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don " gone to the earth!" How many risen up whose "statures reach the sky!" Dead is the old king in his darkness, whom all England loved and reverenced. Princes have died, and some of them left not a name— mighty men of war have sunk, with all their victories and all their trophies, vainly deemed immortal, into oblivion ! -Mute is the eloquence of Pitt's and of Canning's voice! In that Abbey, the thought of whose sacred silence did often touch his high heart, when all his fleet was moored in peace, or bearing down in line of battle, now Nelson sleeps! And thousands, unknown and unhonoured, as wise, or brave, in themselves as good and as great as those whose temples fame hath crowned with everlasting halo, have dropt the body, and gone to God. How many thousand fairest faces, brightest eyes, have been extinguished and faded quite away! Fairer and brighter far to him whose youth they charmed and illumined, than any eyes that shall ever more gaze on the flowers of earth, or the stars of heaven!

Methinks the western sun shines cooler in the garden -that the shades are somewhat deepened-that the birds are not hopping round our head, as they did some hour ago that in their afternoon siesta they are mute. Another set of insects are in the air. The flowers, that erewhile were broad and bright awake, with slumbering eyne are now hanging down their heads; and those that erewhile seemed to slumber, have awoke from their day-dreams, and look almost as if they were going to speak. Have you a language of your own-dear creatures-for we know that ye have loves? But, hark, the gong-the gong! in the hand of John, smiting it like the slave of some Malay-chief. In our paradise there is "fear that dinner cool," mortal man must eat-and thus endeth

"OUR MIDSUMMER-DAY'S DREAM.”

AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY AND THE WRITINGS

OF WORDSWORTH.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1829.)

PART I.

IT appears to me that the poetry of Wordsworth, always estimated too rapturously, or too virulently depreciated, has never been placed on its proper level. "Then, of course," cries the critic, "you imagine yourself competent to fix it in its appropriate station." If I were to say no, you would not believe me; and if I say yes, I go beyond the truth. A man, when he professes to treat of a subject, is always supposed, by courtesy, to be master of that subject. He is obliged to place himself in the situation of a teacher, and to regard those whom he addresses as his pupils, although he may be conscious that his powers are below those of some who grant him their attention. This compelled tone of superiority, this involuntary dictatorship, must, more especially, be admitted as an excuse for laying down the law in matters of taste. Subjects of science, indeed, may be handled with precision; and any one, after going through a certain course of study and experiment may, without arrogance, assert, "These things are so." Moral and sacred subjects again may appeal to a fixed standard. But subjects that relate to taste and feeling, admit not of such exactness. In these every man is a law unto himself, and he who sets himself up for a lecturer on taste can, after all, only give his own opinion, and leave others to adopt it or not, according to their several notions of right and wrong, beauty and deformity. One qualification, at least, I possess for the task I have undertaken. I have read, as I believe, every line that Wordsworth ever published. Critic, canst thou say as much?

My first endeavour will be to show that Wordsworth's genius is overrated by his partisans; my second, that it is underrated by his detractors.

Although Wordsworth has never been a popular poet, in the extended sense of the word, yet what he has lacked in the number of his admirers, has been made up to him by the intensity of adoration which his few worshippers have displayed. A true disciple of his school said to me, "I call the poetry of Wordsworth an actual revelation ;" and I have heard others assert that his writings were able to work a moral change in any zealous peruser of them. This may seem strange to those who only know Wordsworth's poetry through the medium of passages quoted from the Lyrical Ballads, or perhaps by the imitation of his style in the Rejected Addresses-an imitation which does not possess one true characteristic of his manner. It is the mixture of philosophy with low and humble subjects which is the real peculiarity of Wordsworth's poetry-not, as some persons imagine, a mere childishness both of thought and meaning. It is on Wordsworth's faith, as viewed in connexion with its poetical practice, that his admirers found his claim to great and original excellence, and they thence derive their prediction, that by the side of Milton his station will be awarded him by posterity. Unlike other poets who leave their principles of composition to be deduced from their works, Wordsworth lays down certain principles, of which he professes his poetry to be an illustration. He is a theorist, as well as a poet, and may be considered as much the founder of a sect as Plato or Pythagoras. This connexion between his peculiar notions and his verse obliges me to consider how far his theory is original, how far it is just, and with what success he has illustrated it in his compositions. I must, however, premise, that the very idea of fabricating poetry according to a set theory, is an unhappy one. That a thing, which should both proceed from, and address itself to, the feelings -which ought to be an inspiration and a divine madness -should mete itself out by rule and measure, " regulate its composition by principles," and carefully adapt its language of passion to a code of speech, involves an essential contradiction. Where was Shakspeare's theory when he read

the open book of Nature, and transcribed her pages upon his own? Where was Milton's theory when he was rapt above the empyrean, and smote his mighty harp in answer to the sounding spheres? Where was the theory of Burns when he lived, loved, suffered, and wrote? And where, may I ask, is Wordsworth's theory when he writes well? That he has written well, even gloriously, I allow. That he has written well in consequence of his theory, I deny.

But let us inquire what his theory is. Our author tells us that his first volume of poems was published "as an experiment, how far by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure, and that quantity of pleasure, might be imparted, which a poet may rationally endeavour to impart." If these words be taken in their literal sense, it appears to me that the experiment was scarcely worth the making; for the desired fact might have been ascertained by merely considering, that those parts of Shakspeare which convey the most general pleasure, are the real language of men under the agency of some strong passion. The touching expression of Macduff, "He has no children;" the thrilling exclamation of Othello over the body of Desdemona, "My wife!-What wife?--I have no wife!" are sufficient to show that the simplest language of men, when strongly moved, may give pleasure of the most exquisite kind. I say pleasure, for though the words themselves produce a mournful impression, yet the predominating feeling is pleasure to see Nature's language so truly imitated. Ballads also without end, in which the real language of men is still more metrically arranged, would have decided the same question, for compositions of this sort, from Chevy Chase to Black-eyed Susan and Auld Robin Gray, have ever been, like the simple and original melodies which are ground about the streets on every handorgan, the darlings of mankind, in every class. But if, by the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, Wordsworth meant the complaints of a child in despair at seeing her cloak caught in a chaise-wheel, or the agonies and ecstasies of a foolish poor woman who sent her idiot son for a doctor on a moonlight night, he might have convinced himself that no pleasing result would ensue, by

merely inquiring whether the gustatory ejaculations of a society of aldermen over a bowl of turtle, would give pleasure if reduced to metre. For these are also unquestionably "the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation."

Wordsworth, however, seems to have considered that this experiment succeeded rather beyond his expectations; and having "pleased a greater number than he ventured to hope he should please," he is encouraged to proceed in the same path, and to explain the object which he proposed to himself more particularly. Disentangling the chrysalis from the golden threads which his genius has spun around it, I will briefly give the principal points of his system. He chooses "incidents and situations," always from "common," and generally from "low and rustic life." He desires to elucidate the "primary laws," "the great and simple affections of our nature." He intends that each of his poems "should carry along with it a purpose," and "that the feeling therein developed should give importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling;" and lastly, he professes to reject "what is usually called poetic diction," and to "cut him. self off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech, which, from father to son, have long been regarded as the common inheritance of poets."

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I own that I can see nothing very original in these objects proposed-little that has not been done before, and by others. The chief originality seems to consist in the formal declaration of the poet's intentions, and in his restricting himself to one department of his province. As I remarked before, "incidents and situations in common life" have generally pleased, as coming home to every man's business and bosom. No tragedy is received with more tears, or with more applause than the Gamester. To go a step farther, Burns, in carolling the joys, and sorrows, and simple loves of rustic life, has found an echo in every heart. The songs of Dibdin are on every lip. Shentone's Schoolmistress is allowedly his best poem. Crabbe extracts humour and pathos from the most trite and homely adventures. As to Wordsworth's declaration, that each of his poems has a worthy purpose, he himself asserts,

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