can be selected as many examples of the true power of imagination, as defined by Talfourd, as animate, we had. almost said, a whole book of "The Excursion;" and it is equally true, that the images themselves are as likely to be the embodiment of restlessness, discontent, pantheistic abstractions, and other "spiritualities" of our nature, as ideas, feelings, and sentiments springing from a harmonized heart and brain. Indeed, the illustrations from Shakspeare, which, in the essay on Wordsworth, Talfourd adduces as instances of the highest exercise of the faculty, are nothing more than the throes of the imagination in a mind either turbulently confused, or fixedly and sullenly misanthropic, -as with Lear in his ecstasies of passion, or Timon in his intensest hatred of his kind. And it is a curious fact, that, in the composition of these dramas, Shakspeare himself was expressing, to some extent, the gloom of his own great soul, when it was in a condition altogether inharmonious and unWordsworthian. Hallam very acutely remarks, "There seems to have been a period of Shakspeare's life when his heart was ill at ease and ill-content with the world or his own conscience; the memory of hours misspent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen associates, by choice or circumstances, peculiarly teaches; these, as they sunk down into the depths of his great mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear and Timon, but that of one primary character, the censurer of mankind." He then proves that the plays in which this misanthropical spirit is manifested, "As You Like It," "Hamlet," "Measure for Measure," "Timon," and "Lear," all belong to one period, between 1600 and 1604. After this time, "Shakspeare

never returned to this type of character in the personages."

It can hardly be denied that Wordsworth possesses the power of imagination in a high degree; but it can be denied that the seeming harmonious action of his mind results from his possession of it. Talfourd, in another connection, has a sentence, which, to us, seems to explain the whole matter. Speaking of Mackenzie's sentimental style, he observes: "Its consecrations are altogether drawn from the soul. The gentle tinges which it casts on human life are shed, not from the imagination or fancy, but from the affections." This is true of much that is poetical in Wordsworth. His mind, by original constitution and the circumstances attending its culture, from the predominance of the gentler affections over the passions, and of the musing and meditative over the impulsive portion of his nature, is less unrestful and stormy than the minds of the large majority of great poets. But whether it be more richly gifted with a shaping imagination, is altogether a different question, with which the rounded harmony of his powers and affections has little to do. Indeed, to give imagination the office not only of expressing thought and feeling in pictures and characters, but of exercising likewise all those functions which belong to volition, conscience, the affections, and the religious sentiment, is to violate all metaphysical propriety.

To assert that the imagination can never reflect the unreal, or be the spring of any "irregularities of genius," can never throw a deceptive hue over outward objects, and lead the mind astray, can never pander to lust and "link vice to a radiant angel,”. - is to give the lie direct to the "Lives of the Poets." The imagination

can, it is true, embody truth and goodness in the shapes and hues of grandeur and beauty; but it can do, and it has done, the same to licentiousness, scepticism, and misanthropy. This is generally called imagination perverted; but in Talfourd's system, the faculty is essentially incapable of perversion. If the poetic faculty had always been employed in the service of truth and goodness, - if, by its very nature, it were pure, and beyond the touch and stain of bad passions, if all its creations were unsullied by sin, the objections which many good and respectable, but somewhat narrow-minded, people entertain for what are called works of the imagination, would be the most senseless prejudices ever held by human beings.

We have considered Talfourd's views on this subject at some length, because they materially influence the character of his criticisms, especially upon the impulsive poets of the school of Byron and Shelley. He is not, it must be confessed, always consistent. in the application of his principles; but they are still obstinately obtruded upon the reader's attention, and arouse at last that nervous opposition, which a smooth and pleasant sophism, pranked out in the purple and fine linen of language, would at first fail to excite. We also object to his theory on another ground. It is the parent of much cant, which is growing into fashion among many of our own writers, about the inherent religion of poetry. Every young bard who stains foolscap with octo-syllabic or sevensyllabled verse, squeaking with "utterances " and "morning glories," is in danger of conceiving himself, by virtue of his imagination, "a sinless child;" and in men of a higher order of mind, it is working a graver evil, by inducing them to exalt poetry above the Bible, — to deny

altogether the inspiration of the New Testament, even in its sublime promises, and to believe altogether in the inspiration of Shakspeare, even in his puns and indecencies.

As far as our author's criticisms are influenced by his championship of Wordsworth, they are at least able and eloquent. His opinions appear formed from a longcontinued brooding over the works on which he dilates. The essay on the writings of Wordsworth is one of the most beautiful tributes of admiring gratitude ever paid to genius; and, although excessive in the strain of its eulogy, and containing some questionable principles of taste, cannot be read without delight, even by poetical sectarians. The finest passage is that in which he vindicates his master from the charge of displaying bad taste, both in the choice of his themes and in his rejection of the usual blandishments of diction.

"But most of the subjects of Mr. Wordsworth, though not arrayed in any adventitious pomp, have a real and innate grandeur. True it is, that he moves not among the regalities, but among the humanities, of his art. True it is, that his poetry does not make its bed and procreant cradle' in the jutting frieze, cornice, or architrave of the glorious edifices of human power. The universe in its naked majesty, and man in the plain dignity of his nature, are his favorite themes. And is there no might, no glory, no sanctity, in these? Earth has her own venerablenesses, — her awful forests, which have darkened her hills for ages with tremendous gloom; her mysterious springs, pouring out everlasting waters from unsearchable recesses; her wrecks of elemental contests; her jagged rocks, monumental of an earlier world. The lowliest of her beauties has an antiquity beyond that of the pyramids. The evening breeze has the old sweetness which it shed over the fields of Canaan, when Isaac went out to meditate. The Nile swells with its rich waters towards the bulrushes of Egypt, as when

the infant Moses nestled among them, watched by the sisterly love of Miriam. Zion's hill has not passed away with its temple, nor lost its sanctity amidst the tumultuous changes around it, nor even by the accomplishment of that awful religion of types and symbols, which once was enthroned on its steeps. The sun to which the poet turns his eye is the same which shone over Thermopylæ; and the wind to which he listens swept over Salamis, and scattered the armaments of Xerxes." -p. 129.

The essay on the genius of Scott is discriminating and well written. Indeed, there is hardly one among the twenty-three essays and reviews which form the Philadelphia collection of Talfourd's writings, which will not repay a careful perusal. If they do not belong to the stimulative class of compositions, neither can they be ranked among the narcotics. Perhaps the term "sedative" would describe them best. The richness of the author's mind and heart is lavished upon all. A fine detecting sense of moral and intellectual beauty, -a sensibility both quick and deep, an imagination affluent in images of grace and loveliness, - - a perfect command of ornate and picturesque language, — are manifested in his treatment of every subject; and his occasional fallacies seem to spring from a desire to vindicate those mental qualities intended for the service of goodness and virtue from the obloquy of having ever thrown a false glare around error and crime. In his notices of those poets who have met his moral wants and natural sympathies; who have been for years the cherished companions of his heart, and given voice and shape to his affections and feelings; who have surrounded his path with forms of beauty and grace, and nursed all the tendencies of his nature to pensive musing with gentle and