In this rapid and very inadequate view of contemporary literature, I have reserved little space for an influence which is felt most amply and gratefully where it is felt at all, and which, in my belief, will prove the most

was written, or not long after, Southey's second wife, better known as Caroline Bowles, died in a distant part of England; and since her death some very interesting though painful letters from her, descriptive of Southey's latter days of fading or faded intellect, have found their way into the newspapers. I am tempted to make short extracts from two of these, dated in 1840, which seem to me very touching: ... "Nothing gratifying, nothing hopeful, have I now to tell, though there is still great cause for thankfulness in continued exemption from all acute pain and bodily suffering; but I think there is increased feebleness; and certainly, from week to week, the mental failure progresses. Spark after spark goes out of the little light now left. Yet a capacity for enjoyment remains; and, God be thanked! and in his way, he still lives in his books, taking, to all appearance, as much delight in them as ever. I have no doubt, however, that there is at times a painful consciousness of his condition." "Of late my dear husband has been less restless in the day-time, sitting quietly on the sofa, turning over his leaves for an hour or two at a time, so that I have been able to occupy myself a little, as of old, with my pencil; . . . and now my latest and perhaps last attempt satisfies even me, for I have somehow made out an excellent likeness of that dear husband, of whom there has never yet been a resembling portrait. Here is a chapter of egotism, but never was Raphael so contented with the most glorious of his works as I with this, my poor defective drawing. 'Yes, this me,' was the remark of my dear husband when I showed it to him."

....

I cannot refrain from still farther extending this note by a poem commemorative of Southey by Landor, which I find in the Annual Register for 1853-a book, by-the-by, let me say, where year after year, when there is any current poetry, beautiful selections are always to be found. It is quoted from "The Last Fruits of an Old Tree:" "It was a dream, (ah! what is not a dream?)

In which I wandered through a boundless space
Peopled by those that peopled earth erewhile.

permanent poetic influence of these times: I refer, I need hardly add, to the poetry of Wordsworth, of which, it might have been expected, I would have made room to speak more at large. I should certainly have rejoiced in

But who conducted me? That gentle Power,

Gentle as Death, Death's brother. On his brow
Some have seen poppies; and perhaps among
The many flowers about his wavy curls
Poppies there might be; roses I am sure
I saw, and dimmer amaranths between.
Lightly I thought I lept across a grave
Smelling of cool fresh turf, and sweet it smelt.
I would, but must not linger; I must on,
To tell my dream before forgetfulness
Sweeps it away, or breaks or changes it.

I was among the Shades, (if Shades they were,)
And lookt around me for some friendly hand
To guide me on my way, and tell me all
That compast me around. I wisht to find
One no less firm or ready than the guide
Of Alighieri, trustier far than he,
Higher in intellect, more conversant
With earth and heaven, and what so lies between.
He stood before me.-Southey. 'Thou art he,'
Said I, 'whom I was wishing.' 'That I know,'
Replied the genial voice and radiant eye.
'We may be questioned, question we may not;
For that might cause to bubble forth again
Some bitter spring which crost the pleasantest
And shadiest of our paths.' 'I do not ask,'
Said I, 'about your happiness; I see

The same serenity as when we walkt

Along the downs of Clifton. Fifty years

Have rolled behind us since that summer-tide,

Nor thirty fewer since along the lake

Of Lario, to Bellagio villa-crowned,

Thro' the crisp waves I urged my sideling bark.

the opportunity of deepening the sense of thoughtful admiration and gratitude to Wordsworth's genius in any mind that has already possessed itself of the treasures of such emotions, and possibly of persuading some so to approach that poetry as to find in it, what it can surely give to all who are willing as well as worthy to find ita ministry of wisdom and happiness, both in the homely realities of daily life, and in the deepest spiritual recesses of our being. But such a theme transcends the limit now left for me; and I propose therefore only to notice two or three points having a connection with subjects I have already had occasion to speak of. With regard to language, an English editor of Wordsworth has said, "By no such great poet, besides Shakspeare, has the English tongue been used with equal purity, and yet such flexible command of its resources. Spenser gives us too many obsolete forms, Milton too much un-English syntax, to make either of them available for the purpose of train

Amid sweet salutation off the shore

From lordly Milan's proudly courteous dames.'
'Landor! I well remember it,' said he.

'I had just lost my first-born, only boy,
And then the heart is tender; lightest things
Sink into it, and dwell there evermore.'

The words were not yet spoken when the air
Blew balmier; and around the parent's neck
An angel threw his arms: it was that son.
'Father! I felt you wisht me,' said the boy.

'Behold me here!'

Gentle the sire's embrace,

Gentle his tone. See here your father's friend!'

He gazed into my face, then meekly said,

'He whom my father loves hath his reward

On earth; a richer one awaits him here.'" W. B. R.

ing the young men of our country in the laws, and leading them to apprehend and revere the principles of their magnificent language. But in Wordsworth. is the English tongue seen almost in its perfection; its powers of delicate expression, its flexible idioms, its vast compass, the rich variety of its rhythms, being all displayed in the attractive garb of verse, and yet with a most rigorous conformity to the laws of its own syntax."* This high tribute will bear the test of close study; and, let me add, that this admirable command of the language is the reward of that dutiful culture which is a characteristic of the poet.

In the early part of this lecture, I had occasion to speak of those miserable poetic sophistries which tempted men and women to think that there is magnanimity in the littlenesses of a morbid pride, and poetic beauty in dreary moodiness. It was Wordsworth's function, with his manly wisdom, with the true feeling of his full-beating heart, and with the further-reaching vision of his imagination, to sweep these heresies away, showing by his own example that

"A cheerful life is what the Muses love,

A soaring spirit is their prime delight,"†

and teaching that lesson, which poetry and morals alike should give:

"If thou be one whose heart the holy forms

Of young imagination have kept pure,

-Henceforth be warned; and know that Pride,

Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,

Is littleness; that he who feels contempt

* The advertisement to "Select Pieces from Wordsworth," p. 4.

† Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree. Works, p. 338.

For any living thing, hath faculties

Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye

Is ever on himself doth look on one,

The least of Nature's works-one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful ever. Oh be wiser, thou;

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love

True dignity abides with him alone

Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,

Can still suspect, and still revere himself

In lowliness of heart."

I have also had occasion to show how morbid and dangerous the love of innocent, inanimate nature may become when it is linked with infidelity-how it will sink down into a vile and weak materialism. By no poet that ever lived has the face of nature, the world of sight and sound, from the planetary motions in the heavens down to the restless shadow of the smallest flower, been so sedulously studied during a long life, and all the utterance his poetry gives of that study is meant to inspire

"The glorious habit by which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,

Auxiliar to divine."*

Never, as in the sensuous and irreligious poets, is the material world suffered to encroach upon the spiritual, still less to get dominion over it. So far from any such delusion, observe how in that well-known passage in The Excursion, the sublimity of which is sometimes overlooked in the beauty of the illustration, he proclaims this truth-that the universe, this material universe, is a shell, from which the ear of Faith can hear mysterious murmurings of the Deity.

* Excursion, book iv. p. 432.