I might quote almost the whole of his 'RUTH,' but take the following stanzas: But, as you have before been told, So beautiful, through savage lands The wind, the tempest roaring high, For him, a youth to whom was given Whatever in those climes he found A kindred impulse, seemed allied Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, The breezes their own languor lent; Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween For passions, linked to forms so fair And stately, needs must have their share Of noble sentiment. But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compositions, which already form three-fourths of his works; and will, I trust, constitute hereafter a still larger proportion ;-from these, whether in rhyme or blank-verse, it would be difficult and almost superfluous to select instances of a diction peculiarly his own, of a style which cannot be imitated, without its being at once recognised, as originating in Mr. Wordsworth. It would not be easy to open on any one of his loftier strains, that does not contain examples of this; and more in proportion as the lines are more excellent, and most like the author. For those, who may happen to have been less familiar with his writings, I will give three specimens taken with little choice. The first from the lines on the BOY OF WINANDER-MERE,-who Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him. And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, 6 1 1 Mr. Wordsworth's having judiciously adopted concourse wild' in this passage for a wild scene' as it stood in the former edition, encourages me to hazard a remark, which I certainly should not have made in the works of a poet less austerely accurate in the use of the words, than he is, to his own great honor. It respects the propriety of the word 'scene' even in the sentence in which it is retained. DRYDEN, and he only in his more careless verses, was the first, as far as my researches have discovered, who for the convenience of rhyme used this word in the vague sense, which has been since too current even in our best writers, and which (unfortunately, I think) is given as its first explanation in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, and there Would enter unawares into his mind Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received The second shall be that noble imitation of Drayton1 (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, 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, Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud Did mightily commend old COPLAND for her song. DRAYTON'S POLYOLBION: Song XXX. 6 Took up the lady's voice, and laughed again! 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; Is the longing of the shield Tell thy name, thou trembling field !— 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 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 6 |