It draws its nourishment imperceptiblyEndeared my wanderings; and the mother's kiss And infant's smile awaited my return.

In privacy we dwelt, a wedded pair,
Companions daily, often all day long;
Not placed by fortune within easy reach
Of various intercourse, nor wishing aught
Beyond the allowance of our own fire-side,
The twain within our happy cottage born,
Inmates, and heirs of our united love;
Graced mutually by difference of sex,
And with no wider interval of time

Between their several births than served for one
To establish something of a leader's sway;
Yet left them joined by sympathy in age;
Equals in pleasure, fellows in pursuit.
On these two pillars rested as in air
Our solitude.

It soothes me to perceive,
Your courtesy withholds not from my words
Attentive audience. But, oh! gentle Friends,
As times of quiet and unbroken peace,
Though, for a nation, times of blessedness,
Give back faint echoes from the historian's page;
So, in the imperfect sounds of this discourse,
Depressed I hear, how faithless is the voice
Which those most blissful days reverberate.
What special record can, or need, be given
To rules and habits, whereby much was done,
But all within the sphere of little things;
Of humble, though, to us, important cares,
And precious interests? Smoothly did our life
Advance, swerving not from the path prescribed;
Her annual, her diurnal, round alike
Maintained with faithful care.
The worst effects that our condition saw
If you imagine changes slowly wrought,
And in their progress unperceivable;

And you divine

Not wished for; sometimes noticed with a sigh,
(Whate'er of good or lovely they might bring)
Sighs of regret, for the familiar good
And loveliness endeared which they removed.

Seven years of occupation undisturbed Established seemingly a right to hold That happiness; and use and habit gave To what an alien spirit had acquired A patrimonial sanctity. And thus, With thoughts and wishes bounded to this world, I lived and breathed; most grateful-if to enjoy Without repining or desire for more,

For different lot, or change to higher sphere, (Only except some impulses of pride

With no determined object, though upheld
By theories with suitable support)——
Most grateful, if in such wise to enjoy
Be proof of gratitude for what we have ;
Else, I allow, most thankless.-But, at once,
From some dark seat of fatal power was urged
A claim that shattered all.-Our blooming girl,
Caught in the gripe of death, with such brief time
To struggle in as scarcely would allow

Her cheek to change its colour, was conveyed
From us to inaccessible worlds, to regions
Where height, or depth, admits not the approach
Of living man, though longing to pursue.
-With even as brief a warning-and how soon,
With what short interval of time between,
I tremble yet to think of-our last prop,
Our happy life's only remaining stay-
The brother followed; and was seen no more!

Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds
Blow fiercely, agitating earth and sky,
The Mother now remained; as if in her,
Who, to the lowest region of the soul,
Had been erewhile unsettled and disturbed,
This second visitation had no power
To shake; but only to bind up and seal
And to establish thankfulness of heart
In Heaven's determinations, ever just.
The eminence whereon her spirit stood,
Mine was unable to attain. Immense
The space that severed us! But, as the sight
Communicates with heaven's ethereal orbs
Incalculably distant; so, I felt

That consolation may descend from far
(And that is intercourse, and union, too,)
While, overcome with speechless gratitude,
And, with a holier love inspired, I looked
On her at once superior to my woes
And partner of my loss.-O heavy change!
Dimness o'er this clear luminary crept
Insensibly; the immortal and divine
Yielded to mortal reflux; her pure glory,
As from the pinnacle of worldly state
Wretched ambition drops astounded, fell
Into a gulf obscure of silent grief,
And keen heart-anguish-of itself ashamed,
Yet obstinately cherishing itself:
And, so consumed, she melted from my arms;
And left me, on this earth, disconsolate!

What followed cannot be reviewed in thought; Much less, retraced in words. If she, of life Blameless, so intimate with love and joy And all the tender motions of the soul,

Enough if notions seemed to be high-pitched,
And qualities determined.-Among men
So charactered did I maintain a strife
Hopeless, and still more hopeless every hour;
But, in the process, I began to feel
That, if the emancipation of the world
Were missed, I should at least secure my own,
And be in part compensated. For rights,
Widely-inveterately usurped upon,

I spake with vehemence; and promptly seized
All that Abstraction furnished for my needs
Or purposes; nor scrupled to proclaim,
And propagate, by liberty of life,

Those new persuasions. Not that I rejoiced,
Or even found pleasure, in such vagrant course,
For its own sake; but farthest from the walk
Which I had trod in happiness and peace,
Was most inviting to a troubled mind;
That, in a struggling and distempered world,
Saw a seductive image of herself.

Yet, mark the contradictions of which Man
Is still the sport! Here Nature was my guide,
The Nature of the dissolute; but thee,
O fostering Nature! I rejected-smiled
At others' tears in pity; and in scorn

At those, which thy soft influence sometimes drew
From my unguarded heart.-The tranquil shores
Of Britain circumscribed me; else, perhaps
I might have been entangled among deeds,
Which, now, as infamous, I should abhor-
Despise, as senseless: for my spirit relished
Strangely the exasperation of that Land,
Which turned an angry beak against the down
Of her own breast; confounded into hope
Of disencumbering thus her fretful wings.

But all was quieted by iron bonds
Of military sway. The shifting aims,
The moral interests, the creative might,

The varied functions and high attributes

Of civil action, yielded to a power
Formal, and odious, and contemptible.

-In Britain, ruled a panic dread of change;

The weak were praised, rewarded, and advanced;
And, from the impulse of a just disdain,

Once more did I retire into myself.
There feeling no contentment, I resolved
To fly, for safeguard, to some foreign shore,
Remote from Europe; from her blasted hopes;
Her fields of carnage, and polluted air.

Fresh blew the wind, when o'er the Atlantic Main The ship went gliding with her thoughtless crew; And who among them but an Exile, freed

From discontent, indifferent, pleased to sit
Among the busily-employed, not more
With obligation charged, with service taxed,
Than the loose pendant-to the idle wind
Upon the tall mast streaming. But, ye Powers
Of soul and sense mysteriously allied,
O, never let the Wretched, if a choice
Be left him, trust the freight of his distress

To a long voyage on the silent deep!
For, like a plague, will memory break out;
And, in the blank and solitude of things,
Upon his spirit, with a fever's strength,
Will conscience prey.-Feebly must they have felt
Who, in old time, attired with snakes and whips
The vengeful Furies. Beautiful regards
Were turned on me -the face of her I loved;
The Wife and Mother pitifully fixing
Tender reproaches, insupportable!
Where now that boasted liberty? No welcome
From unknown objects I received; and those,
Known and familiar, which the vaulted sky
Did, in the placid clearness of the night,
Disclose, had accusations to prefer
Against my peace. Within the cabin stood
That volume as a compass for the soul-
Revered among the nations. I implored
Its guidance; but the infallible support
Of faith was wanting. Tell me, why refused
To One by storms annoyed and adverse winds;
Perplexed with currents; of his weakness sick;
Of vain endeavours tired; and by his own,
And by his nature's, ignorance, dismayed!

Long-wished-for sight, the Western World appeared;

And, when the ship was moored, I leaped ashore Indignantly-resolved to be a man,

Who, having o'er the past no power, would live
No longer in subjection to the past,

With abject mind-from a tyrannic lord
Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured:

So, like a fugitive, whose feet have cleared
Some boundary, which his followers may not cross
In prosecution of their deadly chase,
Respiring I looked round.-How bright the sun,
The breeze how soft! Can any thing produced
In the old World compare, thought I, for power
And majesty with this gigantic stream,
Sprung from the desert! And behold a city
Fresh, youthful, and aspiring! What are these
To me, or I to them? As much at least
As he desires that they should be, whom winds
And waves have wafted to this distant shore,
In the condition of a damaged seed,

Whose fibres cannot, if they would, take root.
Here may I roam at large ;-my business is,
Roaming at large, to observe, and not to feel
And, therefore, not to act-convinced that all
Which bears the name of action, howsoe'er
Beginning, ends in servitude-still painful,
And mostly profitless. And, sooth to say,
On nearer view, a motley spectacle
Appeared, of high pretensions-unreproved
But by the obstreperous voice of higher still;
Big passions strutting on a petty stage;
Which a detached spectator may regard
Not unamused.--But ridicule demands
Quick change of objects; and, to laugh alone,
At a composing distance from the haunts
Of strife and folly, though it be a treat
As choice as musing Leisure can bestow;
Yet, in the very centre of the crowd,
To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,
Howe'er to airy Demons suitable,

Of all unsocial courses, is least fit

For the gross spirit of mankind, the one
That soonest fails to please, and quickliest turns
Into vexation.

Let us, then, I said,

Leave this unknit Republic to the scourge
Of her own passions; and to regions haste,
Whose shades have never felt the encroaching axe,
Or soil endured a transfer in the mart
Of dire rapacity. There, Man abides,
Primeval Nature's child. A creature weak
In combination, (wherefore else driven back
So far, and of his old inheritance
So easily deprived?) but, for that cause,
More dignified, and stronger in himself;
Whether to act, judge, suffer, or enjoy.
True, the intelligence of social art
Hath overpowered his forefathers, and soon
Will sweep the remnant of his line away;
But contemplations, worthier, nobler far
Than her destructive energies, attend
His independence, when along the side
Of Mississippi, or that northern stream
That spreads into successive seas, he walks;
Pleased to perceive his own unshackled life,
And his innate capacities of soul,

There imaged or when, having gained the top
Of some commanding eminence, which yet
Intruder ne'er beheld, he thence surveys
Regions of wood and wide savannah, vast
Expanse of unappropriated earth,
With mind that sheds a light on what he sees;
Free as the sun, and lonely as the sun,

Pouring above his head its radiance down Upon a living and rejoicing world!

So, westward, tow'rd the unviolated woods I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide, Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird; And, while the melancholy Mucca wiss (The sportive bird's companion in the grove) Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry, I sympathised at leisure with the sound; But that pure archetype of human greatness, I found him not. There, in his stead, appeared A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure; Remorseless, and submissive to no law But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.

:

Enough is told! Here am I-ye have heard
What evidence I seek, and vainly seek ;
What from my fellow-beings I require,
And either they have not to give, or I
Lack virtue to receive; what I myself,
Too oft by wilful forfeiture, have lost
Nor can regain. How languidly I look
Upon this visible fabric of the world,
May be divined-perhaps it hath been said:-
But spare your pity, if there be in me
Aught that deserves respect: for I exist,
Within myself, not comfortless.-The tenour
Which my life holds, he readily may conceive
Whoe'er hath stood to watch a mountain brook
In some still passage of its course, and seen,
Within the depths of its capacious breast,
Inverted trees, rocks, clouds, and azure sky;
And, on its glassy surface, specks of foam,
And conglobated bubbles undissolved,
Numerous as stars; that, by their onward lapse,
Betray to sight the motion of the stream,
Else imperceptible. Meanwhile, is heard
A softened roar, or murmur; and the sound
Though soothing, and the little floating isles
Though beautiful, are both by Nature charged
With the same pensive office; and make known
Through what perplexing labyrinths, abrupt
Precipitations, and untoward straits,

The earth-born wanderer hath passed; and quickly,
That respite o'er, like traverses and toils
Must he again encounter.-Such a stream
Is human Life; and so the Spirit fares
In the best quiet to her course allowed;
And such is mine,-save only for a hope
That my particular current soon will reach
The unfathomable gulf, where all is still!"

DESPONDENCY CORRECTED.

ARGUMENT.

State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative-A belief in a superintending Providence the only adequate support under affliction-Wanderer's ejaculation Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faith-Hence immoderate sorrow-Exhortations-How received— Wanderer applies his discourse to that other cause of dejection in the Solitary's mind-Disappointment from the French Revolution-States grounds of hope, and insists on the necessity of patience and fortitude with respect to the course of great revolutions-Knowledge the source of tranquillity-Rural Solitude favourable to knowledge of the inferior Creatures; Study of their habits and ways recommended; exhortation to bodily exertion and communion with Nature-Morbid Solitude pitiable-Superstition better than apathy-Apathy and destitution unknown in the infancy of society-The various modes of Religion prevented it-Illustrated in the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldean, and Grecian modes of belief-Solitary interposes-Wanderer points out the influence of religious and imaginative feeling in the humble ranks of society, illustrated from present and past times-These principles tend to recal exploded superstitions and popery-Wanderer rebuts this charge, and contrasts the dignities of the Imagination with the

presumptuous littleness of certain modern Philosophers

-Recommends other lights and guides-Asserts the power of the Soul to regenerate herself, Solitary asks how-Reply-Personal appeal-Exhortation to activity of body renewed-How to commune with NatureWanderer concludes with a legitimate union of the imagination, affections, understanding, and reasonEffect of his discourse-Evening; Return to the Cottage.

HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale
His mournful narrative-commenced in pain,
In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains
Of native feeling, grateful to our minds;
And yielding surely some relief to his,
While we sate listening with compassion due.
A pause of silence followed; then, with voice
That did not falter though the heart was moved,
The Wanderer said :-

“One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists one only; an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
--The darts of anguish fix not where the seat

Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the Will supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently, ill-done, or left undone,
To the dishonour of his holy name.

Soul of our Souls, and safeguard of the world!
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recal
Their lost affections unto thee and thine !"

Then, as we issued from that covert nook,
He thus continued, lifting up his eyes
To heaven: How beautiful this dome of sky;
And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed
At thy command, how awful! Shall the Soul,
Human and rational, report of thee
Even less than these?-Be mute who will, who
can,

Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice:
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness!
Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold
Reared for thy presence: therefore, am I bound
To worship, here, and every where- as one
Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread,
From childhood up, the ways of poverty;
From unreflecting ignorance preserved,
And from debasement rescued.-By thy grace
The particle divine remained unquenched;
And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From paradise transplanted: wintry age
Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead!
-Come, labour, when the worn-out frame requires
Perpetual sabbath; come, disease and want;
And sad exclusion through decay of sense;
But leave me unabated trust in thee-
And let thy favour, to the end of life,
Inspire me with ability to seek
Repose and hope among eternal things--
Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich,

And will possess my portion in content!