tion of the most awful abstractions, and the union of their fearful shapes in strange worship, or in listening to the deepest of nature's voices. The first lines interspersed indeed with epithets drawn from the operations of mind, and therefore giving them an imaginative tinge are, for the most part, a mere picture of the august brotherhood of trees, though their very sound is in more august accordance with their theme than most of the examples usually produced of "echoes to the sense." Having completely set before us the image of the scene, the poet begins that enchantment by which it is to be converted into a fitting temple for the noontide spectres of Death and Time, by the general intimation that it is - "not uninformed by fantasy and looks that threaten the profane"-then by the mere epithet pillared gives us the more particular feeling of a fane-then, by reference to the actual circumstances of the grassless floor of red-brown hue, preserves to us the peculiar features of the scene which thus he is hallowingand at last gives to the roof and its berries a strange air of unrejoicing festivity-until we are prepared for the introduction of the phantasms, and feel that the scene could be fitted to no less tremendous a conclave. The place, without losing one of its individual features, is decked for the reception of these noon-tide shades, and we are prepared to muse on them with unshrinking eyes. How by a less adventurous but not less delightful process, does the poet impart to an evening scene on the Thames at Richmond, the serenity of his own heart, and tinge it with softest and saddest hues of the fancy and the affections! The verses have all the richness of Collins, to whom they allude, and breathe a more profound and universal sentiment than is found in his sky-tinctured poetry.

"How richly glows the water's breast
Before us tinged with evening hues,
While, facing thus the crimson west,

The boat her silent course pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream
A little moment past so smiling!
And still perchance, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterer beguiling.
Such views the youthful bard allure; -
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure

Till peace go with him to the tomb.
And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come to-inorrow
NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 82.

Glide gently, thus for ever glide,

O Thames that other bards may see As lovely visions by thy side

As now, fair river! come to me. O glide, fair stream! for ever so, Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds for ever flow,

As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Vain thought!-Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart,

How bright, how solemn, how serene !

nor

The following delicious sonnet, inspired by the same scene, is one of the latest effusions of its author. We do not here quote it on account of its sweet and intense recollection of one of the divinest of poets. of the fine unbroken ligament by which the harmony listened to by the later bard is connected with that which the earlier drank in, by the lineage of the songsters who keep up the old ravishment-but of that imaginative power, by which a sacredness is imparted to the place and to the birds, as though they performed unresting worship in the most glorious of cathedrals.

"Fame tells of groves from England far away-
Groves that inspire the nightingale to trill
And modulate, with subtle reach of skill
Elsewhere unmatch'd, her ever-varying lay;
Such bold report I venture to gainsay:
For I have heard the choir of Richmond-hill
Chaunting with indefatigable bill;
While I bethought me of a distant day;

When, haply under shade of that same wood,
And scarcely conscious of the dashing oars

Plied steadily between those willowy shores,

The sweet-soul'd Poet of the Seasons stood

Listening, and listening long, in rapturous mood, Ye heavenly birds! to your progenitors.

The following "Thought of a Briton on the subjugation of Switzerland," has an elemental grandeur imbued with the intensest sentiment, which places it, among the highest efforts of the ima ginative faculty.

"Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven,
Thou from thine Alpine holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft ;
Then cleave, O cleave, to that which still is left;
For, high-soul'd maid, what sorrow would it be,
That mountain-floods should thunder as before,
And ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful voice be heard by thee !";

We have thus feebly attempted to give some glimpse into the essence of Wordsworth's powers-of his skill in delineating the forms of creation-of his insight into the spirit of man and of his imaginative faculty. How he has applied these gifts to philosophical poetry, and what are the results of his con

templation, by their aid, on the external universe-human life individual character-the vicissitudes of individual fortune-society at large and the prospects of the species we shall next proceed more particularly to examine.

T. N. T. [To be concluded in our next.}··

THE following interesting particulars are extracted from a work, of which only very few copies have been printed for the purpose of being presented to friends. Respecting the work itself, the authoress wishes nothing more to be known than this:-Immediately after the death of M. Suard, one of his intimate friends, M. Garat, a member of the Institute of France, undertook to prepare for publication Memoirs of his life, character, and writings.* Suard's widow, a sister of the late celebrated bookseller, Panckouke, and well known herself as a writer of talents and feeling, gave her assent. She was, however, by no means pleased with such fragments of M. Garat's work as were submitted to her inspection; and this avowed dissatisfaction seems to have interrupted farther communications, or at least to have made them more rare. This misunderstanding probably originated in difference of opinion concerning men and things connected with the revolution. The lady speedily resolved to apprise the friends of her deceased husband, that she neither sanctioned nor thought well of the picture of him which M. Garat was delineating, but that she would herself attempt to paint the amiable character and mild virtues of the man to whom she was indebted for all the happiness of her life, and the recollection of whom can alone cheer and embellish the remainder of her days. Admitting even that instead of bearing the title of Essais de Mémoires de M. Suard (322 pp. 12mo.) a great part of the work ought rather, in the opinion of some of its readers, to be called Mémoires, or Souvenirs de Madame Suard, still this circumstance cannot detract from its intrinsic value; and no feeling heart can remain unmoved by the impressive portraiture of a pair possessing extraordinary

BY MADAME SUARD.

qualities of mind and heart, and infinitely blest in each other in adversity as well as prosperity. Contemporary history will not pass over various episodes of these Memoirs, one of which, perhaps the most remarkable of them, is subjoined.

In the summer of 1794, M. Suard and his wife resided at a country-house which they possessed at Fontenai, near Paris. We had spent a few days in Paris, says Madame Suard, and on our return were informed that a man of strange appearance, in pantaloons, with a shabby cap and a long beard, had called twice at Fontenai, and was extremely disappointed at our absence. Next morning our maid-servant entered my room in great alarm. "Madame," cried she, "a hideous fellow, with a prodigious beard, has just called, and I have conducted him to M. Suard." ⚫ I immediately suspected that it might be some proscribed person, in quest of an asylum and protection, but took good care to conceal this conjecture from the maid, who was a patriot. On the other hand, I laughed at her fear of the stranger's long beard, and said, he was no doubt a messenger sent upon some errand or other by one of our acquaintance. She left the room, and presently M. Suard entered and hastily desired me to give him the keys of the meat-safe and the wine, and some snuff. "Good God! what is the matter, my dear?" said I, handing to him what he asked for. "You shall know all,” replied he, as hastily as before, but stay here, you must not come up stairs." Such a prohibition was quite new to me, and he immediately added, will remain below won't you?""Certainly I will," replied I, thoroughly convinced of his kind intentions. Two hours elapsed before I again saw M. Suard. I had meanwhile risen, and as my room had two windows, one of which looked towards the door of the courtyard, I observed a man going (away,

"You

and though I could only see his back, still his gait and figure excited my pro found pity. He was feeling, without turning round, in both his coat pockets for something that he did not find. When he was gone, M. Suard came and informed me that it was our old intimate friend M. de Condorcet, How heartily did I rejoice that I had not been the first who saw him! An involuntary exclamation of horror would have escaped me at his altered condition; it would have betrayed him, and plunged me into inexpressible distress. Apprehensive lest, as a proscribed person, he should bring trouble or even danger upon a generous wife who had afforded him an asylum and wished to detain him, he had quitted her in spite of her entreaties. The man who was once beloved by all who knew him, who was distinguished by the epithet of the good, the kind, and who had moved in the highest circles, had for three days endured hunger and thirst, and had no other bed than the quarries by the side of the road to Fontenai : there he had been wounded by the falling of a stone upon his leg, and without passport he durst not shew himself any where except at our house. His situation could not but move me to the bottom of my heart, and all that had for some time past alienated us from each other was instantly forgotten.* The unparalleled friendship alone, which for sixteen years had embellished my life, and had surpassed almost every idea that I could form of this connection, was now present to my remem brance.

M. Suard had furnished him with

a plentifu! meal and a supply of snuff, which had lately become an indispensable necessary to him. I had given a packet of the latter to M. Suard, and was extremely vexed to find this very packet lying upon the floor as I passed through the hall. This was what he had missed before he opened the door of the court-yard; and I am convinced that it was this unlucky accident, which induced him to go to the public-house at Clamart in hopes of obtaining snuff, for he could not want other refreshments after the breakfast which he had taken. M. Suard had also given him some linen for his wounded leg, and a Horace to amuse

It was the revolution which had estranged M. Condorcet, as well as M. Garat, from the Suard family.

him during the day, and had appointed him to call again at our house at dusk in the evening.

He had asked M. Suard whether he could afford him an asylum. M. Suard replied, that he would cheerfully sacrifice his own life for him, but that he could not dispose of mine; he would speak to me, though he was sure that my sentiments would correspond with his. Condorcet answered, "That I am perfectly convinced of." But," observed M. Suard, "we live in a very bad commune, and if you were to remain here, you would yourself be exposed to the greatest danger, for we have but one maid-servant, and her we cannot depend upon still I hope, without risk either to you or to my wife, to be able to lodge you for one night. I shall now go immediately to Paris to see some of our old friends, and if possible to procure a passport for you. Return at eight o'clock this evening, when the maid shall be out of the way; we will find you accommodation for the night, and then, provided with a passport, you will be able to go whither you think proper."

He acknowledged to M. Suard, that he apprehended most danger in the early part of the day, but was Tess concerned about the evening. He did not dissemble the pain which he felt on account of the course of public affairs and the state of the party to which his ambitious hopes had induced him to attach himself; and I have it in my power to affirm that he was certainly not the author of the scandalous papers against the King, which appeared in a periodical publication of the time, subscribed with his name. He had indeed permitted the publisher to use his name, but this man had abused that liberty in the most unwarrantable manner.

M. Suard walked to Paris and returned much fatigued, but in high spirits, because Cabanis, the physician, had procured him a passport. My joy was equal to his. We gave our servant permission to go out till ten o'clock, and fastened the door of the staircase leading to our apartments, so that there was no other way to them than through the garden.

Condorcet was acquainted with this arrangement: it was intended that he should sleep on the sofa in the hall, whither provisions, wine, linen, snuff, and whatever else he could want were carried. I told M. Suard that, as there was danger, (for the municipal officers

might appear, and then we should all three have been lost,) I would share it and see the poor fugitive also y certain that my sincere pity would give him pleasure. M. Suard assented; but we waited for him in vain till ten o'clock. We thought it probable that he might be gone to Auteuil, where his wife and daughter resided; but on our paying a visit in the evening of the next day to a neighbour, he asked those about him, among whom was M. Suard, whether they had heard that the person found dead that morning in the prison of Bourg-la-Reine was supposed to be M. de Condorcet? M. Suard was thunderstruck."Pray, Sir," said he, "speak softly, that my wife may not hear you, and tell me what you know of the affair." He then related that on the preceding day, a stranger had entered the public-house at Clamart (near Fontenaí) and asked for eggs; shortly afterwards some municipal officers arrived, and being struck by his dress, they enquired who he was, whither he was going, and insisted on the production of his papers. As his answers betrayed embarrassment and he had no passport to exhibit, they declared that they would take him to Bourg-la-Reine; but being unable to walk, he was conveyed thither in a cart, and found dead next morning in the prison. His shirt, of very fine linen, was marked with the letter C, and in his pockets was found some money and a Horace. These circumstances placed the matter beyond all doubt. The news of his deplorable fate, when afterwards communicated to me, cost me many bitter tears.

I shall here take the liberty of introducing a portrait of M. Condorcet, which I sketched long before the revolution, and in which not one quality or virtue is ascribed to him that he did

not actually possess. Whilst residing in the country, soon after I had become acquainted with this philosopher, whose conversation was highly interesting to me, I wrote as follows to M. Suard:

"My philosopher often convinces me of the truth of a sentiment which he yesterday uttered, namely, that we be come better in the society of a good man. We feel indeed good and happy in the proximity of the mild and kindly virtues. It seems as though they communicated to those around them some thing of their characteristic serenity. All petty passions are silenced, sorrow is alleviated, and the soul feels peace and content in their converse. This impression I have many times experi

man

enced in the company of our worthy friend, Condorcet. The pleasure which I receive from it, does not spring so much from that luxuriance of ideas which at the same time embraces the natural and moral sciences, and what ever belongs to fancy and taste *; neither does it result from that penetration and sagacity which detect the whole from a single word that escapes him; while on the other hand he is blind to all the defects of those who are dear to his heart. The pleasure which his society affords me, arises from the feeling of his steadfast and invariable kindness, which may he compared with a copious spring, that is constantly flowing without ever being exhausted; it proceeds from that friendly attention which anticipates every wish and is the more gratifying, because from the complete forgetfulness of self, it has not the slightest appearance of a sacrifice; from the affectionate indulgence which encourages us to expose to him a hundred little foibles, which he pities as if he shared them with us; from that sublime simplicity which seems not even to suspect the admiration awakened by his virtues and the astonishment excited by the capacity and superiority of his understanding; from that natural condescension, which, even when interesting itself in the most trivial things†, loses, none of its characteristic greatness; it arises from that perfect composure respecting every thing that concerns himself alone, whereas he is roused into the utmost activity whenever misfortune or friendship claims his aid; from that pure philanthropy, which is ever ready to exert all its energies and to make any sacrifice, even of its own reputation; from that utter indifference to personal. wrongs, while the least injustice done to the objects of his love kindles in him a zeal which one would not suppose to be compatible with the natural mildness of his disposition‡, and the excess of