WORDSWORTH. THE error of the settlers of Virginia, in mistaking the shining sands of the James River for gold, became soon a convenient proverb for rebuking the propensity of men to be misled by appearances. This proverb applies to that common tendency in all the affairs of life and also in literature, especially in poetry, to be dazzled by display or pomp of expression. The works of the author, like the lives of eminent men, should have some prime, pervading purpose, to which language and ornament should be wholly subservient; and we find, that with true poets this is the case. It is natural and proper, that in poetry great importance should be attached to the imagery and versification; but, as this is merely the dress, with which any glowing thought or feeling can clothe itself, the chief consideration should be the inspiring thought, the scope. and force of the truth, that has grown eloquent in the writer's mind. Milton did not write his epic simply to create poetry, but principally to invest an old truth with a new and higher grandeur. Horace's finest strains are his odes to justice and contentment; Tennyson's are perhaps his "In Memoriam," and lesser poets have made offerings to the affections. The reviewers of Wordsworth, like those of other poets, have generally considered only his style and versification, which, however great may be their intrinsic excellence, any reader can himself readily observe. These critics, neglecting the understanding for the ear, have disregarded his professed purpose. This, for a just appreciation of his writings, he least of all poets can allow to be overlooked; indeed his chief poem, the "Excursion," is not interesting in its plot of incidents, but in the ruling philosophy, that has utterance in the earlier books and illustration in the latter. So imbued was he with a single purpose, with the idea of a sacred mission to mankind, that he styled himself, like no former poet, the "Priest of Nature." The object of his life was to correct both the artificial character of poetry and also of society, the evils, that grow up necessarily with all the advantages of progressive knowledge and civilization; and for this end he compared human life now, with the simplicity and dignity of life like that of the ancient pastoral times. A golden light lingers around those old patriarchal characters, who were free from the care and restless avarice and ambition of modern times, able to expand into a boundless hospitality, and, by their life of several centuries, invested with a kind of stately dignity; and this poetry, that aims to correct the departures from the excellence of that primitive character, is worthy of consideration and has as lofty a purpose as ever inspired the poet. His ardent communion with himself and nature, in forming his style and developing his doctrines, has been quite a subject of comment; especially because it caused a change in poetry as marvellous almost, as that occasioned in philosophy by the system of reasoning of Bacon. Other poets, writing from the dingy walls of cities with an affected and hypocritical love of Nature, misrepresented her: he, more truly loving and studying her, saw her more correctly, looked deeper than her forms, and drew from "the meanest flower" thoughts stirring the depths of the spirit. Other poets painted human nature and love, which will always be a theme of poetry, but were dazzled with the joy and glitter of sensibilities, bordering on the sensual: he represented love as beautiful because of annulling self and because it was the divinest feeling of man's nature: he looked beneath the frippery of fashion and the humble garb of the poor, and saw traits and virtues in the humblest breast as lofty as heaven, as glorious as stars. However intolerant he may have sometimes been in combating the evils of society, he certainly did not imoproperly oppose the exhausting and degrading systems of manufacturing labor, and also the soporific and unproductive kinds of mental toil; the insensate work of amassing the minutiae of knowledge for their mere acquisition rather than for the cause of truth and science. The student, laboring simply with the former motive, is like a mere child, admiring a pebble upon the shore; one with the former like a Newton or Hugh Miller, learning from the pebble laws of nature or the history of the globe. But none of the evils, growing from the mischievous influences in society, occupied his attention more than the dark and repulsive character of religion. While he wished to bring the poetry back to nature, that had grown lifeless and artificial in the walls of palaces, he chiefly wished to bring religion to the charms of poetry and of nature that had become austere and unattractive in the walls of churches, and to infuse into its gloom and severity a joy and belief like that of ancient times, when they "went forth with peace, the mountains and hills broke forth before them into singing and all the trees of the fields clapped their hands." He first drew attention to that modern theme of the muses, the moral lessons, the moral incentives of nature, the poetry of religion. But it should be remembered that his doctrines are not mere pleasing and Utopian theories, but rather the confessions of his own feelings and experience; that his reflections on nature do not like Emerson's run into transcendentalism and abstraction, to which there is no meaning, but are founded on palpable religious truths, and also that he did not undervalue the authority of the Bible, but wished to add to it the attractions of nature's teachings; so that, while the sun of revealed truth dazzled the intellect, the softer light of nature might touch the heart and the doctrines be not only firmly established as the mountains, but also adorned and brightened with cheering sunlight. There can hardly be a doubt as to the existence of this influence of nature and to its value in practical religion. We must believe, that the forms of nature exert the very influence, that the mind and heart require and an influence for good and not for evil; that they, as works of God, display not only his power, but also as unmistakably the other glorious traits of his character, as his works in heaven, teach silently the immutable laws of duty and give glowing impulses to piety, that cannot otherwise be obtained; and if the ancients were attracted to and confirmed in their religion by blithe conceptions of deities of the air, groves and streams, the Christian ought, with his more sublime and beautiful idea of one Divine "Presence," ruling and blessing all things with infinite power and benevolence, to receive a rapture and ecstacy and a joyful faith from an habitual contemplation of nature. Thus Wordsworth drew moral lessons and consolation from nature; thus he perceived at times such proofs of Divine benignity and of man's noble destiny, that he more than believed, and seemed to see and feel the truth of religion: realizing the Divine Presence in all things, the earth he trod became to his elevated imagination as sacred as God's temple, and he was in his dizzy rapture freed from petty thoughts and possessed with a love and reverence for God and all his works. With such rare feelings and such new and lofty doctrines in regard to poetry and society, it is not strange that he came to regard his vocation as peculiar and sacred; and a poet, who, with his talents, thus professedly aimed to promote moral excellence and to throw the sunshine and flowery beauty of nature around religion, deserves to be classed in the highest rank. This belief of his in regard to his calling explains what has been so incomprehensible to his reviewers, his imperturbation amid the storm of ridicule, which his first poems received, and also amid the applause in the revulsion of feeling. So impressed were they with the idea, that a great man must with an envious spirit labor only for fame, that they could not see that he had a holier object, and that his composure was the result of his philosophy, inwrought in his nature, making him noble and manly, and beautifully exemplifying in himself, the teacher, the practical working of his doctrine. His manner of life in his wild, picturesque home was precisely adapted to foster in him such a character. The solitude of his mountains, by shutting him away from the din and turmoil of the city, caused him to commune deeply with nature; he was led to meditate with himself, when evening veiled external forms and appearances, and the stars appearing, turned his thoughts to heaven. "HUMANUM EST ERRARE." A CHAPTER on fallacies would form one of the most interesting and instructive in the history of human progress. While logic was very primitive, and the inductive system was as yet unknown, even the minds best disciplined by the study of philosophy were sometimes led off into excursions without their proper sphere, and into speculations which seem to have been recorded as monuments of human folly. And where the philosopher has erred, with all his training, it is not wonderful that common minds, carried away by the excitement of political partisanship, or the frenzy of religious zeal, should have erred likewise. Thus we find statements made, and principles laid down, and deductions drawn from them, which, with our more perfect systems of logic, we find it difficult to conceive of as being seriously entertained. The slow development of the art of reasoning, that art which involves the exercise of man's highest powers, is one among many illustrations of the fact, that "Time's noblest offspring is the last." It may, in some measure, be accounted for by the blind deference which was so long paid to the dogmas of Aristotle, and which kept the reason ing faculty in chains for more than two thousand years. And although, after the taking of Constantinople in 1453, that chain was broken, and reason restored to her prerogatives, yet, like a limb long disused, it acquired but slowly its pristine vigor, and even at this day has scarcely attained the power of free and natural exercise. So lately as the 17th century, several persons were banished from Paris for contradicting Aristotle's doctrines in reference to form and matter, and in reference to the number of the elements. And shortly afterwards, in the same century, the Parliament of Paris prohibited, under penalty of death, all teaching which was not in accordance with the doctrines of that philosopher. Perhaps the pride of human reason may be a little moderated by attending to a few of the errors and absurdities of which it has been guilty, in its progress to its present more elevated and secure position. They are a few which have been selected, and the list might be indefinitely increased. Epicurus argues that because no beings but those of human shape have the use of reason, therefore the gods are of human shape. This philosopher made a mistake, because he took for granted the major premise of his proposition. But Plato went still further astray, taking for granted both major and minor premises, in the proposition :— "Everything which moves itself must have a soul;— Therefore the world must have a soul." The Carribbeans abstain from swine's flesh, assigning as a reason that such food would make them have small eyes, which they consider a great deformity. They also abstain from eating turtle, which they think would make them lazy and stupid. On the same principle, the Brazilians refuse to eat the flesh of ducks, and all slow-moving creatures. 46 Plato is guilty also of the sophism which is known as non causa pro causâ." He attempts to prove that the world is endowed with wisdom, thus: "The world is greater than any of its parts;- With wisdom, would be greater than the world." He also argues that God made but five worlds, because there are but five regular bodies in geometry. In the same category must be placed the argument of Irenæus, brought to prove that there can be only four gospels. He calls this a demonstration: "There are four quarters of the world, and four cardinal winds, conse |