to revive a taste for less exciting poetry. He boldly tried the experiment of introducing plain viands, at a banquet garnished with all the art of gastronomy. He offered to substitute crystal water for ruddy wine, and invited those accustomed only to " a sound of revelry by night," to go forth and breathe the air of mountains, and gaze into the mirror of peaceful lakes. He aimed to persuade men that they could be "moved by gentler excitements" than those of luxury and violence. He essayed to calm their beating hearts, to cool their fevered blood, to lead them gently back to the fountains that "go softly." He bade them repose their throbbing brows upon the lap of Nature. He quietly advocated the peace of rural solitude, the pleasure of evening walks among the hills, as more salutary than more ostentatious amusements. The lesson was suited to the period. It came forth from the retirement of Nature as quietly as a zephyr; but it was not lost in the hum of the world. Insensibly it mingled with the noisy strife, and subdued it to a sweeter murmur. It fell upon the heart of youth, and its passions grew calmer. It imparted a more harmonious tone to the meditations of the poet. It tempered the aspect of life to many an eager spirit, and gradually weaned the thoughtful from the encroachments of false taste and conventional habits. Το a comercial people it portrayed the attractiveness of tranquillity. Before an unhealthy and flashy literature, it set up a standard of truthfulness and simplicity. In an åge of mechanical triumph, it celebrated the majestic re. sources of the universe.

To this calm voice from the mountains, none could

listen without advantage. What though its tones were sometimes monotonous ?-they were hopeful and serene. To listen exclusively, might indeed prove wearisome; but in some placid moments those mild echoes could not but bring good cheer. In the turmoil of cities, they refreshed from contrast; among the green fields, they inclined the mind to recognize blessings to which it is often insensible. There were ministers to the passions, and apostles of learning, sufficient for the exigencies of the times. Such an age could well suffer one preacher of the sim. ple, the natural and the true; one advocate of a wisdom not born of books, of a pleasure not obtainable from soci ety, of a satisfaction underived from outward activity. And such a prophet proved William Wordsworth.

Sensibility to Nature is characteristic of poets in general. Wordsworth's feelings in this regard have the character of affection. He does not break out into ardent apostrophes like that of Byron addressed to the Ocean, or Coleridge's Hymn at Chamouni; but his verse breathes a constant and serene devotion to all the charms of natural scenery-from the mountain-range that bounds the horizon, to the daisy beside his path:

"If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to thee I turn,
I drink, out of an humbler urn,
A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sypmathy that heeds

The common life our nature breeds,

A wisdom, fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure."

He does not seem so much to resort to the quiet scenes of the country for occasional recreation, as to live and breathe only in their tranquil atmosphere. His interest. in the universe has been justly callel personal. It is not the passion of a lover in the dawn of his bliss, nor the unexpected delight of a metropolitan, to whose sense rural beauty is arrayed in the charms of novelty; but rather the settled, familiar, and deep attachment of a friend:

"Though absent long,

These forms of beauty have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration."

The life, both inward and outward, of Wordsworth, is most intimately associated with lakes and mountains. Amid them he was born, and to them has he ever looked for the necessary aliment of his being. Nor are his feel. ings on the subject merely passive or negative. He has a reason for the faith that is in him. To the influences of Nature he brings a philosophic imagination. No transient pleasure, no casual agency, does he ascribe to the outward world. In his view, its functions in relation to man are far more penetrating and efficient than has ever been acknowledged. Human education he deems a process for which the Creator has made adequate provision in this "goodly frame" of earth and sea and sky.

"He had small need of books; for many a Tale
Traditionary, round the mountains hung;

And many a legend peopled the dark woods,
Nourished Imagination in her growth,
And gave the Mind that apprehensive power,
By which it is made quick to recognize
The moral scope and aptitude of things."

Accordingly, both in details and combination, Nature has been the object of his long and earnest study. To illus. trate her unobserved and silent ministry to the heart, has been his favorite pursuit. From his poems might be gleaned a compendium of mountain influences. Even the animal world is viewed in the same light. In the much-ridiculed Peter Bell, Susan, and the White-Doe of Rylstone, we have striking instances. To present the affecting points of its relation to mankind has been one of the most daring experiments of his muse :

"One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide,

Taught both by what she shows and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride,

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

It is the common and universal in Nature that he loves to celebrate. The rare and startling seldom find a place in his verse. That calm, soothing, habitual language, addressed to the mind by the common air and sky, the ordinary verdure, the field-flower, and the sunset, is the almost invariable theme of his song. And herein have

his labors proved chiefly valuable. They have tended to make us more reverent listeners to the daily voices of earth, to make us realize the goodness of our common heritage, and partake, with a more conscious and grateful sensibility, of the beautiful around us. In the same spirit has Wordsworth looked upon human life and history. To lay bare the native elements of character in its simplest form, to assert the essential dignity of life in its most rude and common manifestations, to vindicate the interest which belongs to human beings, simply as such, have been the darling objects of his thoughts. Instead of Corsairs and Laras, peerless ladies and perfect knights, a waggoner, a beggar, a potter, a ped'ar, are the characters of whose feelings and experience he sings. The operation of industry, bereavement, temptation, remorse and local influences, upon these children of humble toil, have furnished problems which he has delighted to solve. And who shall say that in so doing; he has not beeu of signal service to his kind? Who shall say that through such portraits a wider and truer sympathy, a more vivid sense of human brotherhood, a more just self-respect, has not been extensively awakened? Have not our eyes been thus opened to the better aspects of ignorance and poverty? Have we

not thus been made to feel the true claims of man? Allured by the gentle monitions from Rydal Mount, do we not now look upon our race in a more meek and susceptible mood, and pass the lowliest being beside the highway, with more of that new sentiment of respect and hope which was heralded by the star of Bethlehem? Can we not more sincerely exclaim with the hero of Sartor Resar