And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces did he read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request;
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!

A herdsman on the lonely mountain tops,
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed.
Oh then how beautiful, how bright appeared
The written promise! He had early learned
To reverence the Volume which displays
The mystery, the life which cannot die:
But in the mountains did he feel his faith;
There did he see the writing; all things there
Breathed immortality, revolving life

And greatness still revolving; infinite;
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe,

he saw.

What wonder if his being thus became
Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires,

Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart
Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,

Oft as he called those extacies to mind,

And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired
Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned

In many a calmer hour of sober thought
To look on Nature with a humble heart,
Self-questioned where it did not understand,
And with a superstitious eye of love.'

In another part of the poem, this doctrine is illustrated by a singular comparison; which we do not mean to censure for lowness, a comparison not being necessarily low because it is familiar: but, on the contrary, if it presents to any reader a more distinct image of that which it is designed to make manifest than it has furnished to us, we shall deem it intitled to great applause on account of its apparent closeness and felicity.

Access for you

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Is yet preserved to principles of truth,
Which the imaginative will upholds
In seats of wisdom, not to be approached
By the inferior faculty that moulds,
With her minute and speculative pains,
Opinion, ever changing! I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore, and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of your will.

So intimately is this mystic principle connected with, and so closely does it pervade, the whole structure of the poem, that it is scarcely possible to turn to any one of the subjects to which it refers without finding it introduced in some form, and, generally speaking, with as little variety as can be well imagined. No doubt, Mr. Wordsworth has higher and nobler aims in his poetry than the mere gratification of his reader's senses; and indeed the lofty interest and importance of his objects are sufficiently apparent from the summary, with extracts from which we commenced our present remarks. The very passage, also, which we last selected, forms a portion of the correctives of despondency which are announced as the purpose of the fourth book, and presents an illustration of the general scope of argument adduced to combat want of faith in the great truths of religion.' Mr. Wordsworth, however, might have borrowed more suitable weapons from the armouries of Hooker or Barrow; and, without deciding whether his effusions be such as to stamp on the opinions and sentiments which they unfold more of the character of an expanded and generous quakerism,' or of a kind of natural methodism,' we will venture to suggest that neither mysticism nor enthusiasm

is the best conductor of misguided mortals back to the precincts of a calm and rational religion.

The originality of Mr. Wordsworth is assumed by a certain class of critics as a matter out of all question; and, as far as the attribute is confined to a certain peculiarity of diction and manner, we believe that it may be correctly ascribed: but, in point of sentiment, (we know that we are broaching an unpardonable heresy, yet we say that, in point of sentiment,) almost all that is not too mystical to be comprehended is too common-place to be tolerated, were it not hidden under a multiplicity of words and phrases, and disguised by those outward peculiarities at which we have just hinted as, in fact, consituting the whole essence of the poet's claim to the great quality now in question. We will not fatigue ourselves and our readers by multiplying quotations in support of so general an assertion, the truth or falsehood of which must necessarily depend not on any detached passages, however numerous or impartially chosen, but on the entire poem.

Nevertheless, we have admitted that, in common (we believe) with all who are capable of feeling true poetry, we are strongly impressed with the conviction that Mr. Wordsworth is himself a true poet; and, saying this after a condemnation apparently sweeping in its effect, it may perhaps be asked in what we hold the evidence of his native powers to consist? We answer, then, that we discover them in the occasional touches of a master's pencil, in the bright but transient gleams of a powerful imagination, in the workings of a fine and high-wrought sensibility, and in that ardent and devoted attachment, that indescribable yearning of the heart, to the grand and beautiful works of the creation, which can exist in full force only in the breast of a poet. It is in the very excess of these feelings, and in the unbounded indulgence of them to the utter exclusion of that intercourse with society,—that habitual collision with the sentiments and opinions of the age, — which is absolutely requisite to keep an enthusiastic mind within the confines of sound and temperate judgment, that a very large proportion of the author's errors and excentricities may perhaps be found. return; we are almost as much at a loss to select particular instances of Mr. Wordsworth's beauties as of his defects. They are so infused into each other, that any single page, taken at random, would in some degree answer the purpose; while much more copious and extensive quotations, than we are at liberty to make, would fail to produce the complete effect which we should wish to place before our readers. Perhaps the mode in which this object could be most nearly accomplished, through the medium of a review, would be by select

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ing the whole of one of his most interesting narratives from the poetical parish-register to which we have before alluded: but, while many of them abound in pathos, and are marked with strong touches both of natural and moral painting, all are unreasonably diffuse and wearisomely pedantic; and none will easily admit of being contracted within the limits that we are obliged to prescribe to ourselves. The extracts which we have already given, however, furnish abundant traces of those powers which we wish to display; and, as a farther proof that even the encumbrance of a false and extravagant system is insufficient to repress the native energies of the mind which gave birth to it, we have only to add other passages of a similar design and tendency.

• In genial mood While at our pastoral banquet thus we sate Fronting the window of that little cell,

I could not ever and anon forbear

To glance an upward look on two huge peaks,
That from some other vale peered into this.
"Those lusty twins on which your eyes are cast,"
Exclaimed our host, "if here you dwelt, would be
Your prized companions. Many
Many are the notes

Which in his tuneful course the wind draws forth
From rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and dashing shores;
And well those lofty brethren bear their part
In the wild concert chiefly when the storm
Rides high; then all the upper air they fill
With roaring sound, that ceases not to flow,
Like smoke, along the level of the blast
In mighty current; theirs, too, is the song
Of stream and headlong flood that seldom fails;
And, in the grim and breathless hour of noon,
Methinks that I have heard them echo back
The thunder's greeting:

nor have nature's laws
Left them ungifted with a power to yield
Music of finer frame; a harmony,

the clouds,

So do I call it, though it be the hand
Of silence, though there be no voice;
The mist, the shadows, light of golden suns,
Motions of moonlight, all come thither-touch,
And have an answer thither come, and shape
A language not unwelcome to sick hearts
And idle spirits: - there the sun himself
At the calm close of summer's longest day
Rests his substantial orb ; between those heights
And on the top of either pinnacle,

More keenly than elsewhere in night's blue vault,
Sparkle the stars as of their station proud.

Thoughts are not busier in the mind of man

Than

Than the mute agents stirring there: alone
Here do I sit and watch."'

The following are samples of more unexceptionable poetry:

'Deities that float

On wings, angelic spirits, I could muse
O'er what from eldest time we have been told
Of your bright forms and glorious faculties,
And with the imagination be content,
Not wishing more; repining not to tread
The little sinuous path of earthly care,

By flowers embellished, and by springs refreshed.
"Blow winds of Autumn! - let your chilling breath
Take the live herbage from the mead, and strip
The shady forest of its green attire, -

And let the bursting clouds to fury rouse
The gentle brooks! Your desolating sway,"
Thus I exclaimed, "no sadness sheds on me,
And no disorder in your rage I find.
What dignity, what beauty, in this change
From mild to angry, and from sad to gay,
Alternate and revolving! How benign,
How rich in animation and delight,
How bountiful these elements - compared
With aught, as more desirable and fair,
Devised by fancy for the golden age;
Or the perpetual warbling that prevails
In Arcady, beneath unaltered skies,

Through the long year in constant quiet bound,
Night hush'd as night, and day serene as day !”.
Alas! what differs more than man from man!

And whence that difference? whence but from himself?
For see the universal race endowed

With the same upright form! — The sun is fixed,
And the infinite magnificence of heaven,

Within the reach of every human eye;

The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears;

The vernal field infuses fresh delight

Into all hearts. Throughout the world of sense
Even as an object is sublime or fair,

That object is laid open to the view

Without reserve or veil; and as a power

Is salutary, or an influence sweet,

Are each and all enabled to perceive

That power, that influence, by impartial law.
Gifts nobler are vouchsafed alike to all;

Reason, and, with that reason, smiles and tears;

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Imagination, freedom in the will,

Conscience to guide and check; and death to be
Foretasted, immortality presumed.

Strange, then, nor less than monstrous might be deemed