tention to the subject, how they may improve themselves by the poem, and unlock all its treasures of noble and benevolent emotions. The principles, then, which seem to us to shine like a glory round every page of true poetry, and which the present work seems principally intended to enforce, are these; that whatsoever material or temporary exists before our senses, is capable of being associated, in our minds, with something spiritual and eternal; that such associations tend to ennoble and purify the heart; lastly, that the end of descriptive verse is to make them habitual to our minds, and its business, to unfold and exem plify them; to teach men to "Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Or, as one hath sung yet more divinely, "Man is the world's high-priest, and doth present Unto the service mutter an assent, Such as springs use that fall, and winds that blow." Whosoever shall act up to these words in their full import, as Mr. Wordsworth has done, must of course expect to be laughed down by those whose imaginations are too dull to perceive, and whose hearts are too hard to feel aught beyond the hurry and the bustle of the world around them; by those, who can perceive no joy in communing with themselves, or with the works of nature; who like Fleet-street as well as Valcluse, and the Canal in St. James's Park better than Windermere; whose minds are set upon intrigues and fees, business and bustle, places and preferments, and all the toilsome varieties of digging and delving, which " the least erected spirit that fell" exacts of his votaries. To such as these the retired poet cannot speak : they have not learned the alphabet of his language; but there are many of better and more honest feelings, delighted according to rule by scenery and verse, who are yet so startled by the new and abtruse combinations which this principle has produced, that they throw the book aside in disgust, pronouncing the author puerile or unintelligible; whom, if they had met with earlier in life, before their habits of criticism were formed, they would readily have excused and admired him. These are the men to whom we would fain speak a good word for Mr. Wordsworth and his theory; and, as among them one argument from authority is worth two from speculation, we will refer them in the first place to the direct testimony and example of some of the brightest luminaries of the land. Bishop Hall shall be the first, who, in his Proeme to Occasionall Meditations, thus in few words delivers the rule in question: Gg 2 "Our "Our active soul can no more forbear to think, than the eye, can chuse but see when it is open. To doe well, no object should. pass us without use; every thing that we see reads us new lectures of wisdom and piety. It is a shame for a man to be ignorant or godless under so many teachers. For me, I would not wish to live longer than I shall be the better for my eyes: and have thought it thankworthy thus to teach weak minds to improve their thoughts upon all like occasions." But the great teacher as well as exemplar of this branch of Christian discipline was Robert Boyle, whose preface to his Occasional Reflections is as sound in philosophy, as the work itself is rich in poetry and devotion. He has there shewn at large the good effects of the habit on the mind and heart, comprehending all in one word, " heavenly mindedness." There he has taught us to make the whole world a school of wisdom, to transmute every pebble that lies in our way into a precious jewel, every chance breath of air into a whisper from heaven. The exclusion of proud and impure thoughts from the imagination is the least advantage which we might thus ensure to ourselves. The heart also would be partaker of the benefit; for the influence of these two is always reciprocal, and with whatsoever we engage our fancy long, that is sure to become, if within our reach, an object of our hopes or fears. Moreover, by considering all things sensible with respect to some higher power, we are more likely to get an insight into final causes, and all the wonderful ways of Providence; and, above all, it tends to give an habitual sense of the presence of God. "In a word, when the devout soul is come to make that true use of the creatures, as to look upon them as men do upon water, that the sun gilds with his beams; that is, not so much for itself as for the reflective virtue it has to represent a more glorious object: and when she has, by long practice, accustomed herself to spi. ritualize all the objects and accidents that occur to her, I see not why that practice may not be one of the most effectual means for making good that magnificent assertion of the apostle, That all things work together for good to them that love God:' a devout occasional meditation, from how low a theme soever it takes its rise, being like Jacob's ladder, whereof though the foot leaned on the earth, the top reached up to heaven *." The poetical use of this habit is no less obvious than its religious and moral application. Such as may be willing with us to believe, that poetry has for its object the teaching man truth through the fancy and the affections, or, as the same hath been Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 161. folio. far far better expressed; that its essence is "impassioned imaginative reason:" these will be at no loss to discern how needful it is that the poet should form such associations, before the description of natural objects can form any part of his work. It is bringing fire from heaven to mix up with the clay, ere the Promethean rod can give it life and motion. In proportion as it is successfully practised, all things material become invested with the splendours of mind: till in the end not a form, not a colour, not a motion in the boundless landscape of nature, animate and inanimate, but is waited on by some feeling of the heart, or some shadow bodied forth by the imagination. And whereas the external or historical delineation of each object can be but one, the treasures of poetical description, thus conducted, are as various and inexhaustible as the workings of the mind of man. But even waving what may be paradoxical in this doctrine, and avoiding any discussion which may call up that question with a thousand answers, What is poetry? it may be enough to consider, that in painting with words, no less than with colours, those artists are always considered as the best, who make us feel as well as see their work, and excite sympathy as well as admiration. It would be a very engaging task to trace the progress of descriptive poetry with a view to this principle, to mark how the great hierophants of nature have instinctively used it as the true key to her high mysteries, and how among her inferior minis ters it has had more or less influence according to circumstances of age, nation, and character. Ancient Greece, the land of fair forms, delicious airs, and leisurely contemplative habit, availed herself of it both in her poetry and her mythology to the utter most that her corrupt religion would allow. "In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretch'd And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanc'd to hear By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked The Romans were too busy in governing the world; their skies were less serene, and their religion more civil and less imaginative than the Greek. Accordingly, we find the descriptions of their minor poets in general less touching. "The woods and shores are forsaken of their nymphs; From haunted spring, and dale Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent." The influence of the sister art is too apparent: the work is beautiful in its kind, but it lies lifeless before us. This is too often the case in all the Latin poets that we know, except the two mighty enchanters, Virgil and Lucretius, whose descriptions each in their kind possess absolute sway over us, the one by his sweetness captivating the heart; the other by his awfulness thrilling and overpowering the imagination. When poetry revived in modern Europe, superstition had again been at work, peopling the landscape with a new set of shadows, and, in copying the visible and external forms of things, it was not possible to leave out the airy drapery of sympathies and fancies, wherewith she had invested them. One principal reason, why the descriptions of the Italians and of our own best and oldest bards do so thoroughly enthrall the mind, may be this; that when they wrote, the impressions of chivalrous and monastic enthusiasm were not quite worn out of the surface of nature, and every tree and every spring was haunted by remembrances of love and piety. At the same time, the spirit of the age exercising them in free enquiry, they were ever striking out new combinations, and searching all the depths of analogy; whence it came to pass that they were at once the most imaginative and the most philosophical of all observers; and if ever the archetype of perfect descriptive poetry was present in man's mind, it was extracted from the pages of the poets in the days of Elizabeth, and he who framed it for himself was Milton. But the blaze of that day was too bright to last: in the next generation, aided by artificial manners and a satirical, heartless spirit spirit of criticism, the form of poetry begun to encroach on its substance, and scenes were described for the mere sake of describing them, on the same principle that versification was turned into a game of battledore and shuttlecock; the reader's desire of amusement at the least possible expence of thought, producing, in the writer, an effort to make the pleasure derivable from his work as near to that of mere animal sensation as might be. Yet many men of sense and spirit were reconciled to the couplet style, by the strong lines which it occasionally produced, forgetting (the exclusive admirers of Dryden especially) that mere condensation of thought is not poetry, and that the true Pierian spring flows bright and pure, as well as deep. The shackles however were burst by Thomson and Collins and Akenside, and, since their day, the works of nature have not wanted observers able and willing to deduce from them-lessons, which Providence, if we may speak it without presumption, intended them to convey. But none have ever entered so profoundly into this theory of their art as those commonly known by the name of the Lake Poets, particularly Mr. Wordsworth, who being by nature endowed with feelings of exquisite delicacy, by fortune placed in the very palace of solitude and contemplation, by education and habit taught to love what is lovely, and revere what is sacred, has made it his daily and hourly business to spiritualize all sensible objects; and hath not been afraid or ashamed of reflecting seriously and deeply (for there is surely room for deep and serious reflection) on the humblest and most trivial accidents of scenery and character. What he has thus felt, he has made known with too little respect for "the age of sophists, œconomists, and calculators ;" and often, we must in earnest allow, with too manifest a disregard of the common notions of men on poetical subjects. Still, that he is not so thoroughly heretical as many suppose; that where he is wrong, he is wrong by the misapplication of right principles, not by the wilful adoption of erroneous ones, and that where he excels, he excels in the highest kind, even in the walks of Milton and Spenser, and all those who have immortalized the perishable things which they described, by joining them with the eternal things which all hope or imagine; these are positions which we find forcing themselves more and more on our minds, the more diligently we study his works, and compare them with the remains of those mighty masters. We have thought proper to preface our remarks on the Excursion with a statement of this principle, which seems to us the key to most of its intricacies and many of its highest beauties. But let us take the author's own exposition of it. * Trust 1 |