There is nothing perhaps so fine as that sketch in the way of description in the volume which now lies on our table; but it is full of beauties of its own-of perfect originality-of heartfelt sentiment-of infinitely sweet and touching thoughts-and of grave, yet cheerful wisdom.

Wordsworth is constant to his creed. With his old proud humility, he calls himself, in one of his new sonnets, addressed to the laurels of Rydal Mount

"A poet of your own,

One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown

To sue the God; but, haunting your green shade
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid

Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship self-sown."

He is not yet disposed to recognise anything loftier than human hope, or anything deeper than the human heart; and still would he keep both in gentle and divine harmony, by associating them with the ever-constant and beautiful face of nature.

The subjects in the volume are very various, and not one of them (for we will not go out of our way to remark on a few political allusions which with better taste might have been spared) offensive. There is not a single idiot boy, or a mad mother, or an ague visitation, or a Goody Blake, or a Harry Gill, or anything that might be more fitting in the hands of the bellman. He avoids, in fact, the extreme point of his excellent and noble theory-a point to which we firmly believe he would never have clung at all except in sheer opposition to the ignorance, the pertness, and the assumptions of criticism. We have a vast number of sonnets in the volume, all of them written with that wonderful ease, variety of pause and cadence, gracefulness and freedom, in which, with reference to that character of composition, Wordsworth is clearly beyond all rivalry. His command over the sonnet is only a very little short of the miraculous. Under his influence, its "humble plot of ground" becomes a rich and endless garden of beauty. Into the fourteen lines which hem it in, he crams as much thought and feeling, sustaining them in the most high-raised and prophetic tone, as would serve to set up a dozen ordinary poems. This is again on his old principle. He chooses to have his materiel a foil to his invention, and to owe nothing but to himself. The paraphernalia of poetry, its old classical assumptions, he disregards, if he does not despise. He concentrates his power upon the humble sonnet, and forces it to his will. He has made it the vehicle of conveying grander aspirings than we have had since Milton, and of more incomparable reasonings in verse than we have had since the days of Dryden. Old acquaintances, too, in a new form, will greet the admirers of the poet in his new volume. Yarrow is revisitedthe daisy welcomes us again as an old companion-on a lonely and deserted rock the glow-worms hang their lamps, and one coy primrose blooms

"A lasting link in Nature's chain,
From highest heaven let down!”

-still, as of old, are we made the delighted students of nature, and in the midst of her sublimest grandeurs are taught to bend down to her simplest voices, and to attune them all to the "still sad music of humanity." He has his reward. Readers for ages are destined to listen,

as we are listening now, to this poet, who has " made us heirs " of such pure delight for ever! Here is

"The linnet's warble sinking towards a close;"

and the heedless thrush, as shrill as ever, caring not; and the nightingale haunts us with her voice; and the owl is here

"Discovered in a roofless tower,

Rising from what may once have been a lady's bower;

Or spied where he sits moping in his mew

At the dim centre of a churchyard yew;"

our old friend the cuckoo visits again, bringing back, as of old, to the poet visions of early time; the wren's nest (another old acquaintance) strikes him here with new wonder and delight when he finds that its little builder, "mistrusting her evasive skill," had consulted with a primrose"The primrose for a veil had spread

-Nor must we

with the poet, to

The largest of her upright leaves;

And thus, for purposes benign,

A simple flower deceives."

forget to welcome that pensive warbler, robin, or fail, mark

"His heaving breast,

Whose tiny sinking and faint swell
Betray the elf that loves to dwell

In robin's bosom, as a chosen cell."

In one word, we have in this new volume, from the pen of our greatest poet, all the original and most delightful characteristics of his genius.

We should mention, also, that there are one or two pieces in the volume which some will think a dereliction from his first principles; just as, in former volumes, Laodamia and others startled the readers of the "Lyrical Ballads," who found themselves, with the freshness of green fields and English homesteads upon them, suddenly gazing with rapt awe and admiration on the appearance of a fragment from the grandest sculptures of antiquity. The " Egyptian Maid," or the "Romance of the Water Lily," for instance, is an exquisite piece of old Fancy, conceived and executed in a brilliant way, and enriched equally with deep feeling and splendid description.

We congratulate all lovers of true poetry on the appearance of this book. We respectfully congratulate the poet. We admired him with a fervent admiration, at a time when his admirers were more few than now. Now he has won his way to the highest seat, and sits there sole and undisturbed. Ignorance or malice cannot assail him further. The glad success has followed the high endeavour. Still" strenuous for the bright reward," -it is in his possession at last. The long deathless shout of Fame is in his living ears! No-not the shout of Fame. Say, rather, the deep, distant, and murmuring sound which the stream of high and glorious thoughts, carried down to future ages, makes as it flows! May the music of that sound never desert him till he goes to the realization of the wish of his early and honourable ambition, already not unfulfilled! 'Blessings be with them and eternal praise,

The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight in deathless lays.
Oh, might my name be number'd among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days!"

GILBERT GURNEY.

CHAPTER VII.

TURN we from this melancholy passage in my life-suffice it to say, that I have never passed through Teddington since the event with which the last portion of my memoranda concluded. Perhaps I need not add, that I equally avoided Miss Crab, who, (for the reader's satisfaction I perhaps might mention it,) in about a year after my mother's death, married one of the neighbouring apothecaries, who, she wrote me word to say, made her a very kind and comfortable husband. He had two daughters by a former wife-a blonde and a brunette; Kitty, a tigressJenny, a lamb; the one a black dose-the other a mild emulsion. How they made it out with their acidulated mother-in-law, I never troubled my head to inquire; with the death of my exemplary parent my care and consideration about the Crabs and their connexions departed.

I wrote of course to my brother Cuthbert, at Calcutta, giving him information of the event that had occurred, and I took counsel of my worthy friend, the Justice of Peace. But taking counsel and taking physic are different things-his worship prescribed what I could not swallow, and therefore, although I took his advice earwise, I did not act upon it. He suggested my immediate departure for India, in order to avail myself of the advantages which the great success of my nearest relative would secure me, and offered to introduce me to a Captain Pillau, or some such person, whose twelve hundred ton ship was a floating London Tavern, with cows in the launch, salad in the windows, fresh rolls three times a week, and champagne on Thursdays and Sundays-but what were these to me? I was in full possession of four hundred and eighty-seven pounds, nineteen shillings, and eleven pence per annum, besides the interest of four thousand pounds three per cent. consols. Why should I send myself out in a huge packing-case, to look for a fortune which I should not be able to realize until my powers of enjoying it were gone? Pale nankeens, with bilious-looking silk stockings, cotton shirts, and calico waistcoats, were to my eyes objects quite familiar in the north-western regions of the metropolis. Why should I waste my youth and manhood in Qui-hi-ing one half the day, and salaaming the other, with the glass at ninety-five in the shade, until I, at fifty, should look as if I were on the shady side of ninety-five ?-No. With my pretensions and accomplishments-for, like Daly, I did a little of everything-nothing so well as he-but still-I thought I might make my way, and even achieve the great object of my ambition, Emma Haines, whose twenty thousand pounds would come in, remarkably well. Emma was the point in which all my hopes and wishes centered, so soon as I had recovered from the shock, which, especially under its peculiar circumstances, my mother's death had occasioned. The heart, robbed of what it has been cordially and warmly attached to, naturally yearns for some new object to clain and engross its affections. I certainly was devotedly fond of Emma ;-she was so graceful-so ladylike-so gentle-so mild-there was a meekness in her eye while the mind was reposing, which lighted into brightness and brilliancy the moment her feelings were excited, or her genius roused;-she playedshe sang-she drew-she talked-in short, she was a most bewitching May.-VOL, XLIV, NO. CLXXIII.

person; and there was a swan-like swimmingness about her air and gait a sort of sylphy something that riveted the attention and charmed the heart. I do believe at first she encouraged my advances out of pure good nature. She was older than I was; or rather, perhaps, I should say, about my own age; but as a girl of seventeen is a woman, when a man of seventeen is a boy, she saw how much I loved her, before I was myself conscious of it.

Her mother had certainly-incautious, I believe, through kindnessencouraged my acquaintance; and I used to be constantly at their house : -my mother knew nothing of them; but my young theatrical friend in Lincoln's Inn had carried me there, and so I went on, like a silly moth, buzzing about the vestal flame, until at last my wings were thoroughly scorched; and then, as I told Daly on that horrible night, I avowed my feelings and was rejected; not by Emma herself, but by her mother, who, having written me a letter which would have driven a stoic mad, set off for South Wales, where, as the reader already knows, my lovely girl was immured, as I fancied, against her will, at the period of my mother's decease.

I have already expressed my feelings with respect to Daly, whose acquaintance I had so strangely made; and certainly for some time my sensitive regrets as to the employment of that evening, which I have felt it my duty to record at length, operated as a preventive to our future association; however, as the months wore on, I naturally, and perhaps justly, argued, that although the things we did, and the course we took that evening, were, seriously and morally speaking, indefensible; still, whatever might be the blame due to my companion for introducing me to such scenes, the melancholy fact of my mother's sudden attack and death could not be adduced in aggravation of his faults-like myself, he was, of course, ignorant of the crisis of her fate; and, therefore, although powerfully connected in my imagination in the outset, as those sad circumstances were, I began to dismiss from my mind the combination which had made me so incalculably miserable at first, and in proportion as this needless horror was dissipated I began to exonerate my friend, and even seek his society; for having-and I was conscious of that confided to him the history of my Emma, I was most anxious, now that I felt more than ever the necessity of having something to love and esteem, to consult him upon the plan best to be adopted to carry my wishes into execution.

I was quite delighted with his frankness, his friendship, and his zeal; he told me what I believed, because I wished it true, that it was impossible to doubt, after what I had described to him, that Emma was devoted to me that my expectation that she would write to me was extravagant, that girls were extremely averse from corresponding; first, because they properly considered such clandestine communications indelicate and undutiful; and secondly, because very young men are apt to be vain of female confidence, and perhaps in some unguarded moment might be induced to boast, or even to show the letters of their kind-hearted mistresses. Daly was right. Emma was quite well enough aware of the ways of the world not to trust a giddy, thoughtless fellow such as I then was with letters; but, nevertheless, she might be prevailed upon to grant me an interview, if I went to Tenby, and by some means-not literary-solicited it.

Action, my dear friend," said Daly, "action is the thing; you may

sigh and swear away four sides of foolscap-most appropriate paperand what then?-you have done nothing but record sentiments which the circumstances of a few years may entirely alter, and pledge yourself to a constancy which events may try, and even overthrow. No;put yourself into the mail-coach-start for Tenby-hide yourself upfind out her house-walk under her window, and whistle some favourite air; if she loves, she will instantly recognize it-she will be delighted to find you so active and zealous; and, ten to one, if her respectable parent can be by any means disposed of, the very next evening will find you strolling by moonlight-if there should be a moon-or in the dark, if there should not-either along the beach or on the cliff, breathing out all those delicious protestations upon which lovers live, as larks on leeks.'

"Out!" said I, indignantly-" do you suppose that it would be possible for Emma to come out,' as you call it, to take a walk?'- Why, she is watched and guarded as if she ، were one chrysolite;' her mother would as soon die as hear of her 'taking a walk' by moonlight."

"Never mind," said Daly, "faint heart you know, &c.—where there's a will there's a way; and if you choose to follow my advice, I'll back the caster in.""

"The deuce take that phrase," said I; "no-no; Miss Haines is not to be so proceeded with; and yet I admit I think a visit to Tenby would be advisable, because I might plead with her mother."

'

"Plead!-no," said Daly-"practice before preaching any day. All I can say is, if you are in need of an ally-if you want an assistant-a Leporello in short, I am your man. My whole delight is doing good. I have no object but to serve my friends; and, if you think that I can be of the least use in securing you Miss Emma Haines and her twenty thousand pounds, you have only to say, Daly do'-and Daly will." It was impossible for me not to feel grateful for this kindly burst of feeling, and the offer which my companion made; and I confess it affected me more powerfully, because during the time at which my grief completely unmanned me, and absorbed all my faculties, he was, whenever he could obtain admittance to me, the most sympathizing of human beings. He regretted, in such an amiable manner, the absurdity of his self-introduction to the cottage, and spoke of my mother's manners and conversation in such terms of admiration and esteem, that I felt convinced, whatever might be his eccentricities, his heart was in the right place; and having established this opinion in my mind, I resolved to trust him with the management of my Tenby scheme, for the success of which he himself appeared most unaffectedly anxious.

The conversations of my enthusiastic friend had very considerably elevated my hopes. He extracted from me every particular of Emma's person and character; the one, after my report, he pronounced angelic, and the other perfect; but I must say, in the midst of his warmth and energy, and in the full flow of exalted sentiments, he did come out, as the people say, with something that astonished me.

"Are you sure now, Gurney," said he, "that she has this money? because we hear of fortunes, and of hundreds of thousands of pounds, and so much a year, and such and such estates, and West Indian property, and Irish property, and all the rest of it, which at last turn out to be nothing-sometimes worse than nothing."