With green leaves hide his rugged trunk, and spread,
Like woodbines, flowers and odours round his head,
Whilst the tough stem their weakness well sustains,
Else must they trail ignobly on the plains.

I've drawn some portraitures to prove tis true
Women have characters, and strange ones too.
If proud, if vain, if frigid, or the like,
The chain of censure I may surely strike:
Graze the fair skin but not severely vex,
And lash the folly whilst I love the sex.

SKETCHES OF FEMALE CHARACTER.-No. II.

MIMOSA.

IF ere you take Mimosa for a 'Friend'
How mute she is, how fearful to offend!

In vain you'd bring her talents into play,—

For some she has,-her thoughts seem far away,

Or haply ponder on her future words,

Glad if with your opinion hers accords;

Nor dares, nor deigns her native sense assert,
So oft departs without her just desert.
Mild and complacent is her air,-her tone
Of voice if yet it can be called her own;
For she is Echo's sister;-do you stir
From a too blazing fire, it scorches her!
Or do you close the sash in the saloon,
'The air is very keen this afternoon !'

Then as you shrink and shiver, so she shrinks,
Works when you work, and just as you think, thinks

So if you seek the gallery of St. Paul's,

And do but whisper to the circling walls,

The circling walls the whispered word renew,
And send it as their answer back to you!
Thus thro' her pleasures and her vanities,
Runs the same vocal echo in disguise.

Praise you a chandelier, or Indian fan,

Such has her Uncle Edward,-her Aunt Anne;

Though, no doubt, more superb. A one horse chaise

Is a convenience,'-so her Father says:

'Flowers decorate a skreen;' then you must know
Her Cousin Christopher's are painted so :

Have you a Silver Tea Urn? Aunt Selina

Has one of the same pattern, somewhat finer:

You walk into the Park, admire the trees
Low waving in the morn or evening breeze,
Her cousin loves them too; but most the oaks
Behind whose trunk a cottage chimney smokes !

She is good tempered,-that we must admit,
The coldest sceptic could not question it!
Else would not thus her tastes, opinions glide
So smoothly with the current of your tide. :
Now what I love, and with no vain pretence,
Is when good temper's tempered with good sense;
Sense that will blame a fault though friends applaud;
Censure a blemish though designed by Claude;
Admire in your despite a cap-peruke,—
Though dressed by Trufit, or made up by Cooke.
Thus, says Aspasia, Sir, despite your taste,
So will I think,-so speak,-
-so wear my waist :
But Miss Mimosa's is not of such kind,
Her taste is variable as the wind;
So are her thoughts,-a flying shuttlecock,
It comes to you,-you give it next a knock;
Diverse it flies from pillar struck to post,-
From post to pillar till the stroke is lost;
Then down it drops, the last short impulse o'er,
No longer echoing to the battledore.

These are her foibles, and we may esteem
Her virtuous heart, howe'er severe we seem;
These at the most but raise a smile,-they may
By sense be tempered, or with time decay,
Till even the Satirist himself forget

The fault at which his angry shaft was set!

A COMPARISON.

BY THE REVEREND W. L. BOWLES.

THE mower sweeps his whistling blade,
When green the meadow grows,
The honey-cups and cowslips fade,
All scattered as he goes.

So toiling time, as in despite,
Of youth's delightful hours,
Sweeps on, resistless in his might,
And mows the fairest flowers.

I grieve not for the sweets that fade,
Since he in whom I trust,
Shall here protect with heavenly aid,
And raise me from the dust.

J. W.

THE LIVING POETS OF ENGLAND.—No. I.

WORDSWORTH.

It is now so generally admitted that the poetry of the present period is under the deepest obligation to the poet who has been most seduously libelled and neglected, that, not only as a matter of right, but as a matter of course, we prefix the name of WORDSWORTH to the first paper of our intended series.

In the general sense of the term, Wordsworth's poetry has not been popular,-nay, notwithstanding the high and increasing estimation in which he is held by poetical minds, he is not popular even now. Like the master productions of painting and sculpture, his poems must be studied before they can be appreciated;—it might almost be added :—

And you must love them, ere to you

They will seem worthy of your love.

་

The trifler throws them aside because they do not afford any of the usual stimulants for vulgar curiosity, and because they require an exertion of the thinking faculties, which, even if able, he is unwilling to put forth. The pedant is disgusted, because the poet has exalted the lore which Nature brings,' and preferred her world of ready wealth to the barren leaves of art and science.' The man of the world despises Wordsworth's poetry, in the same manner, and for the same reasons, that diseased lungs cannot respire a northern atmosphere;-it is too severe, too ethereal, as Lord Byron happily says, too difficult an air. Lastly, the man whose talent is of that peculiar order which enables him to shine in the world, cannot cordially sympathize in compositions which invariably leave the sparkling surface for the silent depths of things; which lack the tumultuous excitement of exaggerated thought and feeling-ornament and expression; and which afford neither shrewd and caustic, nor witty and playful exposures of the vices and follies of the day. Not possessed themselves of that power of imagination which dares descend to the lowliest subjects, because, conscious that it can, at will, return to the loftiest-conscious also, that it can connect those lowly subjects with immortal truths, and invest them with imperishable grace, they shrink from the poet who says to them, without preface or apology:

'THE Common growth of mother earth
Suffices me, her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.

The dragon's wing, the magic ring,

I shall not covet for my dower,

If I along that lowly way

With sympathetic heart may stray,

And with a soul of power.

These given, what more need I desire,

To stir-to soothe-or elevate?

What nobler marvels than the mind
May in life's daily prospects find,
May find or there create ?'

Minor, and certainly influential reasons, may be assigned for the public neglect of Wordsworth; but the chief cause must be sought in the peculiarity of his genius. Even clever people may have unworthy ideas of the character and office of a poet, whilst the majority of readers, regarding poetry merely as the amusement of an idle hour, of course, prefer that which suits

No. I.

C

the calibre of their own minds. This will not be poetry of the highest order, because the object of such poetry never is to amuse; other, than the highest order of readers, it will not even interest. Milton's Lycidas, and Wordsworth's Laodamia, (twin immortals) will, undoubtedly, have the same class of admirers, but it will not be that class who exceedingly admire Lalla Rookh, or the Corsair, allowing those poems all the merit they deserve. Again, those points in which Wordsworth has surpassed his compeers are not palpable to general observation; the marks of his superiority do not lie on the surface of his poetry. Those who take up his writings carelessly, perceive his child-like, or as they term it, childish simplicity, but they see nothing of the power underneath it. His poetry frequently resembles the lakes of his own country-the clearness deceives us as to the depth. There never was an instance of a poet having encountered, and in a great measure overcome, so many, and such dire opposing influences. He ran counter to the canons of criticism; he disallowed the claims of the writers, who at his first appearance governed Parnassus; and he was hailed by the critics with behold this dreamer cometh,'-and by the poets with' we will not have this man to reign over us." But the head and front of his offending seems to have been, that he took no pains to conceal either his own consciousness of his own genius, or his contempt for the abuse which poured in upon him from all quarters. The buzzing of the flies did not hinder him from proceeding in his appointed path; he did not even stay to crush, he went on and left them behind. A man of less genius, and, consequently, of less moral nerve and sinew, would have been borne down, by the storm which beat round Wordsworth. He has triumphed;-for in true greatness there is a self-sufficing power which enables it at once to trample on opposition, and support itself without assistance. Inferior minds require praise, and sympathy, and encouragement, and if they have it not, they die;-but the mind of higher stamp stoops not to despair :-the butterfly and the flower perish in the storm that strengthens the eagle and the oak. Already has the illustrious poet begun to reap his reward—already has he gathered the first fruits of his future harvest of fame. Opprobrium and ridicule are now only heard as dying echoes; every year thins the ranks of his despisers, and adds to the number of his admirers-enthusiasts, we might say, for it is the proud peculiarity of his poetry to haunt the soul like a passion.' If less generally read, he is more quoted and stolen from than any other writer of the day; and of those who decry his genius, numbers tacitly admit his superiority, by feeding their own lamps with oil from his vessel. All who look even cursorily upon the state of literature previous to the appearance of his works, and contrast it with the spirit of literature at the present period, must admit, that he has exercised a strong, if a silent influence, over the minds of his fellows. There is a habit of thought—a style of expression -a choice of epithet and even subject—a something that can only be termed Wordsworthian, running like an under current through our prose and poetry. He has troubled the waters,' but he has troubled them like the angel visitant of old

Whose function was to heal and to restore,

To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pollute.

But it is more than time to turn to the poetry itself.

Wordsworth's grand peculiarity, that which sets him apart from, and seats him above all our other writers, is, that his genius is so intimately blended with, and modified by, an unswerving regard to the dignity and happiness of

man. All his minor peculiarities are the result of this primary one. Love, love of his kind is the philosophy of his poetry. Hence, his sympathy with the lowliest of God's creatures; his joy in all those objects which are fitted to minister to human happiness; his watchful anxiety to draw

Even from things by sorrow wrought,
Matter for a jocund thought;

and hence his delight in exhibiting the fair and sunny side of whatsoever he touches or beholds. Upon Nature he looks with lover's eye, and he paints her with a lover's fancy; whilst he regards man, and the course of human life, with a beneficence akin to what we might conceive of some superior and guardian intelligence. He delights not in unmitigated descriptions of guilt and misery; and while he puts forth sufficient power to kindle our sympathies, he exerts another to restrain them. There is scarcely one of his poems, whatsoever of sorrow, remorse, bitter remembrance of wrong, doubt, or apprehension, it may embody, that does not, at the close, exhibit some brighter shade, or redeeming touch, which alleviates our previous impression of pain, and leaves us to the milder grief of pity.' The poet's mind is esentially healthy, and to apply his own words to his own poetry, there is shed over it a

Mild dawn of promise that excludes
All profitless dejection.

It is not because he is blind to the darkness which obscures the worth and beauty of all below, but that he sees through that darkness traces of our divine origin; and prefers looking towards the period of final renovation, to brooding over present and irremediable ills. Occasionally he bursts forth into burning indignation against the baser part of our nature; but the harsh strain quickly dies away; his imagination flies back to its native heights, there to expatiate, in ampler ether and diviner air.' Thus he himself speaks:

Noise is there not enough in doleful war,

But that the heaven-born poet must stand forth,
And lend the echoes of his sacred shell,

To multiply and aggravate the din?

Pangs are there not enough in hopeless love,
And, in requited passion, all too much

Of turbulence, anxiety, and fear,-
But that the Minstrel of the rural shade
Must tune his pipe, insidiously to nurse
The perturbation in the suffering breast,
And propagate its kind, where'er he may?

Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope-
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;

Of blessed consolations in distress;
Of moral strength, and intellectual power;
Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
Inviolate retirement, subject there
To Conscience only, and the laws supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all;

sing.

In this same spirit he pourtrays natural and inaminate objects; they too must exult in the open sunshine of God's love; meadow, grove, and stream be apparelled in celestial light. The meanest thing that lives is made to receive, and to reflect back human sympathy; Nature becomes the