merit entitles him to this eulogy, it will be the object of my present inquiry to determine. With little of the boyish ardour that commonly bespeaks genius, the incidents occurring to Wordsworth in early life were neither many nor striking. At school he failed to distinguish himself beyond others of his age; and at college he disappointed the expectations of his friends. The study of classic literature he therefore gladly relinquished for the more agreeable exercise of English versification. This, however, was but to forego one difficulty for another. The creative faculty he had not; and his imagination was of doubtful character. Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, were unapproachable to him; and to rival his contemporaries, in the true province of poetry, was to undertake a harder task than that of contending with modern schoolmen. What was to be done? He would institute a new poetical code, adapted to his own capacity, and urge its claims, by precept and example, on the consideration of his countrymen. He was master of rhyme; and basing his scheme on simplicity of thought and expression, he conceived that he might, "by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of" what he called "the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation," impart to his verse that charm which it is the poet's study to convey. "The Sparrow's Nest" may conveniently serve to illustrate his theory: and I prefer its insertion to any other of his earlier composition, because the author afterwards said of it "And in this bush our sparrow built her nest, THE SPARROW'S NEST. "Behold, within the leafy shade, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by Together visited." "She looked at it and seemed to fear it; A little Prattler among men. The Blessing of my later years She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; Whatever might be the Poet's seeming confidence in the dogma he sought to establish, it is difficult to suppose that he could review these stanzas, without entertaining many secret misgivings in the success of his labour. For whilst, by common consent, an ornamental phraseology is allowed to be the most appropriate vehicle for the imagination to revel in, he contended, with singular waywardness, that the language of ordinary life, metrically arranged, should constitute the grand distinction of poetry, because such language must, in some degree, be made available to the Poet's use and so repudiating, on principle, the loftiness of diction which, in every age, has been held to embody the very soul of poetry, like the bird, divested of its plumage, he necessarily became a groundling! Conscious of his dilemma, he says those "who have been accustomed to the gaudiness" of other writers, "will look round for poetry, and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title;" and thinking to conciliate his readers, he further observes that "the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and who does not further know, that one being is elevated above another, in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has therefore appeared to me, that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period, a writer can be engaged." Directed to almost any other purpose, these remarks would be well timed; but since poetry addresses itself no less to the passions than to the understanding, they are wholly inapplicable to the subject in question. Nor can their author have wondered at the inflictions with which he was visited on every hand. His theory involved a fundamental error, by which he was restricted to the use of language least of all adapted to his art. And as words are the symbols of thought, it was impossible for him to shine. As well might he have attempted to execute some delicate piece of mechanism without the necessary appliances, as to excel in song, when denying to himself those resources to which all other writers had access. Tropes, metaphors, and similes, he stripped of their native guise, and sent forth bald and perishable as the leafless bay. Thus his profitable exercise of the twofold sense of seeing and hearing, acquired by intercourse with an amiable sister, is acknowledged in metaphorical nakedness that few would be disposed to imitate: "She gave me eyes, she gave me ears." Taking "the Sparrow's Nest" as a model of Wordsworth's style, is it calculated to inspire the reader with respect for his principles? Allowing his "selection of the language really spoken by men," in this instance, to have been "made with true taste and feeling," does the result justify an assurance that such selection" will of itself form a distinction far greater than would at first be imagined, and will entirely separate the composition from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life?" If colloquial usage in the author's neighbourhood sanctioned a phraseology meaner than this, the people around him could hardly have been redeemed from barbarism. Bold as the conclusion may appear, I can attain to no other belief than that the revolution which the late Laureate sought to effect in our national poetry, was the work of necessity, and not of choice. To suppose a man, qualified to write in a strain universally understood to be significant of the highest genius, voluntarily sacrificing himself at the shrine of puerility, is to violate the common instincts of our nature. His verse, moreover, abounds with internal evidence of a cramped, undisciplined mind, feast 4 ing on imaginary greatness: for whilst he maintained that "if the poet's subject be judiciously chosen, it will naturally, and upon fit occasion, lead him to passions the language of which, if selected truly and judiciously, must necessarily be dignified and variegated, and alive with metaphors and figures," I look in vain to his poetry for happy illustrations. Are they discoverable in "Peter Bell," on which twenty years' revision was bestowed? Neither in its general scope, nor in detail, is the poem entitled to commendation; and even had it been, for the most part, well written, the stanza succeeding that in which the hero is said to have tried by artifice" to ease his conscience" would have thrown discredit on the whole. "By this his heart is lighter far; Does like an empty bucket mount." Yet, that the Poet thought "Peter Bell" an invaluable production, will be seen in the following sonnet: "A book came forth of late, called "Peter Bell;" Not negligent the style; the matter? good As aught that song records of Robin Hood; Or Roy, renowned through many a Scottish dell; |