which had already been immortalized in the lyrics of an equally gifted old woman.

Lord Byron favored these unfounded prejudices by all the means in his power. It was policy in him to profess ignorance of Spenser, and contempt of Wordsworth. His remark on "The Excursion" is characteristic. "It was clumsy, and frowsy, and his aversion." He acknowledged that there was some talent spilt over it; but it was. like rain upon rocks, which falls and stagnates, or rain upon sands, which falls without fertilizing." He knew well how to seize upon those peculiarities of a poet which he thought calculated to be popular, and, after disguising them in the splendid apparel of his own diction, and infusing into them the marvellous energy of his own passions, to represent their original proprietor as worthy only of his lordly sarcasm and disdain. His conduct in this respect reminds us of what Dryden says of Ben Jonson's plagiarisms: "He has done his robberies so openly that we see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in any other poet is only victory in him."

Jeffrey's criticisms on Wordsworth, in the Edinburgh Review, probably contributed more than anything else to the comparative neglect with which his poems were treated by the public. These criticisms it is curious to read now, after they have lost all their sting, and are monuments only of the writer's brilliancy and bitterness. It would be wrong to assert that they do not contain some just remarks; but those who defend them overlook one important fact. Nobody complains that they ridiculed some perversities of the poet's taste, but that they also scoffed at the finest products of his peculiar genius. The "Ode to Duty," and the ode on the "Intimations

of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," receive little better treatment than such couplets as this:

"A household tub, like one of those

Which women use to wash their clothes."

The critique on "The Excursion" is, with all its cleverness, one of the most flippant, shallow, and inconsistent essays ever written. Some of the best passages in the poem, that, for instance, which describes the sensa

tions of the "growing youth,"

"When, from the naked top

Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
and bathe the world in light,".
up,

Rise

are quoted only to be dismissed with the title of "stuff." It is the incapacity to discern merit, not the exposure of a few errors, which has turned these criticisms from satires on Wordsworth to satires on their author. Jeffrey's subtilty was altogether of the understanding. The most refined processes of feeling and imagination were lost upon him. His talents were never employed to more disadvantage than when he attempted to criticize Wordsworth and Coleridge. The commiseration he expresses for the perversions of their genius, when he censures those very passages of their poems which are now considered the signs of their genius, appears at the present day more ludicrous than his most felicitous jests.

But a portion of Wordsworth's unpopularity in former years was undoubtedly owing to the faults of his own temper and disposition. That his writings did not sooner begin their ministry of good to the people, must be attributed in some degree to himself. He gave his adversaries the advantage over him, by adhering to

faults of taste which he knew would be ridiculed. Besides, he had been in his youth a republican. He became afterwards a conservative, and, at times, volunteered his opinions on political matters with no small bitterness of expression. He seemed to rely too much on the "strength of backward-looking thoughts," and to be too deeply impressed with the "care prospective of our wise forefathers," to please an age mad with excitement about the present and the future. His love for England and English institutions was too undiscerning. He celebrated in verse many events which were deemed ominous to the cause of liberty. In truth, when Wordsworth deals with virtue, freedom, justice, and truth, in the abstract, or blends them with majestic images drawn from the sublimest aspects of the universe, no poet can be more grand and impressive; but when he connects these with the acts and policy of the English tory politicians, or with the state and church of England, we are conscious that the analogy is false, if not ludicrous. Many have accordingly classed him with the poets of the past, rather than with the poets of the future, and have denied his claim to rank with those who sing prophecies of a new and better era for humanity. This opinion seems now to prevail, even among those who acknowledge the vast services he has performed to literature, and the importance of the revolution in poetry which he has done so much to achieve.

In our opinion this is a sophism, arising from a confusion of things essentially different. Wordsworth may be a politician of the past, but he is emphatically a poet of the future. We have already alluded to his lack of practical understanding, and his ignorance of the ways of men. He surveyed things through a poetical medium,

and did not, therefore, see them as they are, in the strict meaning of the term. His practical deductions are accordingly incorrect, for his premises are ideal. Lord Bacon's definition of poetry comprehends the whole matter. "Poetry serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And, therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind." Now, Wordsworth, whether he appears to sing of the past or the present, is, in reality, singing of the future. His England of a thousand years past is the Utopia of a thousand years to come. It is false history and true poetry. If he give objective existence to the ideals of his mind in one point of space or time rather than another, the character of the ideal still remains the same. They are ideals which, in fact, have never been realized, and which accordingly relate to some period far in advance of our own. They refer to a state of society, which the lowness of the ideals of many who object to his conservatism incapacitates them from anticipating. If, by some perversity of vision, the poet thinks he sees his aspirations partly realized in a corrupt government or in slavish institutions, the blame is to be laid to his eye, not to his soul.

We will illustrate this by a few extracts. The sixth book of "The Excursion" begins thus:

"Hail to the crown, by Freedom shaped, to gird
An English sovereign's brow! and to the throne
Whereon he sits! whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the people's love."

Now, this is false history. It is true of no government in existence. A politician, of either whig or tory principles, would despise himself for saying so verdant a

thing. It is, in fact, a prophecy of the time when the state will be so pure as to be seated in "veneration and a people's love." The salutation which follows, to the church, is to be interpreted with the same eye to a better condition of the morals and piety of the clergy. That this is the case may be seen from the sonnet to the memory of Milton, in 1802: —

"Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour!
England hath need of thee; she is a fen

Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness."

Here church, state, and the whole society of England, are represented as "a fen of stagnant waters." Now, both representations cannot be true; and yet both were undoubtedly projected from the poet's mind, and are significant, not of the real condition of his country, but of the change in his feelings from despondency to hope. There is no poetical inconsistency between the two. The last represents disgust at the present, arising from a comparison of the present with the ideal; the first represents the ideal projected upon the present. In both cases exaggeration is the natural result.

То prove that Wordsworth is not a poet of the future, we must prove that he did not advance beyond the present. Now, it would be difficult to name any contemporary poet whose ideals are higher than his. Lord Byron is generally considered his superior in this respect, because he had a harsh and jarring string in his lyre, and sang of revolution, and hailed the destruction of tyrants by the sword and the axe. In this respect, we humbly think that he was a poet of the past, for nothing can be