FROM COLUMBUS. He whom I serve shall vindicate His reign: 373 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland. He was designed by his parents for the church, but after quitting St. John's College, Cambridge, he devoted himself wholly to the cultivation of his poetical genius. A small patrimony and strict economy, with 1 The Spanish government rewarded with neglect and disgrace, Columbus forming the first example, almost all those whose conquests in America had added empires to the Spanish crown.-Many of the Spanish oppressors died violent deaths.-"Almost all," says Las Casas, "have perished: the innocent blood cried aloud for vengeance; the sighs and tears of so many victims went up before God."-Author's note. The prophecy of universal peace and pure Christianity in these countries is of course yet to be fulfilled. 2 Historians have enumerated her American possessions among the causes of the decline of the Spanish monarchy.-Robertson. latterly the appointment, through Lord Lonsdale, to the office of stamp distributor (the duties of which he could chiefly discharge by deputy) enabled Wordsworth, to indulge for half a century the noble occupation of his mind, amidst the congenial scenery of his native country. In 1835 the poet received a pension of £300 a-year from Sir R. Peel's government; he was allowed to resign his situation of stamp distributor to his son, and, on the death of Mr. Southey, he received the laureateship. In 1838 and 1839 he was complimented with the honorary degree of Doctor in Civil Law by the Universities of Durham and Oxford. A life of seclusion, like Wordsworth's, presents no incidents. At Rydal Mount, so long his residence, he lived apart among his hills, and surveyed with a philosopher's eye the tempest of the world, undisturbed except by hostile criticism. He died in 1850, on the 23d of April, the anniversary also of Shakespeare's death, and, according to tradition, of his birth. No man, perhaps, ever made poetry, not merely the constructive part of the art, but its whole feelings and contemplations, so completely his occupation. His youth fell fortunately in an age when the poetical literature of England had begun to revive; but the criticism of the times, independently of political animosities, did not yet seem to have tempered its taste to the novel music of the "Lake" bards.1 Cowper, and Burns, and Crabbe had struck out new paths, and the academic steps of Wordsworth followed their track into nature with such literal fidelity as to border on the practical exaggeration of his own theory respecting the extent of field and minuteness of variety afforded by nature for the purposes of poetry. His new poetical experiment, in which Mr. Coleridge shared, appeared in the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The poet and his associated friends struggled firmly against the ridicule and hostility which their "school" drew down on them; and their perseverance has been rewarded by the popularity of much that was mercilessly derided. The feelings touched by some of these pieces, their pathos, and truth to nature, fixed them in popular estimation. Mr. Wordsworth's great work, "The Excursion," is a portion of a philosophical poem (never completed), entitled "The Recluse," " containing views of man, nature, and society," "having for its principal object the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. The part published presents a group of beautiful and profound thoughts,—of splendid and pathetic descriptions, united by a slight narrative, resulting from the poet's accidentally meeting a Scottish pedlar, "the grey-haired Wanderer," whose peculiar education has made him a moralist, a philosopher, and a Christian. They join, and are joined by, other personages, and the poem consists chiefly of a semi-dramatic exchange of argument and sentiment among the characters. The moral seems to be to justify the ways of God to man, and to encourage the hopes of the wretched beyond the grave. The ethereal metaphysical speculations of the Excursion render the poem often obscure, or at least difficult to be apprehended; but the calm beauty of its pictures of solitude,-of lowly, suffering worth,-the frequent energy and vivacity of its imagery,-and its unceasing heaven 1 From the residence of Wordsworth, Southey, and (for a time) Coleridge, near each other among the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, they and their "school" were termed by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review, the "Lake Poets." 2 See Works, vol. iv., Edit. 1827. 3 Wordsworth's first publications were "An Evening Walk," and "Descriptive Sketches" of the Alps, which appeared in 1793. 4 Consult the noble "Prospectus" of the design, Works, vol. v., Preface, Edit. 1827. WORDSWORTH. 375 ward enthusiasm,—are qualities that stamp it with the seal of one of the noblest of imaginations. Many of Mr. Wordsworth's smaller poems are "flowers fresh with childhood ;" and among those of a more extended aim, what, in grace of delineation, or delicacy of fancy, can equal "Ruth;" in affecting simplicity of circumstantial lineament of things in themselves morally and poetically beautiful, than "Michael," or the "Cumberland Beggar?" and in "Tintern Abbey," the whole sympathies of the poet's nature, in reference to the relation of man to the external world, are poured forth. The Sonnets of Wordsworth are among the most finished and perfect in the language. If Cowper has taught the new generation to renew the habit of looking "at nature," the telescopic power of Wordsworth's poetry has vastly extended our sphere of vision, -has brought the minutest and the nearest, as well as the most distant, the vastest and most undefined objects, within the sphere of our sympathies, has widened the glance of faith, and hope, and charity,-and has given to the "humblest daisy on the mountain-side," not merely "a voice to bid the doubting sons of men be still,”—the cold tongue of dogmatic theology might do this,-but a voice with the power of the Mosaic rod, to draw from the heart the waters of all that is holy in piety, pure in affection, and hopeful and consoling amidst the sorrows and cares of humanity. In Wordsworth's poetry the soul of man animates nature, as, in the Platonic philosophy, the Deity was the innate spirit of the universe. Nature inhabits him, and he inhabits nature, with a reciprocity of life-giving influence. "The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, An appetite, a feeling, and a love. That had no need of a remoter charm." Byron and Burns seem beings apart from Nature; to their enjoyment she holds the cup, accepted by one with haughty disdain, or drained with the sullen gratification of selfish passion,-by the other with hearty and benevolent relish of the enjoyment, but with the eagerness that deadens and destroys while it gratifies. Wordsworth shares her "boonness" with herself, as if the very flowers were conscious of his verse; "using," Christian-like, "as not abusing. In estimating the spirit and tendency of Wordsworth's poetry, we have looked on its better side, and have disregarded its defects, arising from the original peculiarity of his poetical theory. Coleridge, who almost worshipped Wordsworth, has left, in his "Biographia Literaria," a philosophical and critical estimate of the poet; and, from the extent to which Wordsworth's style of expression and mode of thought have penetrated our subsequent poetical literature, we may reasonably predict that posterity will, in great measure, approve the criticism of his friend. Wordsworth, late in life, published, in six volumes, a classified collection of his works, which he was fond of viewing as parts of an architectural whole, and wished to be judged as such. The pieces are distributed into, -I. Poems referring to Childhood; II. Poems founded on the Affections; III. Poems of the Fancy; IV. Poems of the Imagination; V. Sonnets, Inscriptions, etc. : all forming, as it were, "the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses" of the "Gothic Church" to be reared in "The Recluse." 1 See Virg., Æn. vi. 724. "Weak is the will of man, his judgment blind, Remembrance persecutes, and hope betrays; Heavy is woe, and joy for human kind A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!" Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days, Who wants the glorious faculty assign'd, To elevate the more than reasoning mind, And colour life's dark cloud with orient rays. LONDON AT SUNRISE. Imagination is that sacred power, 'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of Faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind LONDON AT SUNRISE. Earth has not anything to show more fair: Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC. Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, ODE. 377 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, |