out grand central truths, from which might be evolved the most comprehensive systems. He and my sister are the two beings to whom my intellect is most indebted." Great praise this, no doubt, and from such a mind; but even in this we are given a view of one phase only of this "wonderful mind," and that the least important and preciousthe philosophic-while the sublime genius of the poet is not even alluded to. Did Wordsworth, then, estimate the highest qualities of that genius at their true value? I doubt this very much, though he surely held his friend as a poet worthy of deep regard, otherwise he would not have entered into concert with him, as he shortly after the formation of their friendship did, to work out the scheme which afterwards was carried into effect in the production of the Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge in after years gave an elaborate account of the origin of these poems, which, I think, must be now regarded in somewhat the same spirit in which most readers accept the celebrated genesis of Edgar Allen Poe's inimitable "Raven." Not that I think that either Coleridge or Wordsworth could or would be guilty of a falsehood-I would not venture to accuse even Poe of such a thing; but I do think that they, as well as Poe, and all men and women of high imagination, were liable to self

deception; and that when we are led to infer that in a poem, or in a series of poems, "the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence in the truth of nature, and the power of giving novelty by the modifying colours of imagination" were suggested by the reflection on "the sudden charm which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape," I cannot help thinking that in their speculative rambles they had forgotten what they must have found repeatedly verified in their studies of many of our old ballads. True, such phenomena are the poetry of nature;" but I am only confirmed in my supposition that it was rather to the said studies than to observance of such phenomena that we owe the suggestion, when we are farther told "that the thought suggested itself that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them to be real," and that in a second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life, and that "the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every

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village ;" for have we not in effect here only a recapitulation of what in truth are the characteristics of many of the said old ballads? Of course, when their scheme was carried into practice there was a difference, but the difference in the verses of Coleridge, to whom was assigned the romantic and supernatural part of the work, consisted in his supreme genius for balladry, reproducing in even finer forms the qualities which characterised such grand old ballads," as "Alison Gross," "The Demon Lover," "Childe Rowland," and others; while in those of Wordsworth, who had to treat of subjects "chosen from ordinary life," the difference arose out of the substitution of the reflective for the dramatic quality, of which he was deficient, and not in being possessed of a sweeter simplicity and a "truth in nature," other than had already characterised a "Nut Brown Maid" or a "Winifrida," and others whose writers had evidently deemed the domestic circle as proper a haunt for the Muses as the top of Parnassus itself. Even as renovators of the old tastes and styles in song these two great poets had been preceded by Chatterton and Blake; and the very subjects and somewhat of the modes of treatment of the latter were such as to have afforded Wordsworth with the best models in his own line had they fallen

into his hands-only there is in the "Songs of Innocence," with the same childlike simplicity and truth in nature, a more ethereal grace and a sweeter melody than anywhere appears in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. I need not say that my object here is not to bring these ballads into comparison with others, but to show the fallacy of the theory put forth by their authors to account for their origin; and I think this essential, since the impression left on the mind of the reader by such accounts is, that poetry is after all not so divine a thing as most intelligent people hold it to be-is after all only the product of observation and reflection, or the exercise of the reason on recognised facts, instead of being what the wisest of all times have declared it to be-namely, the offspring of internal illumination and inspiration. In other words, the power to produce poetry is a gift and not a thing to be acquired; and though observation and reflection may serve to quicken the poet, perception as to what would or would not be suitable to give to the world and his times, they cannot by any means enlarge that power any more than they can render it subservient and pliant to his behests. Indeed, nothing would serve as a better verification of this old doctrine than a study of the lives and writings of the writers of the Lyrical Ballads.

themselves. In the case of Wordsworth, in whom the divine afflatus was seldom so powerful as to cause what he then penned to be so very strongly marked from what he produced in his purely normal condition, the truth of my position may not be so obvious, yet this truth is at once clear when even in his case we contrast his best with his worst verse; but in Coleridge—why just as Iago was nothing if not critical, so just was this divine bard nothing, and at times worse than nothing, if he was not carried up into the seventh heaven of song on the wings of Inspiration. Then to think how often he was carried thither, and the lays he then sung! An Ancient Marinere," a Christabel," a "Kubla Khan"-what songs !-the splendour of imagination and dramatic power displayed in the first-the sweetness and delicacy of the second and third-and the weird power and the wonderful melody of all the three, and more especially of the last one! Such music might be said before was never made since when of old the sons of morning sang!" And when it has been said that "such melodies were never heard, and such dreams were never dreamed, such speech never spoken, the chief thing remains to be said," in heartfelt delight writes Mr Swinburne of the two last-named poems,