peculiarly original idea was started, it was sure to appear on the next published pages of Lord Byron. Thus, when Montgomery sang,

"He only, like the ocean-weed uptorn,

And loose along the world of waters borne,
Was cast companionless from wave to wave,"

Lord Byron echoed,

"I am as the weed

Torn from the rock on ocean's foam to sail,

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail." With regard to Lord Byron's obligations to Wordsworth, they are less verbal, and therefore less palpable; but no one, who is acquainted with the works of the two authors, can doubt but that Wordsworth is to be traced most palpably through the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold. A poem, by Lord Byron, called the "Grave of Churchill," a fact literally rendered, is in its style a close copy of Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence," from which I have given extracts. In a wonderfully fine passage in the Excursion, Wordsworth desires to "surrender himself to the elements," as if he " were a spirit," and exclaims

"While the mists

Flying, and rainy vapours call out shapes

And phantoms from the crags and solid earth
As fast as a musician scatters sounds

Out of an instrument

What a joy to roam

An equal amongst mightiest energies!"

Lord Byron seems to have had this in his thoughts, when he made Manfred say—

"Oh that I were

The difference is only that Wordsworth's hopeful and cheering idea has become desponding and gloomy, in passing through the alembic of Lord Byron's brain. In

the one case it is the wish of a believing philosopher, exulting in the immortality which he feels to be his own: in the other, of an infidel voluptuary, jaded down to a prayer for annihilation. I mention these things to prove that persons, who admire (and justly) Lord Byron for the vigour of his verse, do most unjustly accuse Wordsworth of feebleness and puerility; and that while they quote with rapture, passages, which are at least suggested by Wordsworth's poetry, they are unconsciously doing honour to the genius of the latter.

Having now brought my defence to a close, I have only to repeat that, if my reader is of the same opinion as myself, he will not quarrel with me for having quoted so largely from Wordsworth's poems. In reading works of criticism, I have generally found that I enjoyed the extracts more than the critical commentary; and I can easily imagine, that the reader will peruse these pages with a similar feeling.

In conclusion, let me briefly recapitulate my reasons, both for denying Wordsworth a place amongst the greatest of our national poets, and for assigning him a high station amongst the band of true poets in general.

He has not produced any one great, original, and consistent work, or even any one poem of consequence, to which all these epithets can, with justice, be collectively applied. The want of a fixed style, the inequality of his compositions, the exuberant verbosity of some, and the eccentric meanness of others: the striking deficiency, which his works usually display, in judgment-a quality essential to the attainment of first-rate excellence-are all so many barriers betwixt Wordsworth and the summit of fame. Although it perhaps may be allowed, that Milton is the only poet who exceeds Wordsworth in devotional sublimity; yet, when we consider the universal excellence of the former in all that he has attempted-when we look upon him as the author of our great epic-it never can be conceded, that posterity will assign the latter a station beside him.

On the other hand, the variety of subjects, which Wordsworth has touched; the varied powers which he has displayed; the passages of redeeming beauty interspersed

even amongst the worst and the dullest of his productions; the originality of detached thoughts scattered throughout works, to which, on the whole, we must deny the praise of originality; the deep pathos, and occasional grandeur of his lyre; the real poetical feeling which generally runs through its many modulations; his accurate observation of external nature; and the success with which he blends the purest and most devotional thoughts with the glories of the visible universe-all these are merits, which so far "make up in number what they want in weight," that, although insufficient to raise him to the shrine, they fairly admit him within the sacred temple of poesy. While Shakspeare is pinnacled at almost an invisible height, "sole-sitting" where others "dare not soar;" while Milton, Spenser, Thomson, and Collins, "aye sing around the cloudy throne;" Wordsworth may join the numerous and radiant band, who occupy the less daring heights of Parnassus, rifle its caves of "mildly-gleaming ore," arrange its flowers and turf into gardens of artificial beauty; or, as our poet, "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art” from the rocks and waterfalls that grace its wilder recesses.

POETRY OF THE PRESENT DAY.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1830.)

THE age in which we live has been fruitful of poetical works; we may venture to say, that it has been fruitful of poets. There has been no period, we believe, of our literature, since the age of Elizabeth, that has been marked by such an overflow of poetry. For although, through the whole of the intervening time, we may observe that the vein of poetry has been prevalent in the English nation, (we do not now speak of our own before that incorporation of the literature of the two countries, which the last half century has witnessed,) although, on looking back, we recognise at every step familiar and honourable, and some illustrious names of the English Parnassus, yet we find at no time so many together of high distinction. And least of all do we find any number at one time; we find, indeed, few altogether to whom the language of verse is the language of imagination and passion. At no other period was the whole literature of the land tinged, coloured, and vivified with poetry. It will be matter of curious speculation to those who shall write the later history of English literature, to trace out the causes, while they mark the periods of the different appearances which our poetry has put on; and to explain how a people, adapted in their character for poetry, and at all times loving it in all its shapes, should have departed frequently so far from its genuine character, and from its impassioned spirit. In Milton, the power of poetry seemed to expire; not merely because no voice like his was heard, when his own voice had ceased; but because the very purposes of poetry seemed changed; and the demesnes of verse to be subjected to

other faculties and the sceptre passed into unlineal hands, Milton, like his great predecessors, drew his poetry from the depths of his own spirit brooding over nature and human life. But for the race that succeeded, it seemed as if a veil had fallen between nature and the poets eyes; as if that world, which by its visible glory feeds inspiration, had, like the city of Ad, been wrapped in darkness from the eyes of men, and they had known of it only in surviving traditions. Excepting Thomson alone, who is there among our poets, in the space between that race which died in Milton, and the age of poetry which has since sprung up almost with our own generation-who among them is there that seems to stand beholding the world of nature and of man, and chanting to men the voice of his visions, a strain that, like a bright reflection of lovely imagery, discloses to the minds of others the impressions that fall beautiful and numberless on his own? Even Collins, pure, sweet, and ethereal-though his song in its rapture commerces with the skies, and though a wild and melancholy beauty from his own spirit passes upon all the forms of nature and of life that he touches-though there might seem to be, therefore, a perfect inspiration in his poetry, yet does he not rather give to nature than receive from her? Does he speak under the strong constraint of a passion drawn from the living world, and though changed and exalted in the poet's mind, yet bearing with it, as it rushes out in his song, the imperishable elements from which it was composed? Or does it not rather seem to be the voice of a spirit which does not feed on the breath of this world, but has thinly veiled from human apprehension the thoughts and feelings of its own spiritual being, in imagery of that world which is known to men? And of that imagery how much is supplied to him from other poets? We dare not say that nature was veiled from his sight; the feeling in which he speaks is so tender, native, and pure. He has caught from her hues and ethereal forms; but surely we may say, that he does not speak as a passionate lover of nature. He does not speak as one to whom Nature, in all her aspects and moods, is health and life; whose soul by delighted verse is wedded to the world; but by the force of its own inherent creative