thought, is dependent, in a great measure, on education and circumstance; while thought itself is immortal as the soul from which it radiates. Wherever we perceive a profound thought, however imperfectly expressed, we offer a higher homage than we can to commonplace thoughts, however beautiful, or if expressed with all that grace of art which it is often most easy for ordinary minds to acquire. There is a suggestive and stimulating power in original thought which cannot be gauged by the first sensation or temporary effect it produces. The circles grow wider and wider as the impulse is propagated through the deep waters of eternity. An exhibition of talent causes immediate delight; almost all of us can enjoy seeing a thing well done; not all of us can enjoy being roused to do and dare for ourselves. Yet when the mind is roused to penetrate the secret meaning of each human effort, a higher pleasure and a greater benefit may be derived from the rude but masterly sketch, than from the elaborately finished miniature. In the former case our creative powers are taxed to supply what is wanting, while in the latter our tastes are refined by admiring what another has created. Now, since I esteem Wordsworth as superior in originality and philosophic unity of thought, to the other poets I have been discussing, I give him the highest place, though they may be superior to him either in melody, brilliancy of fancy, dramatic power, or general versatility of talent. Yet I do not place him on a par with those who combine those minor excellencies with originality and philosophic unity of thought. He is not a Shakspeare, but he is the greatest poet of the day; and this is more remarkable, as he is, par excellence, a didactic poet.

I have paid him the most flattering tribute in saying that there is not a line of his which has not been quoted and requoted.

Men have found such a response to their lightest as well as their deepest feelings, such beautiful morality with such lucid philosophy, that every thinking mind has, consciously or unconsciously, appropriated something from Wordsworth. Those who have never read his poems have imbibed some part of their spirit from the public or private discourse of his happy pupils; and it is, as yet, impossible to estimate duly the effect which the balm of his meditations has had in allaying the fever of the public heart, as exhibited in the writings of Byron and Shelley.

But, as I said before, he is not for youth, he is too tranquil. His early years were passed in listening to, his mature years in interpreting, the oracles of Nature; and though in pity and in love he sympathizes with the conflicts of life, it is not by mingling his tears with the sufferer's, but by the consolations of patient faith, that he would heal their griefs.

The sonnet on Tranquillity, to be found in the present little volume, exhibits him true to his old love and natural religion.

"Tranquillity! the solemn aim wert thou

In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore,

The tragic muse thee served with thoughtful vow;
And what of hope Elysium could allow
Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore
Peace to the mourner's soul; but he who wore
The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow,
Warmed our sad being with his glorious light;
Then arts which still had drawn a softening grace

From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,

Communed with that idea face to face;

And move around it now as planets run,

Each in its orbit round the central sun."

The doctrine of tranquillity does not suit the impetuous blood of the young, yet some there are, who, with pulses of temperate and even though warm and lively beat, are able to prize such

poetry from their earliest days. One young person in particular I knew, very like his own description of

"Those whose hearts every hour run wild,

But never yet did go astray;"

who had read nothing but Wordsworth, and had by him been
plentifully fed. I do not mean that she never skimmed novels
nor dipped into periodicals; but she never, properly speaking,
read, i. e. comprehended and reflected on any other book. But
as all knowledge has been taught by Professor Jacotot from the
Telemachus of Fenelon, so was she taught the secrets of the uni-
verse from Wordsworth's poems. He pointed out to her how
"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,

The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of Man-like flowers."

He read her lectures about the daisy, the robin red-breast, and the waterfall. He taught her to study Nature and feel God's presence; to enjoy and prize human sympathies without needing the stimulus of human passions; to love beauty with a faith which enabled her to perceive it amid seeming ugliness, to hope goodness so as to create it. And she was a very pretty specimen of Wordsworthianism; so sincere, so simple, so animated and so equable, so hopeful and so calm. She was confiding as an infant, and so may remain till her latest day, for she has no touch of idolatry; and her trustfulness is not in any chosen person or persons, but in the goodness of God, who will always protect those who are true to themselves and sincere towards others.

But the young, in general, are idolaters. They will have their private chapels of ease in the great temple of nature; they will ornament, according to fancy, their favorite shrines; and ah! too frequently look with aversion or contempt upon all others. Till this ceases to be so, till they can feel the general beauty of design, and live content to be immortal in the grand whole, they