Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

The second shall be that noble imitation of Drayton (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the 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,

fore would be taken by an incautious reader as its proper sense. In Shakespeare 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.

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 scenery, and the characters and actions presented on the stage during the presence of particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from obscurity only by keeping the original signification full in the mind. Thus Milton again :

Prepare thee for another scene.

1 Which COPLAND scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill,
Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring vallies 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 BROADWATER, 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.

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 of his ancestors.'

Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;
·Armour rusting in the 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 having spoken of boys with a string of club-moss round their rusty hats, as the boys 'with their green coronal?'-or have translated a beautiful May-day into 'Both earth and sky keep jubilee?' or have brought all the different marks and circumstances of a sea-loch before the mind, as the actions of a living and acting power? Or have represented the reflection of the sky in the water, as

'That uncertain heaven received into the bosom of the steady lake?' Even the grammatical construction is not unfrequently peculiar; as The wind, the tempest roaring high, the tumult of a tropic sky, might well be dangerous food to him, a youth to whom was given, &c.' There is a peculiarity in the frequent use of the aσvváρтηтov (i. e. the omission of the connective particle before the last of several words, or several sentences used grammatically as single words, all being in the same case and governing or governed by the same verb) and not less in the construction of words by apposition (to him, a youth). In short, were there excluded from Mr. Wordsworth's poetic compositions all, that a literal adherence to the theory of his preface would exclude, two-thirds at least of the marked beauties of his poetry must be erased. For a far greater number of lines would be sacrificed than in any other recent poet; because the pleasure received from Wordsworth's poems being less derived either from excitement of curiosity or the rapid flow of narration, the striking passages form a larger proportion of their value. I do not adduce it as a fair criterion of comparative excellence, nor do I even think it such; but merely as matter of fact. I affirm, that from no contemporary writer could so many lines be quoted, without reference to the poem in which they are found, for their own independent weight or beauty. From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more and more unalloyed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood.

CHAPTER XXII

The characteristic defects of Wordsworth's poetry, with the principles from which the judgement, that they are defects, is deduced-Their proportion to the beauties-For the greatest part characteristic of his theory only.

IF Mr. Wordsworth have set forth principles of poetry which his arguments are insufficient to support, let him and those who have adopted his sentiments be set right by the confutation of these arguments, and by the substitution of more philosophical principles. And still let the due credit be given to the portion and importance of the truths, which are blended with his theory; truths, the too exclusive attention to which had occasioned its errors, by tempting him to carry those truths beyond their proper limits. If his mistaken theory have at all influenced his poetic compositions, let the effects be pointed out, and the instances given. But let it likewise be shown, how far the influence has acted; whether diffusively, or only by starts; whether the number and importance of the poems and passages thus infected be great or trifling compared with the sound portion; and lastly, whether they are inwoven into the texture of his works, or are loose and separable. The result of such a trial would evince beyond a doubt, what it is high time to announce decisively and aloud, that the supposed characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, whether admired or reprobated; whether they are simplicity or simpleness; faithful adherence to essential nature, or wilful selections from human nature of its meanest forms and under the least attractive associations; are as little the real characteristics of his poetry at large, as of his genius and the constitution of his mind.

In a comparatively small number of poems he chose to try an experiment; and this experiment we will