both material and spiritual, around us, is little better than a truism in the ears of such as are acquainted with his writings; and the same surely may be alleged of the assertion, that to awaken such sense is one of the greatest benefits which one human being can confer on another. But there is a further advantage in his poetry, still more directly connected with education. By no such great poet, besides Shakspere, has the English tongue been used with equal purity, and yet such flexible command of its resources. Spenser gives us too many obsolete forms, Milton too much unEnglish syntax, to make either of them available for the purpose of training the young of our country in the laws, and leading them to apprehend and revere the principles, of their magnificent language. But in Wordsworth, and more especially, perhaps, in that class of his poems to which we have already referred, is the English tongue seen almost in its perfection; its powers of delicate expression, its flexible idioms, its vast compass, the rich variety of its rhythms, being all displayed in the attractive

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garb of verse, and yet with a most rigorous conformity to the laws of its own syntax. Those who know how much education must concern itself with man's distinctive organ, speech, will know also how to appreciate such a benefit as this. It seems superfluous to say a word on the moral tendency of our great Poet.

It remains only that Mr. Wordsworth's kindness, and that of his publisher, Mr. Moxon, be duly acknowledged, in consenting to the present compilation.