The vernal cuckoo shouted; not for him
Murmured the labouring bee. When stormy winds
Were working the broad bosom of the lake

Into a thousand thousand sparkling waves,

Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloud
Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,
The agitated scene before his eye
Was silent as a picture: evermore

Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved..
Yet, by the solace of his own pure thoughts
Upheld, he duteously pursued the round
Of rural labours; the steep mountain-side
Ascended with his staff and faithful dog;
The plough he guided, and the scythe he swayed;
And the ripe corn before his sickle fell
Among the jocund reapers. For himself,
All watchful and industrious as he was,

He wrought not; neither field nor flock he owned:
No wish for wealth had place within his mind;

Nor husband's love, nor father's hope or care.' pp. 328, 329.

We are reluctantly compelled to refrain from further quotations here. It would be a curious, and not an uninstructive amusement to compare Mr. Wordsworth's Villagers with Mr. Crabbe's, (particularly in the Parish Register,) and with the few which Cowper has sketched in the Task. Crabbe gives low life with all its meanness and misery; Cowper paints it with sprightly freedom as the familiar friend of the Poor; Wordsworth casts over it a pensive hue of thought, that softens its asperities, and heightens its charms, without diminishing its verisimilitude.

From the Church Yard the Pedestrians accompany the Pastor to his home. Much conversation is held by the way on the consequences of manufactures being spread over the face of the country, instead of being confined to a few districts or towns. This subject of course elicits many melancholy, and some noble truths from the golden lips of the Wanderer. The Pastor's family are depicted in such captivating colours, that, as we cannot give the groupe at full length, we shall leave them to the reader's imagination, til he can see them in the book itself. After being hospitably entertained during the heat of the day, the Poet's party in the evening, accompany the Pastor's family, in an excursion on the lake. On their return after sunset, standing on an elevated spot, a vision of glory opens around them, which is thus described.

Already had the sun,

Sinking with less than ordinary state,

Attained his western bound; but rays of light-
Now suddenly diverging from the orb

Retired behind the mountain tops or veiled

By the dense air-shot upwards to the crown
Of the blue firmament aloft-and wide:
And multitudes of little floating clouds,

Pierced through their thin etherial mould, ere we,
Who saw, of change were conscious, had become
Vivid as fire-clouds separately poized,

Innumerable multitude of Forms

Scattered through half the circle of the sky;
And giving back, and shedding each on each,
With prodigal communion, the bright hues
Which from the unapparent Fount of glory
They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.
That which the heavens displayed, the liquid deep
Repeated; but with unity sublime!' pp. 413, 414.

Amid this solemn and magnificent scene, which seems to open the heavens above and around them, the pious Pastor breaks forth into spontaneous prayer. We must conclude our extracts with theo pening.

• Eternal Spirit! universal God!

Power inaccessible to human thought

Save by degrees and steps which Thou hast deigned
To furnish; for this Image of Thyself,

To the infirmity of mortal sense
Vouchsafed; this local, transitory type

Of thy paternal splendors, and the pomp

Of those who fill thy courts in highest heaven,
The radiant Cherubim;-accept the thanks

Which we, thy humble Creatures, here convened,
Presume to offer; we, who from the breast
Of the frail earth, permitted to behold
The faint reflections only of thy face,
Are yet exalted, and in Soul adore!
Such as they are who in thy presence stand
Unsullied, incorruptible, and drink
Imperishable majesty streamed forth

From thy empyreal Throne, the elect of Earth
Shall be divested at the appointed hour
Of all dishonour-cleansed from mortal stain.
-Accomplish, then, their number; and conclude
Time's weary course! Or, if by thy decree
The consummation that will come by stealth
Be yet far distant, let thy Word prevail,
Oh! let thy Word prevail, to take away
The sting of human nature. Spread the law,
As it is written in thy holy book,
Throughout all Lands; let every nation hear
The high behest, and every heart obey;
Both for the love of purity, and hope
Which it affords,, to such as do thy will
And persevere in good, that they shall rise,

:

To have a nearer view of Thee, in heaven.' pp. 415, 416.

The company afterwards proceed to the parsonage; the Solitary takes leave at the door; the Poet and the Wanderer remain for the night. Thus the Excursion' is not finished; and the Author gives us ground to hope for a sequel; but whether that sequel is to be the third part of the whole Poem, or a second part of this second part, is not quite obvious. At any rate we have to expect two further portions of "The Recluse," and that they will equal this specimen is as much as we dare hope, while we cannot doubt it. Life, however, is short, and the Author may not live to accomplish his task.-Life is short, and many who read this volume may never see another. Mr. Wordsworth did not miscalculate his powers, when he began to compose this literary work;'-it will live. It has increased the interest which we always felt in the life and well being of the Author, and the hope of seeing the consummation of the plan is among our most pleasing anticipations.

Art. III. An Essay on the Prevention and Cure of Insanity; with Observations on the Rules for the Detection of Pretenders to Madness. By George Nesse Hill, Medical Surgeon, and Surgeon to the Benevolent Institution, for the Delivery of Poor Married Women, in Chester. 8vo. pp. 446. price 12s. Longman, and Co. 1814.

INSANITY is a subject of dreadful interest. There is a melancholy peculiarity in the nature of mental maladies to the description of which, language is inadequate. Mere bodily ailments, even of the most afflictive kind, are susceptible of much mitigation by the sympathies of friendship, or the kindness of relatives; but with madness, who can sympathize? It is not merely the sufferings, it is the actual loss, for the time being, of our friend, that in this case we deplore. The manly and conscious mind, is sunk down to the feebleness and imbecility of childhood. That countenance in which we once delighted to trace the turns of expression, and dwell on the features. of intelligence, and which formerly met our smile with responsive smile, and answered to all our affection, now presents us nothing but the stare of vacancy, or the dire expression of malignant hostility; and while firm faith, in the solemn truths and consoling promises of Christianity, can alone reconcile us to the lingering sufferings, or premature departure of those we love, that faith is assuredly required in a high degree, to bring the mind to a feeling of resignation, while contemplating the decay and destruction of kindred mind.

Whatever be the philosophical light in which this subject is

viewed,-whether we subscribe to the sentiments of one class of pathologists, and refer the whole series of changes which constitute mental aberration to bodily disorder, or with another class, consider such aberrations as, in some cases, more strictly and properly mental, the effect in either way is the saine; and in all instances where consciousness and reflection have ceased to do their office, the subject of the disease is enveloped in the thick glooms of peculiar wo.

The melancholy interest of the subject in question, is still further augmented by the consideration, that complaints of the class which we are about to notice, are, in modern times, of comparatively frequent occurrence of nervous maladies, at least, the recent increase has become a matter of proverbial notoriety; and a writer, of no mean authority,* has said that every nervous disease is a degree of insanity. Although we by no means subscribe entirely to this position, and shall have an opportunity in the course of our present investigation, to state the grounds of our dissent from the above-quoted apophthegms, we still think that the reason that these affections are of such acknowledged increase, would form a most interesting subject for the research of the medical philosopher. It is not, however, for us at present to step out of our path in order to pursue this inquiry, as it forms no part of the business of that treatise, the merits and demerits of which we are now called upon to

canvass.

The prominent and characteristic feature of the introductory. portion of Mr. Hill's treatise, is a bold and undisguised defence of the doctrines of materialism. Now, as either the establishment, or the overthrow of these doctrines, does not end merely in a matter of speculative nicety, or theoretical belief, but possesses, as will be subsequently seen, a considerable influence on the conclusions to which we are to come, respecting the actual nature and distinct essence of mental malady, it will be proper to stop at the commencement of our disquisition, in order to say a few words on the controversy between the MENTALIST and the MATERIALIST.

The grand hinge, then, upon which the treatise under review turns, is this: "That insanity has always corporeal disease for its foundation:'-a conclusion which, indeed, unavoidably follows from the premises, that every thing which we are accustomed to consider and to call an attribute of mind, may be traced to physical causes. Now if it be once allowed that all the pheno

* Dr. John Reid;-from whom we are told to expect shortly some observations on the subject of nervous ailments.

mena of mind are referable to organization, there is immediately opened a wide door for every licentious inference. The petulant and peevish man may, upon this principle, transfer the charge of waywardness from himself to his nerves and blood vessels: the miser may plead bodily necessity for his senseless and selfish pursuit of wealth and the more decided delinquent, even while in the perpetration of horrid crime, may refer as an excuse, to acknowledged and irresistible compulsions of constitution.

We are sufficiently aware that no question purely philosophical, can be properly tried solely upon the ground of its moral bearings; but, in the present instance, we have chosen, in the first place, to bring the tenets in question to their ad absurdum test, both because it will not be the business of the present paper to plunge into metaphysical subtilties, and because the moral tendency of the reasonings in question, is what we have principally to do with in reference to the particular subject under discussion, as will be seen in the sequel. However, before we for the present dismiss this dispute, we may be allowed to say further, that a great part of the doctrine of that class of philosophers, to whose speculations we now allude, is as inconsistent. with a sound ratiocination, as it is pregnant with injurious consequences to the moral interests of the community.

The errors, as it appears to us, which attach to the schools of materialism, arise from considering the mere instrument in the light of the prime agent. Thus a consistent disciple of this philosophy would say, that because the visual organ, and light, are indispensable to the production of the phenomenon of vision, therefore, light, and the eye, are vision: or, that because the brain and nerves are, in some way or other, the principal media, through which perceptions are produced, therefore perception is some peculiar modification of the organs in question: than which conclusions, nothing can be more absurd, or inconsistent with philosophical induction. Reasoning of this nature, proceeds entirely, as it has been justly observed, upon the supposition of our acquaintance with causation, respecting which, the most profound philosopher is, and ever must be, as fully at fault · as the veriest clown. Suppose that the retort of the chemist, the knife of the anatomist, and the reasoning powers of the physiologist, were, at some future period, to discover so much of the modes, and forms, and laws, of organized matter, as to make our present acquaintance with these subjects mere ignorance, we should still remain at precisely the same point of distance, in regard to our knowledge of the quo modo-the why and the wherefore--the modus-operandi, of sensual perception and mental feelings. One link must always be deficient for the completion of the chain; the Tour of Archimedes, can never be obtained;