"I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! A countenance in which did meet "And now I see, with eyes serene, There is a poem of Wordsworth's, the subject of which is the recollection of a scene, in which once he suddenly noticed that the shore, from the lake up among the trees, was all covered with daffodils, glancing with the wind and sunshine. "For oft, when on my couch I lie The couplet in Italics are Mary Wordsworth's lines, and they betoken her to have been a woman that was truly "a help meet" for her husband, a great man and a poet though he was. . His sister Dorothy lived with him through his life. She was herself a poetess; and while her brother was a youth, and after his leaving Cambridge, she had a great and happy influence over him. She drew him from 'politics to poetry; and she sustained for him his courage amid the many disappointments and mortifications of his early life. VOL. LI. -4TH S. VOL. XVI. NO. II. 25 "She, in the midst of all, preserved him still Coleridge and Southey were among Wordsworth's intimate friends. And so was Sir George Beaumont, who was said by Sir Walter Scott to have been the most sensible and pleasing man he had ever known. Others of Wordsworth's friends were the family of the Earl of Lonsdale, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb and his sister Mary, Samuel Rogers, Felicia Hemans, and Joanna Baillie and most of them were, in his own words, "Meek women, men as true and brave As ever went to a hopeful grave." For his dwelling-place, Wordsworth had a spot that was both sweet and sublime. It was no long way from the lake of Windermere, and with woods and luxuriant valleys very near, and with mountains in sight,- Loughrigg and Wansfell. And here he lived; in his meditations and walks "Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind "; yet busy with daily work, and alive to all the occurrenees of his neighborhood, "And drinking from the well of common life," and finding what is the sweetest, and also perhaps the rarest, of all sweet experiences "a serene delight In closelier gathering cares, such as become He had known something of the education which colleges can give; he had acquired not a little of the information which is gained by travelling; and he had shared in the greatest mental excitement the world had ever yielded. But at his home in Westmoreland he learned himself, and he taught others, what he wished that rulers too should know, that “Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: Of the mind's business: these are the degrees A wanderer as he had been, despised so long, disappointed so often, and then become so happy at the lakes, he used to wonder, "How strange that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries, Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, That calm existence that is mine, when I As a youth, he had known what those clouds over the soul are that are the beginnings of the darkness of unbelief. And he had had befall him events more wretched than what the Divine goodness could easily be felt in. But as a man he attained to And sometimes, of an evening, very blessed was the peace he felt, and very beautiful the holiness of his prayer. "Teach me with quick-eared spirit to rejoice In admonitions of Thy softest voice! Whate'er the path these mortal feet may trace, Breathe through my soul the blessing of Thy grace, Glad, through a perfect love, a faith sincere, Drawn from the wisdom that begins with fear: Glad to expand, and, for a season free From finite cares, to rest absorbed in Thee!" At one time a student with fellow-students at Cambridge, at another time a dweller in London, and for a whole awful year a revolutionist in France, and then at last become a recluse among lakes and mountains, he knew of his own wide experience, what he taught, that as souls "We live by admiration, hope, and love. Being of the nature he was, and living the life he did, and with such a wife and family and friends as he had, it is no wonder that, now in one way, and now in another, he explained and taught and urged, "O, 't is the heart that magnifies this life, Making a truth and beauty of her own." Some of his opinions, that people were rather surprised by, originated in his anxiety that among social arrangements there should be large scope left for the affections. He was unwilling that a ragged mendicant should be suppressed and locked up in a comfortable poor-house, because he was so useful among the dalesmen, in drawing out their sympathies, as he went begging from house to house. He disliked that young chil dren should be instructed in infant-schools, if in those schools they were to be secluded from their parents for six or eight consecutive hours in the day. For he judged it better a little child should simply grow in its mother's eye, than learn ever so much quite away from her. A spiritualist in philosophy, and a poet in character and work, this was Wordsworth at the lakes; earnest, too, and simple, affectionate and religious. As a poet, he proposed to himself not to amuse men, but to quicken for them the life of the soul, - to make them feel how wholesome quiet is, and yet how earnest it may also be, -to acquaint them with the beauty of every-day life, and the sweetness there is in common things, even as being common, to open their eyes to a look, a meaning, there is in nature, that is divine, and quite other than what the eagle knows of, with his wide vision,- to inspire them, as his fellow-creaturés, with confidence in the ways of the soul, and what they lead to, and to make them specially attentive and trustful to those movements of the spirit that begin from God. As it seems to us, the most distinctive of the characteristics of Wordsworth is what in its several manifestations is earnestness, simplicity, and sincerity. It is a quality that appears in his style as a writer, and in his use of words,—in the truthfulness of his sentiments, in the exactness of his descriptions of nature, — and in his choice of subjects as a poet. He denominates a small house a cottage, and not a rustic hall, as it used to be called in poetry. A nightingale he calls a nightingale, and not Philomel, as it once was. He early noticed that there were thousands of appearances in nature that had never been described at all in poetry, or else falsely so; and so he resolved to see nature with his own eyes, and to describe it in his own words. It seemed to him that often an inverted style, along with tumid phraseology, was substituted for real poetry; and so he determined himself to write as simply as he could. Then also it appeared to him, that it was a cheap, false, unprofitable way to poetic effect, to attempt it by means of subjects chosen as being odd, or marvellous, or splendid; and so he selected as subjects for poetry the things of daily life, occurrences among his neighbors, and those feelings that are commonest among men. For he was persuaded that poetry at its truest can sing better to a real child playing with flowers, than to an invisible and unapproachable monarch, crowned and robed and factitious, with nations for playthings. Only those ways and words and things would do for Wordsworth which he could be earnest with, and with which he could be simple and sincere. In regard to his style, Wordsworth was right in forming it by the language of common life. Perhaps in this he was prompted chiefly by motives of simplicity and sincerity. And yet there was a wisdom in it, greater perhaps than philosophy yet knows of. Style, O the mystery and the magic of it! As a subject, it is little understood. And so it is no wonder, the nonsense that has been talked about it. "Study the classics; for they are the models of style," says one man. "Read," says another, "read Jeremy Taylor, and Pope, and Robertson, and the great masters of English." While another advises, "If you want a tasteful style, read French." If you want to be graceful, move your limbs, and carry yourself, and smile, like some model of a man. Do it; and you will look ridiculous even in the eyes your counsellor. And if in his understanding there were any eyes, your style of writing also would be ridiculous to him, were it really formed in the way he means, of |