grossly inaccurate; indeed, that must have been obvious to any person who could bear to think upon the subject, for they were absolutely unintelligible. There are two pamphlets upon the subject; one a mere transcript from the papers; the other may be considered, as to all important particulars, as of authority; it is by a person high in the India House, and contains the deposition of the surviving officers concerning the loss of the ship. The pamphlet, I am told, is most unfeelingly written: I have only seen an extract from it, containing Gilpin's deposition, the fourth mate. From this, it appears that every thing was done that could be done, under the circumstances, for the safety of the lives and the ship. My poor brother was standing on the hen-coop (which is placed upon the роор, and is the most commanding situation in the vessel) when she went down, and he was thence washed overboard by a large sea, which sank the ship. He was seen struggling with the waves some time afterwards, having laid hold, it is said, of a rope. He was an excellent swimmer; but what could it avail in such a sea, encumbered with his clothes, and exhausted in body, as he must have been!

"For myself, I feel that there is something cut out of my life which cannot be restored. I never thought of him but with hope and delight: we looked forward to the time, not distant, as we thought, when he would settle near us, when the task of his life would be over, and he would have nothing to do but reap his reward. By that time, I hoped also that the chief part of my labours would be executed, and that I should be able to show him that he had not placed a false confidence in me. I never wrote a line without a thought of its giving him pleasure: my writings, printed and manu

script, were his delight, and one of the chief solaces of his long voyages. But let me stop: I will not be cast down; were it only for his sake, I will not be dejected. I have much yet to do, and pray God to give me strength and power: his part of the agreement between us is brought to an end, mine continues; and I hope when I shall be able to think of him with a calmer mind, that the remembrance of him dead will even animate me more than the joy which I had in him living. I wish you would procure the pamphlet I have mentioned; you may know the right one, by its having a motto from Shakspeare, from Clarence's dream. I wish you to see it, that you may read G.'s statement, and be enabled, if the affair should ever be mentioned in your hearing, to correct the errors which they must have fallen into who have taken their ideas from the newspaper accounts. I have dwelt long, too long I fear, upon this subject, but I could not write to you upon any thing else, till I had unburthened my heart. We have great consolations from the sources you allude to; but, alas! we have much yet to endure. Time only can give us regular tranquillity. We neither murmur nor repine, but sorrow we must; we should be senseless else."

Such an event as that which has now been described, and which so powerfully moved the Poet's heart, could not but stir the strings of his lyre. He He gave vent to his sorrow in three poems.

The first is entitled "Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm; painted by Sir George Beaumont : "1

1 Vol. v. p. 126.

"I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile!"

He had spent four weeks there of a college summer vacation, at the house of his cousin, Mrs. Barker. He had then seen the sea in a constant unruffled calm; and of the castle he says,

But now, since his brother's death in the storm, the sea wears to him a new aspect: the sight of the castle in the storm, and of a vessel near it tossed by wind and wave, is congenial to his present feelings.

"Well chosen is the spirit that is here,
That hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!"

The next poem is of a different cast, "To the Daisy." 1

"Sweet flower! belike one day to have

A place upon thy Poet's grave,

I welcome thee once more."

The flower suggests the remembrance of his brother's love of "all quiet things." His brother's hopes- the ship-the probable results of the voyage in restoring him to his beloved vale and friends, are described. Next follows the shock of the vessel striking on the reef, its struggle with the storm in the dark night, its foundering in the deep, then the death of the captain.

"Six weeks beneath the moving sea,

He lay in slumber quietly :"

then his body was found at the ship's side, and carried to a country churchyard, that of Wythe, a village near Weymouth, and there buried in peace.

"And thou, sweet flower, shalt sleep and wake

Upon his senseless grave."

The third poem is entitled "Elegiac Verses," and refers to the scene of the farewell of the Poet and his brother mentioned above (p. 282.), on the mountain track from Grasmere to Paterdale, through Grisedale; and describes the appearance of a beautiful cluster of purple flowers, unseen and unknown before -the Moss Campion, which presented itself to the Poet's eye when he revisited the parting place, and cheered him with its bright colours.

2

These references may be closed by an allusion to the poem, "The Character of the Happy Warrior," " written in 1806.

Some of the features of that noble picture were drawn from the Poet's brother, Captain Wordsworth. To borrow the author's words, speaking of this poem 3 :

"Who is the Happy Warrior."-"The course of the great war with the French naturally fixed one's attention upon the military character; and, to the honour of our country, there were many illustrious instances of the qualities that constitute its highest excellence. Lord Nelson owned most of the virtues that the trials he was exposed to in his department of the 2 Vol. iv. p. 212.

1 Vol. v. p. 131-133.

3 MS. I. F.

service necessarily call forth and sustain, if they do not produce the contrary vices. But his public life was stained with one great crime, so that, though many passages of these lines were suggested by what was generally known as excellent in his conduct, I have not been able to connect his name with the poem as I could wish, or even to think of him with satisfaction in reference to the idea of what a warrior should be.

it

"Let me add, that many elements of the character here portrayed were found in my brother John, who perished by shipwreck, as mentioned elsewhere. His messmates used to call him the Philosopher, from which may be inferred that the qualities and dispositions I allude to had not escaped their notice. He greatly valued moral and religious instruction for youth, as tending to make good sailors. The best, he used to say, came from Scotland; the next to them from the north of England, especially from Westmoreland and Cumberland, where, thanks to the piety and local attachments of our ancestors, endowed, or, as they are called, free-schools abound."

Such was CAPTAIN WORDSWORTH, taken away suddenly in the prime of life, a person whose name deserves to occupy a prominent place in his brother's history, and whose character and conduct may suggest many interesting and profitable reflections, especially to those who have chosen the naval profession as their career in life.