published within the last seven years, has both those qualities, in the highest degree.

In attempting some elucidatory contrast between the poets William Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt, as one of the applications of the foregoing remarks, it is not meant that their positions as poets and teachers (and all poets must be teachers) are alike in any external respects. We are not to forget that Mr. Wordsworth took the initiative in the great poetical movement of his times. Both, however, are poets and teachers, and both have been martyrs by distinction of persecution, and both were placed in "a school," by the critics, in a manner unsolicited and unjustified. Both are poets, but Wordsworth is so upon a scheme, and determinately; Hunt, because he could not help it, and instinctively the first, out of the entireness of his will; the last, out of the fulness of his fancy. Both were reformers, but Hunt, like Melancthon, despising the latter, and cleaving to the earlier Christians,-embraced the practice of Chaucer and of the Elizabethan men, as eagerly as a doctrine; while Wordsworth threw himself straight over all the fathers and ancestral poets, into the philosophia prima' of first principles. Not that Hunt rejected the first principles, nor Wordsworth the ancestral poets; but that the instinct of the former worked in him, while the ratiocination of the latter worked out of him. Both have an extraordinary consciousness-but Wordsworth has it in the determination of ends, and Hunt in the elaboration of details;-and in the first we discover the duty of the artist, and in the latter his pleasure. In exterior nature, Wordsworth has a wider faith, or a less discriminating taste. He draws her up into the embrace of his soul as he sees her, undivided and unadorned -a stick in the hedge he would take up into his song-but Hunt believes in nothing except beauty, and would throw away the stick, or cover it with a vine or woodbine. Mr. Hunt is more impressionable towards men- -Wordsworth holds their humanity within his own, and teaches them out of it, and blesses them from the heights of his priestly office, -while it is enough for the other poet to weep and smile with them openly, what time he blesseth them unaware.' Hunt is more passionate, more tragic; and he has also a more rapid fancy, and a warmer imagination under certain

66

aspects; but Wordsworth exceeds him in the imagination in intellectú.' The imagination of the latter calls no 'spirit," nor men from the vasty deep, but is almost entirely confined to the illustration of his own thoughts. The imagination of the former is habitually playful, and not disposed for sustained high exercise. William Wordsworth is a spiritual singer, a high religious singer, and none the less holy because he stands firmly still to reason among the tossings of the censers; while Leigh Hunt is disposed to taste the odours of each while the worship is going on. Wordsworth is habitually cold, distant, grave, inflexible; Hunt exactly the opposite in each respect. The sympathies of Leigh Hunt are universal, in philosophy and in private habits; the poetical sympathies of William Wordsworth are with primitive nature and humble life, but his personal sympathies are aristocratical. Leigh Hunt converses as well as he writes, often better, ready on every point, with deep sincerity on all serious subjects, and far in advance of his age; with a full and pleasant memory, of books, and men, and things; and with a rich sense of humour and a quick wit. Mr. Wordsworth does not converse. He announces formally at times, but he cannot find a current. He is moral, grave, good natured, and of kindly intercourse. derstand a joke,but requires it to be explained; after which he looks uneasy. It is not his point. He sees nothing in it. The thing is not, and cannot be made Wordsworthian. He reads poetry very grandly, and with solemnity. Leigh Hunt also reads admirably, and with the most expressive variety of inflection, and natural emphasis. He is fond of music, and sings and accompanies himself with great expression.

He does not un

Mr. Wordsworth does not care much about music. He prefers to walk on the mountains in a high wind, bareheaded and alone, and listen to the far-off roar of streams, and watch the scudding clouds while he repeats his verse aloud.

Certain opinions concerning eminent men which have grown into the very fibres of the public mind, are always expected to be repeated whenever the individual is spoken of. Tothis there may be no great objection, provided a writer conscientiously feels the truth of those opinions. With reference, therefore, to Wordsworth, as the poet of profound sentiment, elevated humanity, and religious emotion, responding to the

universe around, we respectfully accept and record the popular impression, asking permission, however, to offer a few remarks of our own for further consideration.

After the public had denied Mr. Wordsworth the possession of any of the highest faculties of the mind during twenty years, the same public has seen good of late to reward him with all the highest faculties in excess. The imagination of Wordsworth is sublime in elevation, and as the illustrator of reflection; but it is very limited. It is very deficient in invention, see his "Poems of the Imagination." They perfectly settle the question. The fine things which are there (in rather indifferent company) we know, and devoutly honour; but we also know what is not there. He has a small creative spirit; narrow, without power, and ranging over a barren field. These remarks cannot honestly be quoted apart from the rest of what is said of Mr. Wordsworth such remarks, however, must be made, or the genius in question is not justly measured. He has no sustained plastic energies; no grand constructive power in general design of a continuous whole, either of subject, or of individual characHis universality is in humanity, not in creative energies. He has no creative passion. His greatness is lofty and reflective, and his imagination turns like a zodiac upon its own centre, lit by its own internal sun. If at times it resembles the bare, dry, attenuated littleness of a schoolboy's hoop, he may insist upon admiring this as much as his best things, but posterity will not be convinced. It is in vain to be obstinate against time; for some day the whole truth is sure to be said, and some day it is sure to be believed.

ters.

The prose writings of these distinguished poets are strikingly qualified to bring under one view these various points of contrast and yet it must be granted, at the first glance, that Wordsworth's prose is only an exposition of the principles of his poetry, or highly valuable as an appendix to his poems; while, if Leigh Hunt had never written a line as a poet, his essays would have proved him an exquisite writer, and established his claim upon posterity. As it is, he has two claims; and is not likely to be sent back for either of them, not even as the rival of Addison. The motto to his "London Journal" is highly characteristic of him"To assist the inquiring, animate the struggling, and sym

pathize with all." The very philosophy of cheerfulness and the good humour of genius imbue all his prose papers from end to end; and if the best dreamer of us all should dream of a poet at leisure, and a scholar "in idleness," neither scholar nor poet would speak, in that air of dreamland, more graceful, wise, and scholarlike fancies than are written in his books. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, remits nothing of his poetic austerity when he condescends to speak prose; if any thing, he is graver than ever, with an additional tone of the dictator. He teaches as from the chair, and with the gesture of a master, as he is,-learnedly, wisely, sometimes eloquently, and not unseldom coldly and heavily, and with dull redundancy; but always with a self-possessed and tranquil faith in the truth which is in him, and (considering it is poet's prose) with a curious deficiency of imagery and metaphor, not as if in disdain of the adornment and illustration, but rather as being unable to ascend from the solid level without the metrical pinions.

S

The work that Leigh Hunt has done, may be expresse d in the few words of a dedication made to him some yea since.* "You have long assisted," says the dedication,"largely and most successfully-to educate the hearts and heads of both old and young; and the extent of the service is scarcely perceptible, because the free and familiar spirit in which it has been rendered gives it the semblance of an involuntary emanation. The spontaneous diffusion of intelligence and good feeling is not calculated, however, to force its attention upon general perception," &c. The meaning of all this is that Leigh Hunt has no system," and no sustained gravity of countenance, and therefore the fineness of his intellect, and the great value of his unprofessor-like teaching has been extremely underrated. The dedication also marks this disgrace to the age--which shall be as distinctly stated as such a disgrace deserves--that while the public generally takes it for granted that Mr. Leigh Hunt is on the Pension List, he most certainly is not, and never has been !

Both of these authors have written too much: Wordsworth from choice; Leigh Hunt less from choice than necessity. The first thinks that all he has written must be nearly of equal value, because he takes equal pains with

*See "Death of Marlowe,"

every thing; the second evidently knows the inferiority of many of his productions-" but what is a poet to do who follows literature as a profession?" Few can afford to please themselves. In this respect, however, Mr. Wordsworth is always successful.

After twenty years of public abuse and laughter, William Wordsworth is now regarded by the public of the same country, as the prophet of his age. And this is not a right view-after all. Wordsworth's feeling for pastoral nature, and the depths of sentiment which he can deduce from such scenes, and the lesson of humanity he can read to the heart of man, are things, in themselves, for all time; but as the prophetic spirit is essentially that of a passionate foreseeing and annunciation of some extraneous good tidings to man; in this sense Wordsworth is not a prophet. His sympathies, and homilies, and invocations, are devoted to the pantheistic forms of nature, and what they suggest to his own soul of glory and perpetuity; but he does not cry aloud to mankind like a << voice in the wilderness," that the way should be "made straight," that a golden age will come, or a better age, or that the time may come when " poor humanity's afflicted will" shall not struggle altogether in vain with ruthless destiny. His Sonnets in favour of the punishment of Death, chiefly on the ground of not venturing to meddle with an old law, are the tomb of his prophet-title. He is a prophet of the Past. His futurity is in the eternal form of things, and the aspiration of his own soul towards the spirit of the universe; but as for the destinies of mankind, he looks back upon them with a sigh, and thinks that as they were in the beginning, so they shall be world without end. His" future can but be the past." He dictates, he does not predict; he is a teacher and a preacher in the highest sense, but he does not image forth the To-Come, nor sound the trumpet of mighty changes in the horizon.

It is wonderful to see how great things are sometimes dependent upon small, not for their existence, but for their temporary effect. Any thing essentially great in its mentality, will be lasting when once the world appreciates it; the period of this commencement, however, may be retarded beyond the life of the originator, and perhaps far longer, merely by its being accompanied with some perfectly extraneous form or fancy which has caught the public ear,