"Cock your binnacle up to your chin, Open your shoulders, and let it run in; The more you drink the fuller your skin,

Which nobody can deny."

During the time my lord was singing this verse to each of the party separately, which he did with as much inflexibility of muscle and monotony of tone as if he had been administering Customhouse oaths, he filled a brimming horn to him whom he was addressing, from a cann which he carried round the room with him, and custom required that this horn should be drunk off in the time that the verse was singing, or the remains of it thrown sans cérémonie in the face of the tardy one who might be behind-hand. A bushel basket of nuts was now placed in the middle of the room; the bumper toasts began to go merrily round-nuts and jokes were cracked in almost equal numbers, and the vocal performers congregating into one corner, and following their own taste in the selection of their songs, poured forth a variety of strains which, though not exactly such as would

quite set free

The half-regain'd Eurydice,"

had, I dare say, often produced an effect more consonant to the wishes of the singers, in taking the prison'd soul' of some favourite village maid a willing captive, listening to them. One of these songs treated of a certain Squire Marvell "The pearl of this land, and the pride of Skildare," but in what his particular excellence consisted I am not able to determine, as the performers, after singing all the same part, about forty stanzas, repeating any one that particularly struck their fancy twice over, as a proof of their admiration, came to a halt, their leader declaring that he had clean forgotten the other half, and we were forced to content ourselves with a song from the shepherd

"Who chose a mournful muse,
Soft pity to infuse,"

and gave us an affecting ditty concerning two unfortunate lovyers, which he got through without taking his pipe out of his mouth, and was warmly joined, at the conclusion, by the woodman, who with wonderful energy of tone and gesticulation struck in with

"Then hard-hearted parents, for your own sakes, Mind and break not the bargains as your children

makes."

This woodman, from the case with which his spirits were excited, and the redundancy of action, and torreut of

words in which they displayed themselves, was reckoned only half-witted by his companions; but as I looked upon his wildly animated countenance, the zeal that lighted it up when a more than usually exhilarating toast was proposed, and the even graceful attitudes into which he threw himself, as he waved his cup above his head, previons to draining it off, or sawed the air with his hand, in unison with the senti ments, or melody of the songs,-1 could not help reflecting upon the different opinions which are entertained on the very same subjects by different persons. Had this man been in some fashionable circles, his extravaganzas would have been laid to the account of genius; caught at, admired, and imitated, as delightful energy, and exquisite originality; in short, he would have been a character: whilst among his village associates, all this waste of animal spirits, or intensity of existence, (for every thing is intense now-a-days) only procured him the advantage of being deemed any thing but a con jurer. He was however merely one figure that stood a little more forward than the rest; for all were so far true to nature as to pourtray most faithfully the peculiarities of their respective employcould not indeed have desired a more ments and habits. Hogarth himself ever varying pencil. In one corner, as fruitful field of contemplation for his I have already said, were the musicians with their heads erect, and their eyes half-closed, that their attention might not be interrupted by the sight of what was going on, some with distended jaws, others with their lips ingeniously compressed at one corner so as to retain possession of their pipes; in another corner, a rival band presented itself inthe farmers, who occasionally favoured » us with specimens of superior refinement, in songs culled from the "Lady's Magazine," and the Songster's De-light," wherein Bacchus and Venus, and all the long-neglected deities, once more put in their claims to notice. On the other side sat the females of the family, who skilfully chose that time to hand about the refreshments, when, had they not been so employed, their modesty might have been put somewhat to the blush by the amatory com plexion of certain of the songs, the sen-. timents of which Moore himself, the Anacreon of our age, has done little more than dress out with that sort of classical elegance which has procured

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with an earnest longing for fresh air and a tranquil walk home.

My friend, perceiving my intention, caught me by one arm and the artist by another, and pointing to the window, where the moon-beams were playing among the honeysuckles, he raised his voice, and addressed us in the language of Burns, that very soul of song and merry-making.

"It is the moon! I ken her horn,

That's blinkin in the lift sae hie,
She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,
But by my sooth she'll wait a wee !
Wha first shall rise to gang awa'

A cuckold coward loon is he;
Wha first beside his chair shall fa',

He is the king among us three."

"Ay, you may make this moon wait if you please," said I, " and you may be king if you please, but you will not object to my going before you, to clear the roads for your wife." "Yes I shall," said he, "and so will she too, and every body else. You must stay and see the finish." "But what do you call the finish?" I inquired. "Now tell me honestly, when will these good fellows think they have got enough?" "Why as to that they will soon be past giving an opinion, and we certainly shall not think of giving one for them

till four or five o'clock; they will then perhaps take a nap, but it must be a short one, for they all come again to breakfast at nine, and then at twelve they have a parting cup, by way of a settler." "And that settles it with me," said I, "that this shall be my parting glass." Accordingly taking the advan tage of the ladies' retiring, to equip themselves for the ride home, 1 stole away with the artist. We soon lost the fumes of tobacco, ale, and punch, in the sweets of a mild southern breeze, and found abundant matter for conversation, in eulogizing the hospitality, and unaffected good-humour of the family we had left, and recalling the drolleries we had witnessed; whilst 1 more especially rejoiced to find that old English manners were not yet entirely banished from out the land, and de lighted myself with thinking, that however I might be disgusted with heartless profusion in London, and vulgar affectation in the country, I could at least console myself for it all, once a year, by seeing genuine enjoyment, and native simplicity, added to propriety of manners, and the exercise of the best feelings of the heart, at a SUFFOLK HORKEY.

OUR readers will be disappointed if they expect to find in this article any of the usual flippancies of criticism. Were we accustomed to employ them, its subject would utterly confound us. Strange is their infatuation who can fancy that the merits of a great poet are subjected to their decision, and that they have any authority to pass judicial censures, or confer beneficent praises, on one of the divinest of intellects! We shall attempt to set forth the peculiar immunities and triumphs of Wordsworth's genius, not as critics, but as disciples. To him our eulogy is nothing. But we would fain induce our readers to follow us "where we have garnered up our hearts," and would endeavour to remove those influences by which malignity and prejudice

have striven to deter them from seeking some of the holiest of those living springs of delight which poets have opened for their species.

A minute discussion of Wordsworth's system will not be necessary to our design. It is manifestly absurd to refer to it as a test of his poetical genius. When an author has given numerous creations to the world, he has furnished positive evidence of the nature and extent of his powers, which must preclude the neces sity of deducing an opinion of them from the truth or falsehood of his theories. One noble imagination-one profound and affecting sentiment-or one new gleam cast on the inmost recesses of the soul, is more than a sufficient compensation for a thousand critical errors.

False doctrines of taste can endure only for a little season, but the productions of genius are "for all time." Its discoveries cannot be lost-its images will not perish its most delicate influences cannot be dissipated by the changes of times and of seasons. It may be a curious and interesting question, whether a poet laboriously builds up his fame with purpose and judgment, or, as has most falsely been said of Shakspeare, "grows immortal in his own despite ;" but it cannot affect his highest claims to the gratitude and admiration of the world. If Milton preferred Paradise Regained to Paradise Lost, does that strange mistake detract from our revering love? What would be our feeling towards critics, who should venture to allude to it as a proof that his works were unworthy of perusal, and decline an examination of those works themselves on the ground that his perverse taste sufficiently proved his want of genius? Yet this is the mode by which popular Reviewers have attempted to depreciate Wordsworth-they have argued from his theories to his poetry, instead of examining the poetry itself as if their reasoning was better than the fact in question, or as if one eternal image set up in the stateliest region of poesy, had not value to outweigh all the truths of criticism, or to atone for all its

errors !

Not only have Wordsworth's merits been improperly rested on his system, but that system itself has been misrepresented with no common baseness. From some of the attacks directed against it, a reader might infer that it recommended the choice of the meanest subjects, and their treatment in the meanest way; and that it not only represented poetry as fitly employed on things in themselves low and trivial, but that it forbad the clustering any delicate fancies about them, or the shedding on them any reconciling and softening lustre. Multitudes, indeed, have wondered as they read, not only that any persons should be deluded by its perverse insipidities, but that critics should waste their ridicule on an author who resigned at once all pretensions to the poetic art. In reality, this calumniated system has only reference to the diction, and to the subjects of poetry. It has merely taught, that the diction of poetry is not different from that of prose, and suggested that themes hitherto little dwelt on, were not unsuited to the bard's divinest uses. Let us briefly examine what ground of

offence there is in the assertion or application of these positions.

Some have supposed that by rejecting a diction as peculiar to poetry, Wordsworth denied to it those qualities which are its essence, and those harmonious numbers" which its thoughts "voluntarily move." Were his language equivocal, which it is not, the slightest glance at his works would shew that he could have no design to exclude from it the stateliest imaginings, the most felicitous allusions, or the choicest and most varied music. He objected only to a peculiar phraseology—a certain hacknied strain of inversion-which had been set up as distinguishing poetry from prose, and which, he contended, was equally false in either. What is there of pernicious heresy in this, unless we make the crafty politician's doctrine, that speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts, the great principle of poetry? If words are fitly combined only to convey ideas to the mind, each word having a fixed meaning in itself, no different mode of collocation can be requisite when the noblest sentiment is to be embodied, from that which is proper when the dryest fact is to be asserted. Each term employed by a poet has as determinate an office as clearly means one thing as distinguished from all others—as a mathematician's scientific phrases. If a poet wishes lucidly to convey a grand picture to the mind, there can be no reason why he should resort to another mode of speech than that which he would employ in delivering the plainest narrative. He will, of course, use other and probably more beautiful words, because they properly belong to his subject; but he will not use any different order in their arrangement, because in both cases his immediate object is the same-the clear communication of his own idea to the mind of his reader. And this is true not only of the chief object of the passage, but of every hinted allusion, or nice shade of feeling, which may adorn it. If by "poetic diction" is intended the vivid expression of poetic thoughts, to annihilate it is to annihilate poetry; but if it means certain ornamental phrases and forms of language not necessary to such expression, it is, at best, but a splendid error. Felicity of language can never be other than the distinct expression of felicitous thought. The only art of diction in poetry, as in prose, is the nice bodying forth of each delicate vibration of the feelings, and

each soft shade of the images, in words which at once make us conscious of their most transient beauty. At all events, there was surely no offence in an individual's rejecting the aid of a stile regarded as poetic, and relying for his fame on the naked majesty of his conceptions. The triumph is more signal when the Poet uses language as a mir ror, clear, and itself invisible, to reflect his creations in their native hues, than when he employs it as a stained and fallacious medium to exhibit its own varieties of tint, and to shew the objects which it partially reveals in its own prismatic colouring.

But it is said that the subjects of Wordsworth's poetry are not in themselves so lofty as those which his noblest predecessors have chosen. If this be true, and he has yet succeeded in discovering within them poetical affinities, or in shedding on them a new consecration, he does not surely deserve ill of his species. He has left all our old objects of veneration uninjured, and has enabled us to recognize new ones in the peaceful and familiar courses of our being. The question is not whether there are more august themes than those which he has treated, but whether these last have any interest, as seen in the light which he has cast around them. If they have, the benefits which he has conferred on humanity are more signal, and the triumph of his own powers is more undivided and more pure, than if he had treated on subjects which we have been accustomed to revere. We are more indebted to one who opens to us a new and secluded pathway in the regions of fantasy with its own verdant inequalities and delicate overshadings of foliage, than if he had stepped majestically in the broad and beaten highway to swell the triumphant procession of laurelled bards. Is it matter of accusation that a poet has opened visions of glory about the ordinary walks of life that he has linked holiest asso›ciations to things which hitherto have been regarded without emotion-that he has made beauty a simple product of the common day?" Shall he be denied the poetic faculty who without the attractions of story-without the blan...dishments of diction-without even the aid of those associations which have en crusted themselves around the oldest themes of the poet, has for many years excited the animosities of the most popular critics, and mingled the love and

admiration of his genius with the lifeblood of hearts neither unreflecting nor ungentle ?

3

But most of the subjects of Mr. Wordsworth, though not arrayed in any adventitious pomp, have a real and innate, grandeur. True it is, that he moves not among the regalities, but among the humanities of his art. True it is, that his poetry does not “make its bed and procreant cradle" in the "jutting, frieze, cornice, or architrave” of the glorious edifices of human power. The universe, in its naked majesty, and man in the plain dignity of his nature, are his favourite themes. And is there no might, no glory, no sanctity in these? Earth has her own venerablenesses-her awful forests, which have darkened her hills for ages with tremendous gloom; her mysterious springs pouring out everlasting waters from unsearchable recesses; her wrecks of elemental contests; her jagged rocks, monumental of an earlier world. The lowliest of her beauties has an antiquity beyond that of the pyramids. The evening breeze has the old sweetness which it shed over the fields of Canaan, when Isaac went out to meditate. The Nile swells with its rich waters towards the bulrushes of Egypt, as when the infant Moses nestled among them, watched by the sisterly love of Miriam. Zion's hill has not passed away with its temple, nor lost its sanctity amidst the tumultuous changes around it, nor even by the accomplishment of that awful religion of types and symbols which once was enthroned on its steeps. The sun to which the poet turns his eye is the same which shone over Thermopylæ; the wind to which he listens swept over Salamis, and scattered the armaments of Xerxes. Is a poet utterly deprived of fitting themes, to whom ocean, earth, and sky are open-who has an eye for the most evanescent of nature's hues, and the most ethereal of her graces who can "live in the rainbow and play in the plighted clouds," or send into our hearts the awful loneliness of regions" consecrate to eldest time?" Is there nothing in man, considered abstractedly from the distinctions of this world-nothing in a being who is in the infancy of an immortal life who is lackeyed by if a thousand diveried angels" who is even "splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave"-to awaken ideas of permanence, solemnity, and grandeur? Are there no themes