of us through money, and money will procure for every one consideration, service, and what is equally indispensable to mankind, civility; and in this state of society the liberty of the higher classes is not less in danger than that of the lower. For with the restless activity, the ambition, the importance attached to money, the pecuniary taint which infects all the relations between the upper and lower classes, the absence of the disinterested courtesies and unpaid good offices of life, which inspire confidence between those classes and seem to place them in a relation of human brotherhood with each other-with all these elements of our society, there arises naturally its chief characteristic on the evil side of the account, pride, or a pusillanimous fear of opinion— pride which,

'Howe'er disguised

In its own majesty, is littleness-' *

and invariably undermines the strength and independence of the heart. The study of Mr. Wordsworth's writings will assist more than any other literary influence that is now abroad to abate the spirit of pride and cherish the spirit of independence; and in closing our remarks upon the Political series of his Sonnets, we will sum up the doctrine to be derived from them as teaching, that in so far as the political institutions of a country place any man in such circumstances as to give avarice, ambition, or pride the dominion over his heart, whatever may be the name given or the virtue ascribed to those institutions, they cost that man his liberty.

We now come to the series which Mr. Wordsworth has entitled 'Itinerary,' and which we have already alluded to as the sundry contemplation of his travels.' Scenery, cities, manners, local traditions, recorded events, incidents of the moment, remains of antiquity, products of modern taste, abodes, sites and occupants, viaducts, railways and steam-boats, names, clouds, and echoes,nothing comes amiss to Mr. Wordsworth on his travels, and sonnets spring up in his path wherever he goes. And amidst the multitude of objects which attract his attention, it is difficult to say that any one class has more power over him than another. Natural objects have undoubtedly had the greatest influence originally, as we may learn from the celebrated lines written on visiting Tintern Abbey, and from many other passages, and amongst these the family of floods' are mentioned by the poet as standing first in his regard, and many members of that family are celebrated in the Sonnets, from the stately Eden' in his own country, to

*Mr. Wordsworth's lines left under a Yew-tree seat.

-that

-that young stream that smites the throbbing rocks Of Viamala.'

But natural objects are so vividly recalled to his memory when others are presented to his eyes, the colours of them are so interwoven with the whole tissue of his mind, that hardly any subject is treated separately from them. And on the other hand, his sense of the beauty of external nature is seldom merely passive; the activities of his intellect are excited by it rather than merged in it, and his poetry is not often purely descriptive. We will quote the sonnet we can find which is the most so,-a description of the plain between Namur and Liege, in which the effect of nature's tranquillity is heightened by allusion to the frequent warfare of which that plain has been the theatre :

'What lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?
Is this the Stream, whose cities, heights, and plains,
War's favourite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews?
The Morn, that now, along the silver MEUSE,
Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the swains
To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade-
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still!'
Sonnets, p. 197.

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This seems pure description; yet what a serious satire is expressed in one word, War's favourite playground!' In the following sonnet, entitled 'The Trosachs,' the moral is blended with the description throughout:

'There's not a nook within this solemn Pass,
But were an apt confessional for One

Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
That Life is but a tale of morning grass
Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase

That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities,

Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
If from a golden perch of aspen spray

(October's workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,

Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!'-Ibid., p. 217.

How

How skilfully does that suggestion in the parenthesis, of the sunshiny colouring of the aspen in October, adumbrate the cheerfulness to be bestowed by natural piety upon the decline of life! preparing for the principal illustration of the same idea in the song of the red-breast, which only begins to sing when other birds have ceased. We will annex to this a sonnet, congenial in sentiment and imagery, written at Bala-sala, Isle of Man, in the person of a friend of the author. The convent spoken of is Rushen Abbey :

'Broken in fortune, but in mind entire
And sound in principle, I seek repose
Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose
In ruin beautiful. When vain desire

Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,

A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I note
The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams
Of sunset ever there, albeit streams

Of stormy weather-stains that semblance wrought,
I thank the silent Monitor, and say

"Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!" '

Ibid., p. 256. When Mr. Wordsworth is upon his travels, the very modes of conveyance' have their authentic comment,' and suggest thoughts, recollections, and feelings. We find him, in 1820, in a carriage on the banks of the Rhine, travelling with a speed which cheats him of half his enjoyment, and wishing to be on foot as in the days of his youth :—

'Amid this dance of objects sadness steals

O'er the defrauded heart-while sweeping by,
As in a fit of Thespian jollity,

Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green Earth reels:
Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels
The venerable pageantry of Time,

Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,
And what the Dell unwillingly reveals

Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied
Near the bright River's edge. Yet why repine?
To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze-
Such sweet wayfaring-of life's spring the pride,
Her summer's faithful joy--that still is mine,

And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.'-Ibid., p. 200.

We are happy to know that the 'fit measure' of pedestrian strength which remained to Mr. Wordsworth in the year 1820 is

yet

yet with him in 1841, and that the fainting London tourist may still meet with him, robust and fresh, on the top of Helvellyn or other cloud-sequestered heights,' exercising his functions as one of Nature's Privy Council.'

6

If Mr. Wordsworth was not quite content to be whirled along the banks of the Rhine in a carriage, it was to be expected that be should betray more impatience in a steam-boat :

'Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or wingèd Hippogriff?

That he might fly, where no one could pursue,

From this dull Monster and her sooty crew.'-Ibid., p. 260. But what some persons would consider the poetic or romantic view of things never shuts out from Mr. Wordsworth's mind the contemplation of the whole truth. For the whole truth received into a poetic mind of the highest, that is, of the philosophic order, may always take a poetical shape, and cannot but be more fruitful than half-truths. And thus we have a notice, in a sonnet on steam-boats, viaducts, and railways, that Mr. Wordsworth is not to be misled by any false lights into regarding with other feelings than those of hope and gratulation the victories of mind over

matter:

'Motions and Means, on land and sea at war
With old poetic feeling, not for this
Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss!
Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change, that point of vision, whence
May be discovered what in soul ye are.
In spite of all that beauty may disown

In

your harsh features, Nature doth embrace
Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time,

Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown

Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.'-Ibid., P. 277. Twenty years ago our readers may remember that there was a literary controversy of some celebrity, in which Lord Byron, Mr. Campbell, and Mr. Bowles were the principal performers, on the subject of the comparative merits of nature and art in supplying subjects for poetry. A little of Mr. Wordsworth's philosophy, or a little of Shakspeare's, would have taught the disputants either not to distinguish at all between these subjects, or to distinguish more clearly. There are a few words in the Winter's Tale' which say more than anything which we can recollect to have been said then :

'Perdita.

'Perdita. Sir, the year growing ancient,-
Nor yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter,-the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations, and streak'd gilliflowers,
Which some call Nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden 's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

'Polixenes.

Do you neglect them?

Perdita.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For I have heard it said,

There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating Nature.

Polixenes. Say there be;

Yet Nature is made better by no mean,

But Nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art,
Which, you say, adds to Nature, is an art

That Nature makes.'—(Act iv., sc. 3.)

This is the philosophical view of the matter, and Mr. Words-worth's taste is as universal as philosophy itself; and his philosophy and his poetry are never found in collision with each other, but always in an easy alliance.

We are aware, however, that it has sometimes been said that Mr. Wordsworth has written in disparagement of science. How incapable he is of doing so, our readers have had some means of judging. The charge has been brought, we believe, by two very different classes of persons,-by those who mistake certain scientific nomenclatures and classifications for sciences themselves, and, on the other hand, by those who have a genuine comprehension of science, but are led, from the want of other knowledge, faculties, or feelings, to think that the material sciences are the highest walks of human contemplation. Yet in reality neither the sciolist nor the adept has any reason to complain. For the former Mr. Wordsworth has not perhaps absolute respect, but certainly a genuine indulgence,-witness the sketches, in the Excursion,' of the Wandering Herbalist' and his fellow-wanderer—

'He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature
With her first growths-detaching by the stroke
A chip or splinter to resolve his doubts;'

He finds no fault with either of these gentlemen :

'Intrusted safely each to his pursuit,

Earnest alike, let both from hill to hill

Range; if it please them speed from clime to clime;
The mind is full-no pain is in their sport.'

Thus