the whole. If we were certain that those those offices of kindness that win the affecof whom we write would never look upon tions of high and low; her conversational this page--if we felt it no outrage on do- powers unimpaired, and enlivening all by a mestic life-no breach of kindly confidence racy anecdote or a quickness at repartee -to picture each individual of a family so which always comes when it is unexpected. highly gifted, we would fill our number It is extraordinary that a person who has with little else than praise; but we might deserved and is treated with so much defergive pain-and we believe should give pain ence by her own family should assume posi-to this estimable household; and al- tively no position-of course it is impossible though Miss Edgeworth is public property to converse with her without feeling her subelonging to the world at large, we are periority, but this is your feeling, not her forced every now and then to think how the demand. She has a clearness in conversafriend we so respect, esteem, and love, tion that is exceedingly rare; and children would look if we said what-let us say as prefer it at once-they invariably underlittle as we will-she would deem, in her stand her. One advantage this distinguishingenuous and unaffected modesty, too ed woman has enjoyed above all her conmuch; yet we owe it to the honor and glory temporaries-two indeed-for we cannot of Ireland not to say too little. It was in- call to mind any one who has had a father deed a rare treat to sit, evening after even- so capable of instructing and directing; but ing, by her side, turning over portions of Miss Edgeworth has enjoyed another blessthe correspondence kept up with her, year ing. She never wrote for bread! She was after year, by those "mighty ones," who never obliged to furnish a bookseller with are now passed away, but whose names will so many pages at so much per sheet. She survive with hers, who, God be thanked, is never received an order for "a quire of still with us; to see her enthusiasm un- Irish pathos," or "a ream of Irish wit." quenched; to note the playfulness of awit She was never forced to produce humor that is never ill-natured; to observe how when racked by pain, nor urged into the perfectly justice and generosity are blend- description of misery by thinking over what ed together in her finely-balanced mind; to she had herself endured; this has been a see her kindle into warm defence of what- great blessing. She has not written herself ever is oppressed, and to mark her indigna- out, which every author, who has not an intion against all that is unjust and untrue. dependence, must do sooner or later. It is We have heard Miss Edgeworth called to their high honor that women were the "cold" we can imagine how those who first to use their pens in the service of Ireknow her must smile at this; those who land-we do not mean politically but mohave so called her have never seen the tears rally. For a number of years a buffoon, a gush from her eyes at a tale or an incident knave, and an Irishman, were synonymous of sorrow, or heard the warm genuine laugh terms in the novel or on the stage. Abroad, that burst from a heart, the type of a genu- to be met with in every country, and in the ine Irish one, touched quickly by sorrow or first society of Europe, were numberless by joy. Never, never shall we forget the Irishmen whose conduct and character vindievenings spent in that now far away room, cated their country, and who did credit to hustored with the written works and speaking man nature; but in England, more particularmemories of the past, and rendered more ly, such were considered as exceptions to the valuable by the unrestrained conversation general rule, and the insulting jibe and jeer of a highly-educated and self-thinking fam- were still directed against the "mere Irish;" ily. Miss Edgeworth is a living proof of the oppressed peasant at home and abroad her own admirable system; she is all she was considered as nothing beyond a "born has endeavored to make others; she is thrall;" and, despite the eloquence of their TRUE, fearing no colors, yet tempering her Grattans and Sheridans, the high standing mental bravery by womanly gentleness- taken by their noblemen and gentlemen in delighting in feminine amusements-in the the pages of history, when an Irish gentleplying of her needle, in the cultivation of man in every day life was found what he her flowers; active, enduring-of a most ought to be, his superiority was too freliberal heart; understanding the peasantry quently referred to with the addition of an of her country perfectly, and while minis- insulting comment, "though he is an Irishtering to their wants, careful to incul- man.' When this prejudice was at its cate whatever lesson they most need; of height, two women, with opposite views a most cheerful nature-keeping actively and opposite feelings on many subjects, but about from half-past six in the morning actuated by the same ennobling patriotism, until eleven at night-first and last in all rose to the rescue of their country-Miss Owenson by the vivid romance, and Miss | frauded of none of their interest by being Edgeworth by the stern reality of portrait- regarded apart, nor is any instruction lost ure, forcing justice from an unwilling jury! spreading abroad the knowledge of the Irish character, and portraying, as they never had been portrayed before, the beauty, generosity and devotion of Irish nature-it was a glorious effort, worthy of them and of the cause both planted the standard of Irish excellence on high ground, and defended it, boldly and bravely, with all loyalty, in accordance with their separate views. by such a mode of viewing them. Even when, as happily sometimes still occurs, a really elaborate composition is published, its consistency is usually confined to its own boundaries; it is satisfied to be at one with itself, and makes no pretensions to any wider harmony. But Mr. Wordsworth's is a mind which sees its own processes so distinctly, and has arranged its powers and objects in so orderly and definite a scheme, that the degree of coherency with which most writers are content both to write and to be read, is rejected by him as insufficient; he aims to be the exemplar of a whole system himself. We rejoice at this opportunity of expressing our respect and affection for Miss Edgeworth; and tender it with the whole heart. If we have ourselves been useful in communicating knowledge to young or old-if we have succeeded in our hopes of promoting Even at their first appearances, his works virtue and goodness-and, more especially, have seldom come forward in reliance on if we have, even in a small degree, attained their own merits solely; they have claimed our great purpose of advancing the welfare attention, at the same time, as illustrations of our country-we owe, at least, much of of peculiar views of his art and its princi the desire to do all this to the feelings de- ples, or expositions of his system of moral rived in early life from intimacy with the duty or metaphysical truth. And as his writings of Miss Edgeworth; writings years and industry have gradually enabled which must have formed and strengthened him to look back on the long series of his the just and upright principles of tens of thou- productions with more of the quiet of a sands; although comparatively few have man who has done his work, he has come enjoyed the high privilege of treading-more and more to insist on regarding them no matter at how large a distance-in her as a whole. By a fanciful but not inapt steps. Much, too, we have owed to this estimable lady in after life. When we entered upon the uncertain, anxious, and laborious career of authorship, she was among the first to cheer us on our way -to bid us "God speed;" and to anticipate that prosperity-of which we could speak only in terms of humble but grateful thankfulness. WORDSWORTH'S POEMS. From the British and Foreign Review. Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years. William Wordsworth. London: ward Moxon, 1842. simile, he compares his greater work (of which the 'Excursion' forms the only pub lished part) to a cathedral, to which his lesser pieces are to be considered either as ornamental or additional," the little cells, oratories and sepulchral recesses." Va rious as his works are-for he has written a philosophical poem, a tragedy, songs, odes, ballads, lines, sonnets-and these on subjects as various as the kinds of verse, all these he lays before us and insists on our regarding as a whole. The point of view is the painter's own secret, and the poet has an analogous privi. lege. Mr. Wordsworth, then, in availing himself of this right, has decided that none By of his poems are viewed justly but in their Ed-relation to all the rest. If we do not agree with him entirely, we are compelled to do so in great part; for though the artist's own point of view may not always be the only one, and, by possibility, may not even be the best, there can be no question that it can never be neglected, without loss of instruction, by those who are studying his art. And thus, in the present case, though not convinced that another mode of regarding them might not be productive of much profit, we yet propose to obey Mr. Wordsworth's admonitions, and regard his newlypublished poems less as new, than as supple THE task of the reviewer, when Mr. Wordsworth offers a new work to the public, differs considerably from his duty in the case of most other writers. The works of most authors, especially the poets, are commonly laid before us either separately or in selections, which, if not absolutely miscellaneous, claim little or no connection with anything beyond the volume in which they are found; the produce of occasional hours or occasional efforts, they are de mentary to those which have preceded given the world no more than the 'Female them. We shall look at his works as we Vagrant.' Two very short pieces only reshould look at some large composition quire to be excepted, and these assigned to of many figures, where each, while we the two last years of the period. With stand near it, demands and satisfies a sepa- these exceptions, these years-so momenrate inspection, while yet, if we go to a tous in history, so critical usually to the greater distance, we see that each draws a individual-presented a blank in the series higher significancy from its relation to the of Mr. Wordsworth's productions. That rest. These new poems must sink into it was really a blank, no one could believe their places, though, as figures now seen who considered the man and the circumfor the first time, we shall endeavor to des- stances; but it was a blank to the public. cribe them as minutely as is compatible Now then for the first time the sealed with the generalization which we have chamber is opened, and certainly it is not principally in view. without a deep interest that we enter to see what occupied the mind of such a man at such a time. We learn that during these years he composed two long poems; Guilt and Sorrow,' a tale, of which the Female Vagrant' was a portion, and the 'Borderers,' a tragedy. Both these pieces are now published, and we must endeavor so to draw up our abstracts of them as to make them describe the period of their composition. Studying Mr. Wordsworth's literary life, then, by the aid of the dates which in the later editions he has generally appended to his productions, we seem able to divide it into three periods of very unequal length indeed, but not indistinctly showing their diversity of character and spirit. By the help of these divisions, which we shall call respectively, the educational, the poetical, and the philosophical periods, we hope to show in an intelligible form the growth and development of one of the most remarkable minds of our day. The first poem in order of production is that called "Guilt and Sorrow, or Incidents on Salisbury Plain.' Of this the story is as follows:: "A coat of military red, But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred," But we must begin by confessing that A triveller is discovered about evenfall, our division still leaves out one volume of on "the skirt of Sarum's Plain," in evil Mr. Wordsworth's works, viz., that pub- plight and with no pleasant prospects. The lished in 1793. It contained the 'Evening dress, described in the two last verses of Walk' and 'Descriptive Sketches.' with a the first stanza, as few shorter poems of the same date. But these, though eminently characteristic of the man of his quiet and truthful observation, his serious tone of thought, and his turn for lofty and ornate language,-belong so little to the poet, the artist, whose native tendencies are modified by his principles of composition, that in our present investigation they are only in the way; all that they teach us is taught elsewhere, while they show nothing to the point which is our especial subject. Of the original composition of Mr. Wordsworth's mind, they do indeed give us some information; but of its development none whatever, because in truth they were produced before it had begun to grow. It seems, therefore, best wholly to disregard them, and with the confession of having so done, we proceed to our remarks on the first-the educational period, as we have taken the liberty to call it, of Mr. Wordsworth's genius. appears to have been adopted to mislead No brook to wet his lip or soothe his ear: Of this period, which we should make extend from about 1793 to 1797, from the poet's twenty-fourth to his twenty-eighth year, Mr. Wordsworth, as if conscious himself of the preparatory and imperfect character of the poems then produced, had, until the present volume was published, As he proceeds the evening deepens. A gibbet, on which he comes, fills him with | Between compassion and self-reproach he affright: "It was a spectacle which none might view, All he had feared from man, but rous'd a train But, when the trance was gone, rose and pursued his way." He next finds Stonehenge and next a guidepost, no sooner seen than lost. Lastly, he discovers a lonely spital, which "Kind pious hands did to the Virgin build," and which had since gained the name of the Dead House. Entering the miserable hospice he hears a deep sigh, and perceives by the faint light a woman who is mourning in her sleep : "He waked her-spake in tone that would not fail, He hoped, to calm her mind; but ill he sped, For of that rain she had heard a tale Which now with freezing thoughts did all her pow. ers assail, Had heard of one who, forced from storms to shroud, This unfortunate person is the woman whom we have so long known as the Female Vagrant; she repeats her unhappy story, of which we need not remind the reader. When that is concluded he attempts to comfort her, "And not in vain, while they went pacing side by side." Ere they have proceeded far they hear a shrill scream: They paused and heard a hoarser voice blaspheme, And female cries." bursts into "tears of wrath," which "beguile the father," who now relenting kisses his son, and "so all is reconciled;" and after a short, and we fear not very intelligible lesson delivered by the sailor, the pair pass on, and travel in company as far as an inn, where" they in comfort fed." "Their breakfast done," they are obliged to part, and leaving the sailor there, the woman proceeds alone. But she has gone only a very short distance when she finds a cart and horse standing beside a rivulet, and within the cart In simple compassion the woman now retraces her steps after the cart as far as the inn, where the host, hostess and sailor run out and charitably bestow on the sufferer the attention her case requires. Then reviving for a short time, she says enough to discover that she is the sailor's wife, driven in destitution from the shed she has occupied by the suspicion which attached to her husband, which however she entirely disbelieves, and expatiates warmly on his goodness and kindness. The sailor in his anguish declares himself to her; but the joy is too much for her: "To tell the change that Voice within her wrought Be blest; by sight of thee from Heaven was sent Peace to my parting soul, the fulness of content."" "Her corse interred, not one hour he remained," but "to the city straight He journeyed, and forthwith his crime declared," A peasant, in fact, was savagely beating his Asked him in scorn, What business there he had?" etc. They hung not:-no one on his form or face When into storm the evening sky is wrought, Of the second poem, the tragedy of the The sailor, without answering this natural inquiry, lifts up the poor child and discov-Borderers,' written in 1795-6, we must ers on his " battered head" "Strange repetition of the deadly wound He had himself inflicted." needs give a briefer account, nor indeed does it contain those verbal peculiarities which rendered frequent quotation neces sary to give a true idea of the former length Marmaduke is found serving as poem. The principal characters of the drama are Marmaduke, Oswald, the Baron Herbert and his daughter, Idonea; the rest are of secondary importance. The scene is laid in the reign of Henry III., a time chosen, we conclude, to gain historical connivance to a story which contains a dispossessed baron, an organized band of borderers, and other ingredients of a troublous period. Beyond this use, however, it is entirely disregarded: almost every one of the characters is as modern as the language they speak. Oswald, who is properly the principal personage, being the prime mover of the whole action, is a member of a band of borderers. In his youth this man had been brought by deception to commit a horrible murder, and resisting from his native strength of character the remorse which was oppressing him, had succeeded in reasoning it (and of course all other natural emotions with it) away. In this state of "devil's freedom" we find him at the opening of the dramaa member of the company from which the play derives its name. Of this band, Marmaduke, a young man of frank and ardent character, is chosen chief, and thus becomes an object of dislike and jealousy to Oswald, who has no taste for his good qualities and despises his weakness. Partly in jealousy, partly for the pleasure of experiment, and partly from the dreadful want of sympathy, which we are happy to learn that he experienced, Oswald determines to bring Marmaduke into the same condition as his own, and by similar means-the murder of an innocent man. The victim chosen is Herbert, an old, blind, dispossessed baron, of whose daughter, Idonea, Marmaduke has been long enamored. To compass his diabolical purpose, he prevails on Marmaduke to believe a story so horrible and unnatural that we should have thought no imagination less perverted than his own could either have conceived it or supposed it credible. This is, that the baron is not Idonea's real father, but had procured her, when a child, from her mother, with the horrible intention of making favor by her beauty when grown up for the recovery of his lost estates. This intention Oswald now represents him to be in the act of fulfilling by betraying the maiden to Lord Clifford. The greater part of the play (which we shall not minute ly follow) is occupied by the scruples of Marmaduke at executing the justice which he conceives this crime to demand, and the endeavors of Oswald to overcome them and bring him to commit the murder. At guide to the old blind man over a desolate moor. Still shrinking from the full measure of justice which he thinks himself called on to inflict, he gladly welcomes the thought that if he deserts him here instead of murdering him, he will only be casting him on an ordeal which God will deliver him from, if innocent, by sending some one who will lead him to some shelter, while if he perishes he will be thereby proved to have been guilty. This idea he executes ; carrying away by accident the scrip containing Herbert's provisions. In this state of the case Oswald finds him, and, believing the murder committed, relates his own history and informs Marmaduke that Herbert was innocent. Marmaduke's state of mind may be conceived, especially when he discovers that he has left the old man without food. Meanwhile the old baron has perished between cold and hunger, and the discovery of this fact is brought about both to Marmaduke and to Idonea, who was then seeking for her father to take him the news that the king had restored him to his estates. In her distress, and wholly unsuspicious of his share in the event, she flies to Marmaduke, whom she had long loved in a quiet way as her protector and her only friend. He then informs her that he knows who caused her father's death, and she curses the man who could do so cruel a deed. Marmaduke tells her that it was himself. Meanwhile Oswald's device has in fact become known by the confession of a vagrant whom he had bribed to represent Idonea's mother, and one of the band stabs him. Marmaduke, after a mild reproof"A rash deed!" resigns his station as chief, commends the senseless [donea to an old servant, and departs, declaring himself a wanderer, till heaven will let him die. We have now before us sketches of the two Stories, we may therefore make some remarks upon them, and endeavor to show how they justify the title of Educational. which we have applied to the period of Mr. Wordsworth's life in which they were composed. And first of the tale. It is here—in a poem, that is commenced in 1793, Mr. Wordsworth's twenty-fourth year-that we first find his well-known poetical theory in action, and we may discern, as well from other circumstances as most decisively from the difference this poem presents to its predecessors of only a year or so earlier, that it was then new. The difference is indeed most striking. In his former pieces |