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Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake."9

I object to any extension of its meaning, because the word is alrea ly more equivocal than might be wished; inasmuch as in the limited use which I recommend, it may still signify two different things; namely, the scenery, and the characters and actions presented on the stage during the presence of particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from obscurity only by keeping the original signification full in the mind. Thus Milton again,

"Prepare thee for another scene."*

9 [Part of this poetical description has been altered or expanded thus;

And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,-with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence, such as baffled his best skill:.
Then, sometimes, in that silence-

I fear it is presumptuous even to express a feeling which hardly dares to be an opinion, about these fine verses (one of the most exquisite specimens of blank verse that I know, and fit to be placed beside the most exquisite specimens from Milton, though different from them in the kind of excellence) and yet I cannot forbear to express the feeling, that the latter part of this quotation stood better at first; or that any improvement,-if any there be, in the first of the two altered lines, is dearly purchased by the comparative languor which has thus been occasioned in the second :

Of silence such as baffled his best skill

seems to me almost prose in comparison with

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,—

which presents the image (if so it may be called) at once without dividing it, while the spondaic movement of the verse corresponds to the sense. Neither can I think that "mirth" is here a superfluity even in addition to "jocund din ;" the logic of poetic passion may admit or even require what the mere logic of thought does not exact; and what is the objection to "chanc'd," which Milton uses just in the same way in Paradise Lost?t The utter silence of the owls after such free and full communications, is ↑ Book ix., 1. 575.

[Par. Lost, xi., l. 637 S. C.]

The second shall be the noble imitation of Drayton1o (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the lines To JOANNA."

"When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space,
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld

That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.
The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,
Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again !
That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,
And the tall Steep of Silver-How sent forth
A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone.
Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky
Carried the lady's voice!-old Skiddaw blew
His speaking trumpet !-back out of the clouds
From Glaramara southward came the voice:

And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head!”

The third, which is in rhyme, I take from the SONG A THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE, upon the restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honors of his - Ancestors.12

"Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;

as good an instance of chance, or an event of which we cannot see the cause, as the affairs of this world commonly present; and the word seems to me particularly expressive. S. C.]

10 Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill,
Upon her verge that stands, the neighboring valleys fill;
Helvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw,
From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew,
From whose stone-trophied head, it on the Wendross went,
Which, tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent.
That Brodwater, therewith within her banks astound,

In sailing to the sea, told it to Egremound,

Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long
Did mightily commend old Copland for her song.

Drayton's POLYOLBION: Song XXX.
12 [Ib., p. 154. S. C.]

11 [P. W., ii., p. 289. S. C.]

Armor rusting in his halls

On the blood of Clifford calls;-
Quell the Scot, exclaims the Lance!
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the Shield-

Tell thy name, thou trembling Field!-
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!
Happy day, and mighty hour,

When our Shepherd, in his power,

Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword.

To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing Star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war?"

"Alas! the fervent harper did not know,

That for a tranquil Soul the Lay was framed,
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills.”

The words themselves in the foregoing extracts, are, no doubt, sufficiently common for the greater part. But in what poem are they not so, if we except a few misadventurous attempts to translate the arts and sciences into verse? In THE EXCURSION the number of polysyllabic (or what the common people call, dictimmary) words is more than usually great. And so must it needs be, in proportion to the number and variety of an author's conceptions, and his solicitude to express them with precision. But are those words in those places commonly employed in real life to express the same thought or outward thing? Are they the style used in the ordinary intercourse of spoken words? No! nor are the modes of connexions; and still less the breaks and transitions. Would any but a poet-at least could any one without being conscious that he had expressed himself with noticeable vivacity-have described a bird singing loud by, “ The thrush is busy in the wood ?"-or have spoken of boys with a string of club-moss round their rusty hats, as the boys "with their

green coronal?”– -or have translated a beautiful May-day to "Both earth and sky keep jubilee?"—or have brought all the different marks and circumstances of a sea-loch before the mind, as the actions of a living and acting power? Or have represented the reflection of the sky in the water, as "That uncertain heaven received into the bosom of the steady lake?" Even the grammatical construction is not unfrequently peculiar; as "The wind, the tempest roaring high, the tumult of a tropic sky, might well be dangerous food to him, a youth to whom was given," &c. There is a peculiarity in the frequent use of the vaprarov (that is, the omission of the connective particle before the last of several words, or several sentences used grammatically as single words, all being in the same case and governing or governed by the same verb) and not less in the construction of words by apposition (“ to him, a youth"). In short, were there excluded from Mr. Wordsworth's poetic compositions all, that a literal adherence to the theory of his preface would exclude, two thirds at least of the marked beauties of his poetry must be erased. For a far greater number of lines would be sacrificed than in any other recent poet; because the pleasure received from Wordsworth's poems being less derived either from excitement of curiosity or the rapid flow of narration, the striking passages form a larger proportion of their value. I do not adduce it as a fair criterion of comparative excellence, nor do I even think it such; but merely as matter of fact. I affirm, that from no contemporary writer could so many lines be quoted, without reference to the poem in which they are found, for their own independent weight or beauty. From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more and more unalloyed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood.

CHAPTER XXI.

Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals.

LONG have I wished to see a fair and philosophical inquisition into the character of Wordsworth, as a poet, on the evidence of his published works; and a positive, not a comparative, appre ciation of their characteristic excellences, deficiencies, and defects. I know no claim, that the mere opinion of any individual can have to weigh down the opinion of the author himself; against the probability of whose parental partiality we ought to set that of his having thought longer and more deeply on the subject. But I should call that investigation fair and philosophical in which the critic announces and endeavors to establish the principles, which he holds for the foundation of poetry in general, with the specification of these in their application to the different classes of poetry. Having thus prepared his canons of criticism for praise and condemnation, he would proceed to particularize the most striking passages to which he deems them applicable, faithfully noticing the frequent or infrequent recurrence of similar merits or defects, and as faithfully distinguishing what is characteristic from what is accidental, or a mere flagging of the wing. Then if his premises be rational, his deductions legitimate, and his conclusions justly applied, the reader, and possibly the poet himself, may adopt his judgment in the light of judgment and in the independence of free-agency. If he has erred, he presents his errors in a definite place and tangible form, and holds the torch and guides the way to their detection.

I most willingly admit, and estimate at a high value, the services which the EDINBURGH REVIEW, and others formed after. wards on the same plan, have rendered to society in the diffusion of knowledge. I think the commencement of the EDINBURGH REVIEW an important epoch in periodical criticism; and that it

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