Come, my child," I said, "what doest
Thou so far away from home?"
Then he sobbed, and said, "My mother,

Just to see her I have come."

"Ah, sweet child, if mother lieth
Underneath this flowery sod,
Never more wilt thou behold her

Till thou meet her with her God.

"Thou hast heard of God who made thee,-
Made the earth, the stars, the sky,—
Made us all; and who with angels

Liveth in the heavens high!

"There thy mother now is dwelling;

There with her thou soon mayst dwell,
For we all must one day perish,

And bid earth-born things farewell."

"But Lwant to see my mother.—
Mother, mother, won't you wake?"
Then he sobbed in bitter sorrow,—
Sobbed as if his heart would break.

And I took him up, and led him

Homeward with me; and essayed

To impress the truth upon him

Of the theft which death had made.

[sobbing

[dear
[sadsome

[our

Laye in heaven on

[all earth's joys

| Still

[Then

[Still

ALFRED.

Classical topics are exceedingly difficult to treat with vigour, antique expression, and in a fit measure. We think we may venture to assert that the following passage of Greek mythology; selected from the "Legends of Attica," is pretty well rendered, and almost entitles its author to a place among the few who can give life to the old, old ideas concerning the gods and their doings. "The

Legend of Ariadne" is capable of very various treatment, and we should like to see what our author would make of "The Labyrinth." Meanwhile, here is

ARIADNE.

Lonely sitting, Ariadne wept upon the wild sea-shore,

Gazing o'er the breaking ocean, and a land unseen before;

Weeping over broken pledges, knit by love, and wove with sighs,

And the tears, as dews at midnight, bent the lashes of the eyes:

[her

"Theseus! Theseus! whence thy treason?-whence thy hapless, cunning guile?

Where thy ancient troth of promise?-where the candour of thy smile?

All, alas! are all forgotten?-all thy gilded words could say

Tarnished ere the morn had ripened to the even of the day?"
Sudden came, as though a whirlwind, sound of wassail from afar,
And the beat of cymbals echo, and the rolling of the car.
"Surge! age! surge pater!" ring upon her tuned ear.

[painèd

And, aghast with speechless terror, faint she falls with sudden fear.

[sound

[Naxic

Bacchus, gay with festive dances, frenzied with a livelier strain,
Fiercer urges on his horses to the lyres that tune again,
When he sees a woman lying angel-like upon the strand,
And her unbound tresses floating, dabbled with the Cretan sand.
And he stops, and gently raises what he deems a lifeless form,
When the softer blush returning, as the blue when flies the storm,
Filled his soul with godlike passion, and a smile it lit his face:
"Fear not, Ariadne, fear not; thou shalt rear my future race.
Why repine for faithless Theseus? Other wives he goes to seek;
Bacchus' wife shall aye be cheery from the reflex of his cheek"
And she lowly hung her eyelids o'er her chiding watchet eye;
And the merry god he led her to his chariot ever nigh:
"Thou shalt be a goddess, maiden, and thy mirror-eyes shall shine
From the highest peak of heaven, joined in unison with mine."

[lit up

[pale-blue [waiting

A POET.

There are some nervous, able lines in a poem forwarded to us by D. S. L. on The Man of the Hour," but, as a whole, it is irregular, ill-conceived, and in a badly chosen and difficult metre, which is not well attended to. We shall quote, as justifying the entire criticism given above, the following lines:

Never let Friendship or Affection idle

When Sorrow shrouds the star of Hope;
Never let Courage join in traitorous bridal
With Fear, the misanthrope.

Aye from the leaflets of the nettle Danger
Strive thou to pluck off Safety's flower.
From Patriotism's paths be ne'er a ranger,
Though for a single hour.

Live in the glories of the time now olden;

Prompt be thine emulation of those days,
But do thou also make the now beholden
As worthy of men's praise.

We trust the writer will, on seeing these stanzas in print, observe their blemishes; and though we do not advise him to relinquish the 1864.

P

As

writing of rhyme, we would counsel him not to think so highly of himself as he shows he does in what he has written to us. Douglas Jerrold used to say, "Flattering one's self is the worst of hypocrisy."

"Oh, be wiser thou;

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,
True dignity abides with him alone

Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect and still revere himself
In lowliness of heart."

We cannot at present overtake the critical perusal of all the MSS. put into our hands. We intend soon to recur to this topic. We are, of course, glad to give good honest advice as far as we can. When we speak in deprecation of rushing into print and anxiously asking the world to ratify the thought of a young man's heart,—“I also am a poet," we do not intend to speak in depreciation of the verses of our friends. We wish to save them from pain, from loss, and disappointment. The MSS. of G. G. C. have no finish. What can be made of a line that limps like this,

or this,―

----

"Like suns unharnessed through the air did flush"?

"Beaded and chapleted with dew"?

This is not bad, however,

The hot, swift pulses of a fever seemed

To rage and riot in my reckless frame;
My eye with maniac fury must have gleamed
At mention of the hated traitor's name.

The kindest way in which we can treat K. L., M. T., and E. D. F., is to say nothing but that we have received and read their verses, -and do not think that many could have accomplished the latter feat, and survived. They have caused us to

ENGLISH LITERATURE.-There are eight epochs in English literature-First, from the Roman to the Norman conquest. Second, from the battle of Hastings to the accession of James IV. Third, from the death of Chaucer to the Reformation. Fourth, from the establishment of the Reformation to the death of Bacon. Fifth, from the death of Bacon to the close of the reign of James II. Sixth, from the accession of William III. to the death of Pope. Seventh, from the death of Pope to the French Revolution. Eighth, from the French Revolution to the present day.-PROF. J. NICHOL.

66

The Essayist.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

WE have selected as the subject of the present essay the great English philosophical poet -William Wordsworth: a poet who, like Milton, has indeed many admirers, but few readers; thus realizing the fate which the Roman satirist proverbially assigns to virtue Virtus laudatur et alget"* (virtue is praised and coldly neglected). It shall be our humble endeavour to increase, if possible, the interest of our readers in the writings of this notable poet, an object in which, if we succeed to any extent, we shall deem ourselves amply rewarded.

The life of Wordsworth presents few matters of absorbing interest, no "moving accidents by flood and field," the greater part of it -varied only by occasional tours at home and abroad--having been passed in the calm retreat of his native Cumberland mountains and beside its lakes; whence the designation of the "Lake school of poets," derisively applied to him and his contemporary poets, Coleridge and Southey. Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in 1770, the year of the death of Chatterton,

"The marvellous boy,

The sleepless soul that perished in his pride."

He was educated first at Hawkshead, in Lancashire, and thereafter at St. John's College, in Cambridge University, where, however, his academic career was not brilliant; and about this period he spent a few years in rambling up and down the Continent, then widely agitated by the great French Revolution, whose theoretical principles he embraced with all the fervour and enthusiasm of a youthful and ardent spirit,-to such a degree, indeed, that he seems to have wellnigh forgotten that he was an Englishman; for, when Britain joined in the league formed by the confederate powers against France, he (Wordsworth) says of himself,

Such were the feelings, as told us by himself, of this young repub

* Juvenal. † Shakspere: "Othello."

Wordsworth: "Resolution and Independence."

§ "Prelude," Book X.

lican on occasion of his country's defeats! Again, on her victories, present or prospective, he exclaims,—

"It was a grief,

Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that—
A conflict of sensations without name,"
"When, in the congregation bending all
To their great Father, prayers were offered up,
Or praises for our country's victories-
And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance,
I only, like an uninvited guest

Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add,
Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come?"

The subsequent crimes and atrocities, however, of the Revolution, rudely dispelled his fond illusions regarding liberty, &c., and he retired from the cause in deep and bitter disappointment and mortification, not that he seems ever to have taken an active part in it by writing or otherwise. The thoughts, sentiments, and experiences of his early years, this period included, have been left on record in a long autobiographical poem (in fourteen books) entitled, "The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind," from which the above quotations have been taken,-a poem addressed to his friend Coleridge, and intended to have been introductory to his great work, "The Recluse," a work which was to have consisted of three parts, of which the second part only, the well-known "Excursion," has been completed and published. This poem ("The Prelude") we are free to confess we look upon as interesting rather in the light of a personal memoir than as marked by any striking poetic excellence, except, perhaps, in occasional passages. Others, however, may be of a different opinion. "The Prelude" ranks amongst Wordsworth's earliest poems, having been commenced in 1799 and completed in 1805. From about this period the remainder of Wordsworth's long life was spent, as has been said, for the most part, in peaceful seclusion beside his native Cumberland lakes and mountains, where he continued to write and publish till his death in 1850, at the ripe age of eighty-one years. Of Wordsworth's private life and habits in his rural retirement, the following description by Professor Masson may not be deemed irrelevant :-" Here, in the enjoyment of worldly competence, he walked, boated, wrote, and attended church. Hence, from time to time, he issued his new poems, or collections of poems, accompanied by prefaces or dissertations, intended to illustrate their peculiar character; and here, in the bosom of his admiring family, he received the chance visits of such stray worshippers as came privileged with letters of introduction, talking with them in a cold, stately way, and not unfrequently (be the truth distinctly spoken) shocking them by the apparent egotism with which he referred to or quoted his own poetry, the inordinate indifference he displayed towards most things besides, the painful rigour with which he exacted from those around him every outward mark of respect and attention, and the seriousness with which he