Again :

Incessantly to turn his ear and eye

On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite: nor this alone
Appeased his yearning:-in the after day
Of Boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags
He sate, and even in their fix'd lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppress'd,
Even in their fix'd and steady lineaments
He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
Expression ever varying!-pp. 9, 10, 11.

O then what soul was his, when, on the tops
Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked—
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces did he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ;
Bapt into still communion that transcends

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,

His mind was a thanksgiving to the power

That made him; it was blessedness and love!-pp. 13, 14.

The manner in which a being, so spiritualized by communion with Nature, profited by his connexion with the world of society, is thus shewn.

From his native hills

He wandered far; much did he see of Men,
Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits,
Their passions, and their feelings; chiefly those
Essential and eternal in the heart,

Which, mid the simpler forms of rural life,
Exist more simple in their elements,
And speak a plainer language. In the woods,
A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,
Itinerant in this labour, he had passed,

The better portion of his time; and there
Spontaneously had his affections thriven
Upon the bounties of the year, and felt
The liberty of Nature; there he kept
In solitude and solitary thought

His mind in a just equipoise of love.
Serene it was, unclouded by the cares
Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped
By partial bondage. In his steady course
No piteous revolutions had he felt,
No wild varieties of joy and grief.
Unoccupied by sorrow of it's own

M

His heart lay open; and, by Nature tuned
And constant disposition of his thoughts
To sympathy with Man, he was alive
To all that was enjoyed where'er he went ;
And all that was endured; for in himself
Happy, and quiet in his chearfulness,
He had no painful pressure from without
That made him turn aside from wretchedness
With coward fears. He could afford to suffer
With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came
That in our best experience he was rich,
And in the wisdom of our daily life.
For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,
He had observed the progress and decay
Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
The History of many Families;

How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown
By passion or mischance; or such misrule
Among the unthinking masters of the earth

As makes the nations groan.'-pp. 20, 21, 22.

Having obtained a small competence, he withdrew from the drudgery of business; yet still in the summer months, he loved to haunt the paths which he formerly trod, and journeyed far,revisiting the scenes to memory endeared.

His person is thus picturesquely delineated.

Plain his garb

Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared
For sabbath duties; yet he was a Man

Whom no one could have passed without remark,
Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs

And his whole figure breathed intelligence.

Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek
Into a narrower circle of deep red

But had not tamed his eye; that under brows
Shaggy and grey had meanings which it brought
From years of youth; which, like a Being made
Of many Baings, he had wondrous skill

To blend with knowledge of the years to come, Human, or such as lie beyond the grave'-p. 24. Contemplating this portraiture, we would ask, - Was

there ever such a man formed under such circumstances? and we have no hesitation in answering-There was not. Mr. Wordsworth's Wanderer is a character as ideal as Homer's Achilles. The Poet indeed speaks of him as as a being made of many beings;' and assuredly he is one made of two:-2 man of toil, endowed with the sensibilities, and made wise by the experience, ascribed to the Wanderer, with the learning and refinement of the Author, a man of leisure, superadded: for Mr. Wordsworth himself, had he been born in the same sphere, and passed through the same probation, could never have been more than half the magnificent and venerable being, which his fine imagination has here conceived and bodied forth. But if this paragon have no prototype in individual man, it has perfect ideal existence, and therefore poetical reality. It resembles Nature as the Belvidere Apollo, and the Venus de Medici resemble her, being defective only in wanting the defects of every model of living excellence.

With this companion the Author proceeds on The Excursion;' and, by the way, the Wanderer relates the history of the former tenant of the ruined cottage;-one instance of that slow and heart-consuming misery which thousands have suffered, during the last twenty years of war, and, in many cases, with aggravated horrors; for though a more pathetic tale than this before us was never told, the effect is produced by innumerable little touches, which imperceptibly work up the picture to the consummation of wretchedness.

The pleasure and independence of walking, were perhaps never more worthily celebrated than in the subjoined clause.

The Wealthy, the Luxurious, by the stress
Of business roused, or pleasure, ere their time,
May roll in chariots, or provoke the hoofs
Of the fleet coursers they bestride, to raise,
From earth the dust of morning, slow to rise;

And They, if blessed with health and hearts at ease,
Shall lack not their enjoyment:-but how faint
Compared with our's! who, pacing side by side,
Could with an eye of leisure look on all
That we beheld; and lend the listening sense
To every grateful sound of earth and air,
Pausing at will; our spirits braced, our thoughts
Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown,

And pure as dew bathing their crimson leaves.-p. 56.

On the last two of these lines we may remark, that some similes have only an abstract affinity to the things with which

they may be combined. These are rarely used by secondary poets, and little understood by careless readers, for they include the most refined and spiritual resemblances. They may be classed with the ideas of the blind concerning objects of vision:---thus one compared the colour of scarlet to the sound of a trumpet; and another supposed the splendour of the sun to be like the intense smoothness of a convex mirror. To feel the propriety of these curious conceptions, we must imagine,-what indeed we can very imperfectly imagine,-the exquisite sense of hearing and delicacy of 'touch, which almost compensate the loss of sight to persons born blind. He must have a dull spirit, who, on these things being pointed out, cannot perceive their correspondence; but to discover them is one of the transcendent prerogatives of genius.

In the adjacent glen the Wanderer introduces the Poet to another personage, who is designated The Solitary.' He also is a North Briton, and had been engaged in the Christian ministry; but having lost an amiable wife, and both his children, he became a prey to melancholy, from which he was roused into a temporary frenzy of political zeal for the rights of man, by the shock of the French Revolution. Discovering his error in the disappointment of his hopes, he renounced his sacred function, and with it his faith: and after seeking rest but finding none, either at home or abroad, he has abandoned himself to misanthropy and scepticism, and lives in sullen retirement from the world, with a single family, consisting of four persons, the sole inhabitants of a secluded valley. This unhappy mortal tells his own distressing tale, and gives bitter vent to his despondency: the Wanderer reproves, that despondency, and holds out to him motives and means of felicity. Here the Author has put forth all his strength, and it was to this conversation especially, that we alluded in the preamble to this article. The Sceptic twice asks questions concerning the way of salvation revealed in the Scriptures, and in neither case does he receive a direct answer. Describing his unappeasable anguish of spirit during a voyage to America, he

says,

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.-p. 134.

Another time, in rueful tone, with some impatience in his mien,' he demands,

'shall the groaning Spirit cast her load,

At the Redeemer's feet?'

The sum of all the prodigality of eloquent arguments, poured forth by the Wanderer, in reply to the Solitary, comprehending reproof, instruction, and exhortation, amounts to little more than a prescription of air and exercise, and the contemplation of nature, whereby health of body and peace of mind may be restored! If the patient were a mere hypochondriac, devoured by spleen, or overwhelmed with temporal calamity, this advice might perhaps be sufficient; but a "wounded spirit," a guilty conscience, "an evil heart of unbelief," cannot be healed by the breezes, purified by the streams, or regenerated by the light of the morning. Our limits absolutely preclude us from entering upon any analysis of this most animated division of the poem, which wants nothing but an honest exposition of the Christian faith, in addition to accounts of the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldean, and Grecian modes of belief,' to constitute it the most perfect strain of moral poetry in the English, or perhaps in any language. But wanting this "one thing,"-this "one thing needful," "-all the glories of philosophy, though displayed with unparalleled splendour, vanish like a florid sunset, leaving the forlorn and disconsolate sinner wandering in darkness, and still crying," What shall I do to be saved?"

The following delineation of the contrasted griefs of the Solitary and his Wife, on the sudden loss of their children, may disdain eulogy, and defy censure.

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 on which her spirit stood,
Mine was unable to attain. Immense
The space that severed us! But, as the sight
Communicates with heaven's etherial 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