The motto adopted in the title intimates that the author was meditating other works of a higher strain.

1. "How sweet it is when mother Fancy rocks."

2. "Where lies the land to which yon ship must go?"

3. Composed after a Journey across the Hambleton Hills, York

shire.

4. "These words were uttered in a pensive mood."

6. To Sleep.

5. To Sleep. "O gentle Sleep, do they belong to thee?" "A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by." "Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep." 8. "With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide."

7. To Sleep.

9. To the River Duddon.

10. From the Italian of Michael Angelo. "Yes hope," &c.

11. From the same.

"No mortal object did these eyes behold."

12. From the same. To the Supreme Being.

13. Written in very early Youth.

14. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3. 1803. 15. "Beloved Vale! I said," &c.

16. "

Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne."
"Lady! the songs of spring," &c.

17. To

18. "The world is too much with us," &c.

19. "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free."

20. To the Memory of Raisley Calvert.

Part the Second.- Sonnets dedicated to Liberty.

1. Composed by the Sea-side near Calais, Aug. 1802.

2. "Is it a Reed."

3. To a Friend; composed near Calais on the road leading to Ardres, Aug. 7. 1802.

4. "I grieved for Buonaparte," &c.

5. "Festivals have I seen that were not names."

The title is "Poems in Two Volumes, by William Wordsworth, author of the Lyrical Ballads," with the motto

"Posterius graviore sono tibi Musa loquetur

Nostra, dabunt cum securos mihi tempora fructus."

Since the year 1798, when the first volume of the "Lyrical Ballads" was published, there appears to

6. On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.

7. The King of Sweden.

8. To Toussaint l'Ouverture.

9. "We had a fellow-passenger who came."

10. Composed in the Valley near Dover on the day of landing. 11. “Inland, within a hollow vale I stood."

12. Thought of a Briton on the subjugation of Switzerland. 13. Written in London, Sept. 1802.

14. "Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour."

15. "Great men have been among us," &c.

16. "It is not to be thought of that the flood."

17. "When I have borne in memory what has tamed." 18. "One might believe that natural miseries."

19. "There is a bondage which is worse to bear."

20. "These times touch moneyed worldlings with dismay." 21. "England! the time is come when thou shouldst wear." 22. "When looking on the present face of things."

23. To the Men of Kent.

24. "Six thousand veterans practised in War's game." 25. Anticipation. Oct. 1803.

26. "Another year! another deadly blow!"

Notes.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

POEMS WRITTEN DURING A TOUR IN SCOTLAND.

1. Rob Roy's Grave.

2. The Solitary Reaper.

3. Stepping Westward.

4. Glen-Almain, or the Narrow Glen.

5. The Matron of Jedburgh and her Husband.

6. To a Highland Girl.

7. Sonnet. "Degenerate Douglas," &c.

8. Address to the Sons of Burns after visiting their Father's Grave, Aug. 14. 1803.

9. Yarrow unvisited.

1. To a Butterfly.

MOODS OF MY OWN MIND.

2 "The sun has long been set "

have been a steady, though not an eager, demand for his poetical works. A fourth edition of that volume

3. "O Nightingale! thou surely art."

4. "My heart leaps up when I behold."

5. Written in March while resting on the Bridge at the foot of Brother's Water.

6. The small Celandine.

7. "I wandered lonely as a cloud."

8. "Who fancied what a pretty sight."

9. The Sparrow's Nest.

10. Gipsies.

11. To the Cuckoo.

12. To a Butterfly.

The Blind Highland Boy.

The Green Linnet.

To a Young Lady who had been reproached for taking long walks in the Country.

"By their floating mill," &c.

Stargazers.

Power of Music.

To the Daisy.

"With little here to do or see."

To the same Flower. "Bright flower whose home is every where!"

Incident characteristic of a favourite Dog which belonged to

a friend of the Author

Tribute to the memory of the same Dog.

Sonnet.

Sonnet.

"Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!"

"Though narrow be that old man's cares," &c.

Sonnet. "High deeds, O Germans, are to come from you."
Sonnet to Thomas Clarkson.

"Once in a lonely hamlet," &c.

Foresight.

A Complaint.

"I am not one," &c.

"Yes! full surely 'twas the Echo," &c.

To the Spade of a Friend.

Song, at the Feast of Brougham Castle.

Lines composed at Grasmere.

Elegiac Stanzas.

Ode.

had been called for. His poetical reputation was, therefore, making some progress. He had few, but ardent, admirers; on the other hand, he had many powerful enemies. The vitality of his fame provoked their hostility. If the "Lyrical Ballads" had silently sunk into oblivion, the acrimony of these critics would not have been excited, or, if excited, would soon have subsided. But they were irritated by the energy of that which they despised. Their own character for critical acumen seemed to be at stake; and they conspired to crush a reputation whose existence was a practical protest against their own literary principles and practice, and which doubtless appeared to them to be fraught with pernicious consequences to the dignity of English literature, and the progress of English intelligence. It would be an invidious task to specify the criticisms of a vituperative kind, by which these poems were assailed. It is more honourable to Mr. Wordsworth that a general amnesty should now be proclaimed in his name. Let, therefore, the memory of all personal animosities be buried in his grave. But the fact that he had to sustain such obloquy 1, and that he lived to overcome it, is far too instructive to be forgotten. It is of inestimable value to critics, writers, and readers. It should serve to smooth the asperity, and temper the confidence, of critics. It ought to chasten the pride of literary men who may be elated by contemporary applause ; and, on the other hand, it may serve to cheer the sadness of those meritorious labourers who, although toiling honourably in the cause of truth, are requited only by censure. It ought to guard all, readers as

1 The effect of these strictures in checking the sale of the Poems was such that no edition of them was required between 1807 and 1815.

well as writers, against placing too much confidence in contemporary opinions. "Vivorum censura difficilis,” ἁμέραι δ ̓ ἐπίλοιποι μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.

For many years, Mr. Wordsworth's name was overhung with clouds, but at length it emerged from them into clear sunshine. He lived and wrote with full confidence that such would eventually be the case; and, since he did not write for earthly fame, he maintained his equanimity in all weathers.

A letter written in the year 1807, to Lady Beaumont, on the publication of his poems, expresses his sentiments at that time, and cannot fail to be read with deep interest:

"Coleorton, May 21. 1807.

"My dear Lady Beaumont,

"Though I am to see you so soon, I cannot but write a word or two, to thank you for the interest you take in my poems, as evinced by your solicitude about their immediate reception. I write partly to thank you for this, and to express the pleasure it has given me, and partly to remove any uneasiness from your mind which the disappointments you sometimes meet with, in this labour of love, may occasion. I see that have many you battles to fight for me, more than, in the ardour and confidence of your pure and elevated mind, you had ever thought of being summoned to; but be assured that this opposition is nothing more than what I distinctly foresaw that you and my other friends would have to encounter. I say this, not to give myself credit for an eye of prophecy, but to allay any vexatious thoughts on my account which this opposition may have produced in you.

"It is impossible that any expectations can be lower than mine concerning the immediate effect of