that each string may be twice raised a half-tone, by means of the same pedal, which consequently has a double movement, thus with respect to facility of modulation they unquestionably possess a vast advantage over the harps hitherto in use. The complicated machinery of these instruments was invented some years ago by Mr. Sebastian Erard. Double movement harps are now, however, manufactured by all the principal makers in London, and Mr. Stumpf has recently introduced a very ingenious improyement on them, by which the first and, second movements of the pedals

may be made to act independently of each other. For instance, if in the key of C natural major (in which the harp is tuned) all the seven pedals be down, by raising them the performer may modulate into C flat inajor, or, by touching the second movement, into C sharp major. I question, however, whether these harps will ever be generally adopted on the Continent, owing to the errormous price at which they are sold. The plainest of those manufactured by Messrs. Erard cost 110 guineas; and the richly ornamented ones are sold at 160 guineas."

ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF WORDSWORTH.
(Concluded from our last Number.)

THE spirit of contemplation influences and directs all Wordsworth's poetical faculties. He does not create a variety of individual forms to vivify them with the Promethean fire of dramatic genius, and exhibit the living struggle of their passions and their affections in opposition to each other, or to destiny. The moving accident is not his trade." He looks on humanity as from a more exalted sphere, though he feels his kindred with it while he gazes, and yearns over it with deepest sympathy. No poet of ancient or modern times has dared so entirely to repose on the mere strength of his own powers. Others, indeed, have given hints of the divinest truths, even amidst their wildest and most passionate effusions. The tragedies of Sophocles, for example, abound in moralities expressed with a grace and precision which often ally the sentiment to an image, and almost define it to the senses. In Shakspeare the wisdom is as much deeper as the passion is intenser; the minds of the characters, under the strongest excitements of love, hope, or agony, grow bright as well as warm, and in their fervid career shed abroad sparkles of fire, which light up for an instant the inmost sanctuaries of our nature. But few have ventured to send into the world essentially meditative poems, which none but the thoughtful and the gentle-hearted can truly enjoy. Lucretius is the only writer of antiquity who has left a great work of this description; and he has unhappily lavished the boundless riches of his genius on doctrines which are in direct opposition to the spirit of poetry. An apostle of a more congenial faith, Wordsworth, stands pre-eminently

almost alone a divine philosopher among the poets. It has been his singular lot, in this late age of the world,

to draw little from those sources of interest which incident and situation supply-and to rest his claim to the gratitude and admiration of the people on his intense and majestical contemplations of man and the universe.

The philosophical poetry of Words- 1 worth is not more distinct from the dramatic, or the epic, than from the merely didactic and moral. He has thrown into it as much of profound affection, as much of ravishing loveliness, as much of delicate fantasy, as adorn the most romantic tales, or the most passionate tragedies. If he sees all things "far as angel's ken," he regards them with human love. His imagination is never obscured amidst his profoundest reasonings, but is ever active to embody the beautiful and the pure, and to present to us the most august moralities in "clear dream and solemn vision." Instead of reaching sublime conclusions by a painful and elaborate process, he discloses them by a single touch, and fixes them on our hearts for ever. So intense are his perceptions of moral beauty, that he feels the spirit of good however deeply hidden, and opens to our view the secret springs of love and of joy, where all has appeared barren to the ungifted observer. He can trace, prolong, and renew within us, those mysterious risings of delight in the soul which may make a chysome child to smile," and which, when halfexperienced at long intervals in riper age, are to us the assurances of a better life. He follows with the nice touch of unerring sympathy all the most subtle

workings of the spirit of good, as it makes its little sanctuaries in hearts unconscious of its presence, and blends its influences unheeded with ordinary thoughts, hopes, and sorrows. The old prerogatives of humanity, which long usage has made appear common, put on their own air of grandeur while he teaches us to revere them. When we first read his poetry, we look on all the mysteries of our being with a new reverence, and feel like children who, having been brought up in some deserted palace, learn for the first time the regality of their home-understand a venerableness in the faded escutcheons with which they were accustomed to play and feel the dim figures on the stained windows, or on the decaying tapestry, which were only grotesque before, speaking to their hearts in ances

tral voices.

The consecration which Wordsworth has shed over the external world is in a great measure peculiar to his genius. In the Hebrew poetry there was no trace of particular description-but general images, such as of tall cedars, of sweet pastures, or of still waters, were alone permitted to aid the affections of the devout worshipper. The feeling of the vast and indistinct prevailed; for all in religion was symbolical and mysterious, and pointed to "temples not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." In the exquisite master-pieces of Grecian inspiration, free nature's grace was almost excluded by the opposite tendency to admire only the definite and the palpable. Hence the pictures of nymphs, satyrs, and deities, were perpetually substituted for views of the magnificence of earth and heaven. In the romantic poetry of modern times, the open face of nature has again been permitted to asmile on us, and its freshness to glide into our souls. Nor has there been wanting "craft of delicate spirits" to shed lovelier tinges of the imagination is on all its scenes to scatter among bethem classical images like Ionic temples among the fair glades and deep woods of some rich domain-to call dainty groups of fairies to hold their revellings upon the velvet turf-or af ford glimpses of angel wings floating at even-tide in the golden perspective. But s the imagination of Wordsworth has given to the external universe a charm which has never else, extensively at least, been shed over it. He has not personified the glorious objects of creaAtion-nor peopled them with beautiful NEW MONTHLY MAG.--No. 83.

1

and majestic shapes-but, without depriving them of their own reality, has imparted to them a life which makes them objects of affection and reverence. He enables us at once to enjoy the contemplation of their colours and forms, and to love them as human friends. He consecrates earth by the mere influences of sentiment and thought, and renders its scenes as enchanted as though he had filled them with Oriental wonders. Touched by him, the hills, the rocks, the little hedgerows, and the humblest flowers-all the grandeurs and the tendernesses of creation-shine in a magic lustre "which never was by sea or land," and which yet is strangely familiar to our hearts. These are not hallowed by him with "angel visits," nor by the presence of fair and immortal shapes, but by the remembrances of early joy, by lingering gleams of a brightness which has passed away, and dawnings of a glory to be revealed in the fulness of time. The lowliest of nature's graces have power to move and to delight "The clouds are touched, and him. in their silent faces does he read unutterable love." He listens to the voice of the cuckoo in early spring, till he "begets again the golden time of his childhood," and till the world, which is "fit home" for that mysterious bird, appears" an airy unsubstantial place." At the root of some old thorn, or beneath the branches of some time-honoured tree, he opens the sources of delicious musing, and suggests the first hints which lead through a range of intensest humanities to the glories of our final destiny. When we traverse with him the "bare earth and mountains bare," we feel that the place whereon we are standing is holy ground;" the melancholy brook can touch our souls as truly as a tragic catastrophe; the splendours of the western sky give intimation of "a joy past joy ;" and the meanest flowers, and scanty blades of grass, awaken within us hopes too rapturous for smiles, and "thoughts which do often lie too deep for tears."

To give all the instances of this sublime operation of the imaginative faculty in Wordsworth, would be to quote the far larger portion of his works. A few lines, however, from the poem composed on the Banks of the Wye, will give our readers a deep glimpse into the inmost heart of his poetry, and of his poetical system, on the communion of the soul of man with the spirit of the 40 universe. In this rapturous effusion-in VOL. XIV.

that each string may be twice raised a half-tone, by means of the same pedal, which consequently has a double movement, thus with respect to facility of modulation they unquestionably possess a vast advantage over the harps hitherto in use. The complicated machinery of these instruments was invented some years ago by Mr. Sebastian Erard. Double movement harps are now, however, manufactured by all the principal makers in London, and Mr. Stumpf has recently introduced a very ingenious improvement on them, by which the first and second movements of the pedals

'may be made to act independently of each other. For instance, if in the key of C natural major (in which the harp is tuned) all the seven pedals be down, by raising them the performer may modu"late into C flat major, or, by touching the second movement, into C sharp major. I question, however, whether these harps will ever be generally adopted on the Continent, owing to the enormous price at which they are sold. The plainest of those manufactured by Messrs. Erard cost 110 guineas; and the richly ornamented ones are sold at 160 guineas."

ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF WORDSWORTH.
(Concluded from our last Number.)

THE spirit of contemplation influences and directs all Wordsworth's poetical faculties. He does not create a variety of individual forms to vivify them with the Promethean fire of dramatic genius, and exhibit the living struggle of their passions and their affections in opposition to each other, or to destiny. "The moving accident is not his trade." He looks on humanity as from a more exalted sphere, though he feels his kindred with it while he gazes, and yearns over it with deepest sympathy. No poet of ancient or modern times has dared so entirely to repose on the mere strength of his own powers. Others, indeed, have given hints of the divinest truths, even amidst their wildest and most passionate effusions. The tragedies of Sophocles, for example, abound in moralities expressed with a grace and precision which often ally the sentiment to an image, and almost define it to the senses. In Shakspeare the wisdom is as much deeper as the passion is intenser; the minds of the characters, under the strongest excitements of love, hope, or agony, grow bright as well as

warm,

and in their fervid career shed abroad sparkles of fire, which light up for an instant the inmost sanctuaries of our nature. But few have ventured to send into the world essentially meditative poems, which none but the thoughtful and the gentle-hearted cau truly enjoy. Lucretius is the only writer of antiquity who has left a great work of this description; and he has unhappily lavished the boundless riches of his genius on doctrines which are in direct opposition to the spirit of poetry. An apostle of a more congenial faith, Wordsworth, stands pre-eminently

almost alone -a divine philosopher among the poets. It has been his singular lot, in this late age of the world, to draw little from those sources of interest which incident and situation supply-and to rest his claim to the gratitude and admiration of the people on his intense and majestical contemplations of man and the universe.

The philosophical poetry of Words-1 worth is not more distinct from the dramatic, or the epic, than from the merely didactic and moral. He has thrown into it as much of profound affection, as much of ravishing loveliness, as much of delicate fantasy, as adorn the most romantic tales, or the most passionate tragedies. If he sees all things far as angel's ken," he regards thein with human love. His imagination is never obscured amidst his profoundest reasonings, but is ever active to embody the beautiful and the pure, and to present to us the most august moralities in "clear dream and solemn vision." Instead of reaching sublime conclusions by a painful and elaborate process, he discloses them by a single touch, and fixes them on our hearts for ever. So intense are his perceptions of moral beauty, that he feels the spirit of good however deeply hidden, and opens to our view the secret springs of love and of joy, where all has appeared barren to the ungifted observer. He can trace, prolong, and renew within us, those mysterious risings of delight in the soul which may make a chysome child to smile," and which, when halfexperienced at long intervals in riper age, are to us the assurances of a better life. He follows with the nice touch of unerring sympathy all the most subtle

To give all the instances of this sublime operation of the imaginative faculty in Wordsworth, would be to quote the far larger portion of his works. A few lines, however, from the poem composed on the Banks of the Wye, will give our readers a deep glimpse into the inmost heart of his poetry, and of his poetical system, on the communion of the soul of man with the spirit of the universe. In this rapturous effusion-in VOL. XIV.

like glory, which assures to us that this world is not our final home. Age, to him, is not a descent into a dark valley, but a " final eminence," where the wise may sit" in awful sovereignty" as on a high peak among the mountains in placid summer, and commune with heaven, undisturbed by the lesser noises of the tumultuous world. One season of life is bound to another by "the natural piety" which the unchanging forms of nature preserve, and death comes at last over the deep and tranquil stream as it is about to emerge into a lovelier sunshine, as " a shadow thrown softly and lightly from a passing cloud."