ley's "Scripture Geography"—the former contains thir-ungodly world, factious schism, and soul-destroying ty-three pages more than the latter; and yet, from heresy; and when many within and out of the pale of the thickness of the books, most persons, without ex- the Church are earnestly seeking for guidance and amining, would suppose the latter (instead of contain-direction in her most holy ways." ing less) to contain one third or more pages than the former.

We hope that no considerations of a pecuniary nature will prevent Churchmen from furnishing themselves with many of the excellent Church books which have of late been, and still continue to be, issued from the press.

Among the many recommendatory letters which we have from time to time received, there is none which has afforded us more real gratification, than one from a layman in Ohio, who thus writes: "I gladly wel

come each successive number of the Evergreen. I am

We hope, both for the cause of the "Gospel-faith in the Gospel-Church," as well as for the temporal benefit of the author, (who is thus, at an early period of his ministry, disabled from performing the public duties of his office,) that this work may meet with a rapid and extensive sale.

THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE; conducted by the Students of Yale College. August, 1844. New Haven: A. H. Maltby. This is a well-conducted and increasingly interesting Magazine, and one which should commend itself to all the sons of Yale College.

A great portion of the contents of this number includes highly pleased with the views there set forth, and the five "Townsend Prize Essays,” some of which we though at first I thought it was a little too high-have read with much pleasure, especially the one en

Church for me, I soon learned that the fault was entitled "Poetry, originally a Sacred Principle, as indicatirely on my part, I being too lukewarm a Churchmanted by its early History." for it. But I can assure you that every number that I read makes me love the Church and her holy insti

tutions more and more."

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THE CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTED IN THE WAYS OF THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH; a Series of Discourses delivered in St. James' Church, Goshen, N. Y., during the years 1840-42. By Rev. J. A. Spencer, A. M., late Rector. New York: D. Appleton & Co. New Haven Croswell & Jewett.-This is a handsome volume of 325 pages, containing thirty-three sermons, which were prepared with reference to all the great Festivals and Fasts of the Church respectively. The style of these sermons is clear, chaste, and vigorous; and the great truths of the Gospel are set forth in a plain and faithful manner, which renders the discourses eminently practical. There is also an excellent introduction, which, in a concise way, points out "what and where is the Church,"-"the value and importance of the liturgy,"—and furnishes some " brief notices of the Festivals and Fasts, and Holy Seasons." The sermons were originally prepared by the author in the regular discharge of his parochial duty, without any design of publishing them, but, to use his own words, "as it hath pleased Almighty God to send affliction upon me, in consequence of which I am unfitted, for a season, for the public duties of the priestly office, I have been led to think that in the present way, if in no other, I might do my share toward contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints;' especially at this juncture, when are seen arrayed against the Church the motley hosts of the infidel and

could not help wondering whether our friend and corWhile glancing over the pages of this Magazine, we respondent, the "Pastor of the first Congregational church in -," is a subscriber to it, and if he is, how greatly must his righteous soul be horrified when he sees a periodical, emanating from under the very wings of the "orthodoxy of the New Haven Theology," using a capital C in the words Church and Cross! Verily, Messrs. Editors, ye must be Puseyites.

THE CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY. No. 8, for July; containing in continuation the BOOK OF THe Church, by Robert Southey, Esq. &c. Flemington, N.J.: J.R. Dunham. New Haven: Croswell & Jewett.-Southey's Book of the Church, which is here republished without abridgment, is too well known to need any additional commendation from us. For terms of publication of the Churchman's Library, see the April number of the Evergreen.

THE LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, for June, 1844. New York: L. Scott & Co. New Haven: T. H. Pease.-The London Quarterly appears to continue to increase in value, while its struggling competitor— the Edinburgh Review-is evidently becoming less interesting. The articles in the present number are written in their general style of force and vigor, and

cannot fail to attract their usual interest.

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, for August. American edition. New York: L. Scott & Co. New Haven: T. H. Pease.-We have only room to say that this number of Blackwood well sustains the high reputation of its predecessors for more than twentynine years.

In this number we present our readers with an ac-time to obtain the degree of Master of Arts; and in curate likeness of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, So well one of the long vacations he undertook a pedestrian known as the founder of what is called the lake school excursion on the continent, and was in France at the of poetry, and also as a true son of our venerable outbreak of the French Revolution. The result of his mother, the Church of England. The few observations observations he gave to the public, in 1793, with the with which we shall introduce the engraving, can title of "Descriptive Sketches in Verse, taken during hardly aspire to the title of even a "biographical {a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Swiss, and Savoysketch;" for his life has been marked by no extraor-ard Alps." In the same year, he published an “Evedinary incidents, and besides, we have at hand only a ning Walk, an Epistle in Verse, addressed to a Young few scanty materials towards assisting us in the pre-Lady, from the Lakes of the North of England." paration of any thing in the shape of a memoir. Such as we have, however, we freely give.

Both of these poems contain many specimens of beau-^ tiful picturesque description; but it is curious to observe how different is the style from that which he afterwards adopted. After having amused himself with

length took a cottage in the secluded hamlet of Alfoxton, at the foot of the Quantock hills, in Somersetshire, and near the spot where Mr. Coleridge then resided. The two friends passed their time in literary pursuits, or in rambling among the hills or by the seashore.

Mr. Wordsworth was then somewhat inclined to, (what in England are called) liberal principles, and

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born on the 7th of April, in the year 1770, of a respectable family, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, a county of the ex-wandering over various parts of the kingdom, he at treme northwest of England. This county is noted for its various streams and extensive lakes; as well as for its rocky and mountainous surface, and its open, heathy commons. The Solway Frith separates it from Kircudbrightshire, in Scotland, while the Irish Sea washes its western borders. The lakes, rocks, and mountains, which were the first objects of natural scenery which must have excited the observation of young Wordsworth, doubtless had an effect to pro-Coleridge was at that time an enthusiast in this cause, duce that wonderful accuracy for describing such and the consequence was rather ludicrous. A village scenes, for which he is so justly celebrated. He him- lawyer took it into his head that they were dangerous self states, in writing of Macpherson's Ossian, that Jacobins, and a spy was employed to watch them in "having had the good fortune to be born and reared their walks, and to endeavor to draw from them their in a mountainous country, from my very childhood I supposed secret. As may be imagined, he could dishave felt the falsehood that pervades the volumes im-cover nothing, and reported them to be perfectly harmposed upon the world under the name of Ossian. less. From what I saw with my own eyes, I knew that the It was while he was dwelling in Somersetshire that imagery was spurious. In nature every thing is dis- he planned and partly wrote the Lyrical Ballads, intinct, yet nothing defined in absolute independent sin-tended as an experiment on a new system of poetry. gleness. In Macpherson's work it is exactly the re- They were published in 1798, and reprinted in 1807, verse; every thing (that is not stolen) is in this man-with an additional volume. It was a considerable ner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened—yet no-time before this novel poetical style found favor in the thing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted for things."

eyes of the public; and it was assailed by the weapons of ridicule, satire, and argument; but it at length Young Wordsworth was sent to Hawkshead gram- gained numerous partisans and imitators, and Mr. mar-school, (Lancashire,) and the classical knowl-Wordsworth is now universally regarded as the head edge which he acquired while there is said to have of a class of poets which includes many men of justbeen more extensive than is usual with boys of his ly distinguished talents.

age. He delighted in reading and reciting the poets, In 1798, in company with his sister, he again visand in rambling among the beautiful scenery of thatited the Continent, and in 1803 he settled at Grass

mere, in Westmoreland. At this latter period he be- of observation which makes him familiar with all the { came united in marriage to Miss Mary Hutchinson, loveliness and wonders of the world within and around of Penrith. He has continued ever since to reside at us, and an imagination capable of inspiring all objects Grassmere, or at " Rydal Mount," on one of the West- with poetic life. His diction is lofty, sustained, and moreland lakes, except during the period of a third impassioned." By some critics, however, he has been tour on the Continent, in 1820, in which he bent his condemned for attempting to extend the language of steps to the classic land of Italy, and some "ex-ordinary life to the subjects of poetry. In the preface cursions" since, in his native land and Scotland.

to the second edition of his Lyrical Ballads, the author thus admits the truth of the charge, and presents

shall request the reader's permission to apprise him of a few circumstances relating to the style of these poems, in order, among other reasons, that I may not be censured for not having performed what I have attempted. The reader will find that personifications of abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes; and, I hope, are utterly rejected, as an ordinary device to elevate the style and raise it above prose. I have proposed to myself to imitate, and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make any natural or

figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but I have endeavored utterly to reject them as a mechanical device of style, or as a family language, which writers in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. I have

Besides the Lyrical Ballads, Mr. Wordsworth has published the Excursion, a Poem, a work as originala defence, of which we extract the following. "I in its composition and subjects as it is honorable to the taste and benevolence of the writer; the White Doe of Rylstone; a Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces, chiefly referring to Public Events; Peter Bell, a Tale in Verse; the Wagoner, a Tale; the River Duddon, a Series of Sonnets; Vaudracour and Julia, with other Pieces; Ecclesiastical Sketches; Memorials of a Tour on the Continent; Sonnets composed during a Tour in 1833. "The Excursion is the second part of a long poem entitled the Recluse, of which the first and third parts are unfinished and have not been published. The whole forms a philo-regular parts of that language. They are, indeed, a sophical poem, containing views of man, nature, and society, and having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement." { The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were suffi-wished to keep my reader in the company of flesh and ciently matured for entering upon the arduous labor which he had proposed to himself, [that is, the construction of a literary work that might live,'] and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other as the Anti-chapel has to the body of a Gothic church, while his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices. The first and third parts of the Recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the author's own person, while in the Excursion the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

6

blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. I am, however, well aware that others who pursue a different track, may interest him likewise; I do not interfere with their claim, I only wish to prefer a claim of my own. There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason alledged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart, is a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do not know how, without being culpably particular, I can give my reader a more exact notion of the style in which I have wished these poems to be written, than by informing him that I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject; consequently, I hope that there is in these poems little falsehood of description, and that my ideas are expressed in language fit

The Ecclesiastical Sketches, in a Series of Sonnets, are intended to present in verse certain points in the Ecclesiastical History of Britain. They are divided into three parts; the first, from the introduction of Christianity into Britain to the consummation of theted to their respective importance. Something I must papal dominion; the second, to the close of the reign of Charles I.; the third, from the Restoration to the present times. These three parts contain in all, one hundred and fourteen sonnets.

"Most of the productions of Wordsworth's muse," says an eminent critic, " are characterized by the union of deep feeling with profound thought, a power

* See the preface to "the Excursion."

have gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense: but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech, which, from father to son, have long been regarded as the common inheri tance of poets. I have also thought it expedient to restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have been foolishly repeated by

bad poets, till such feelings of disgust are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of association to overpower.

How fast has brother followed brother
From sunshine to the sunless land!
Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
"Who next will drop and disappear?"

"If in a poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there We trust, however, that all will join in the prayer is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stum- uttered by one of his most earnest admirers, "that ble upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine health and strength of body and mind may be granted that they have made a notable discovery, and exult to him, to complete the noble works which he has still over the poet as over a man ignorant of his own pro-in store, so that men may learn more worthily to unfession. Now these men will establish a canon of derstand and appreciate what a glorious gift God becriticism, which the reader will conclude he must ut- stows on a nation when he gives them a true Christerly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with these voltian poet." umes. And it would be a more easy task to prove to him, that not only the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose, when prose is well written. The truth of this assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable sages from almost all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself."

pas

Since the death of Southey, Wordsworth has been appointed Poet-laureate. Though having passed the solemn limits of three score years and ten, his mind appears as active, his heart as fresh, lively, and feeling, as in his younger days. Of this we have a pleasing proof in the following account* of a visit to Wordsworth, in 1841, by Bishop Doane, who has kindly given us permission to make such use of his “remembrance or two of his intercourse with the distinguished poet," as we may deem proper.

"Among the pleasing expectations from my brief Wordsworth's whole life has been almost literally pilgrimage to the Church of England, there was none, devoted to the cultivation of those feelings and facul- not strictly ecclesiastical, on which I counted so ties which prompt poetry of the purest kind and of much, as on seeing Mr. Wordsworth. And I was the best and most enduring use. The habit of life of not disappointed. Of the innumerable kind attenthe Poet of Rydal Mount' has been that of meditative tions of my friend Sir R. H. Inglis, not the least valuseclusion-sympathy and communion always, how-able was the invitation to dine (the only guest) with ever, dutifully preserved with the hearts of his fellow-the Literary Society, with the promise of meeting him. beings. His has never been

the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind;

The dinner was at the Thatched House, and there were present (Sir Robert in the chair) the Earl of Ripon, the Dean of Chichester, Principal Lonsdale, the Vice Chancellor Shadwell, Baron Alderson of the Exchequer, Mr. Barrow of the Admiralty, Mr. Lockhart, and a few others. The conversation of such persons could not fail of the highest interest. My attraction, however, I shall be forgiven if I confess, was the great POET. He seated himself by my side at the table, and in the shortest time possible we were as old friends. Common interests, held with oneness of principle, bring hearts together soonest, and longest keep them so. It were strange, indeed, if the princi

but one of the admirable moral aims of most of his poems has been to "excite profitable sympathies in kind and good hearts, and in some degree to enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, and our knowledge of human nature, by showing that our best qualities are possessed by men whom we are too apt to consider not with reference to the points in which they resemble us, but to those in which they plainly differ from us." Whatever he touches he invests with the sacred garb of religion. To the Churchmanples and interests of Catholic Churchmen were defihis poems are doubly endeared, because so many of them are designed to portray some of the beautics and excellencies of the Church and her sacred rites and institutions, for Wordsworth is a true and noble son of England's true and noble Church.

He has outlived most of his contemporaries among the poets. Coleridge and Southey, his early and most intimate life-long friends, have gone before him to the paradise of God, where they sing in immortal strains. He thus alludes to this fact in the following stanzas:

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,

cient in this power. Our conversation was of America, and chiefly of the Church in America. Mr. Words. worth is a true lover of our country, and watches the progress of our institutions with the kindest interest. If he mislikes the present aspect of affairs, he need not be an Englishman for that. So far as my acquaintance reaches, intelligent, high-minded Englishmen entertain towards this country the most generous feelings. They are distrustful of our system, and prefer their own. But they wish well to our institu

*Originally published in the "Banner of the Cross,"

place,* which he approved, and said it should be done before I sailed, though he might find it necessary to make two instead of one. I proposed three, and sug

tions; they regret the misadventures which from time to time befall them; they regard our progress not with envy, as a rival's triumph, but as the trophies of the blood and name of England; and their heart'sgested the topics.† At dinner, a simple, social meal, desire is, that the two nations, hand in hand, may run the course which Providence assigns to them, of glory for themselves and blessings for the world.

with converse most delicious, I told him that one of my family had asked me to execute three commissions, some ivy from Kenilworth, a bunch of heather from Abbotsford, and Mr. Wordsworth's autograph. SHE SHALL HAVE IT,' said he, emphasizing every word, and there must be a flower, too, from Rydal Mount, a wild flower! So, after dinner, out we sallied for the flower, he questioning all the while what it should be, and finally settling with himself that he had lately seen a bunch of pansies, though nearly out of

"Mr. Wordsworth's conversation on the subject of America, of which he never wearies, is in the loftiest strain of patriotism, philosophy, and philanthropy. Between us, the chiefest interest would be the Church. In my outline of her progress and prosperity, he expressed the highest satisfaction, and entered with all his heart into the errand of Catholic intercommunication on which I had come. I said, (I had been speak-season, and that they would be the thing. So, on we ing to him of the extensive and increasing influence his poems exercised in favor of Conservatism and the Church,) will you allow me to point out an omission in your Ecclesiastical Sonnets? You have no reference in them to the Church in America. So my friend Professor Reed has told me, he replied, and has urged me to supply it. By all means, do, I said, and let me was his apt quotation from his own charming Ode, be the bearer of it to America; this seems the very 'Intimations of Immortality, from recollections of occasion for it. He felt the force of the suggestion, early childhood,' and in a moment the trophy was seand promised to comply with it. After the kindest in-cured. What would buy those pansies? vitations to visit him at Hampstead, which my engage"Of the delightful ramble which followed, from ments prevented, we separated, to meet again at Ry-point to point of this delightful region, through the

dal Mount.

"I met him, however, twice before that. For a moment, on the following Sunday morning, when he called on me with Sir R. H. Inglis, in the vestry-room of All Souls' Church, where I was to preach by invitation of the Dean of Chichester. And again, at the public speaking at Harrow School, of which his nephew, the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, is the

head master. Here he alluded to the Sonnet, and said he should like some farther information on the subject. I promised him some pamphlets, which I afterwards

sent.

tramped, up this way and down that, he following the
instinct of his nature, as the hart snuffs from afar the
brooks of water, till he exclaimed, There it is!"
And, sure enough, the ground was purple.
The Pansy, at my feet,
Doth the same tale repeat,'

noble grounds of Rydal Hall, to the lower Force, (or fall,) and then to the upper, descanting as he went ; scenes which the Queen Dowager had traversed with him but the other day, and which for me had a peculiar pathos, in the remembrance of Bishop Hobart's relation of the days spent there with the great guardian genius of the place; of the hour in his unique and curious Library ; and, above all, of the countless,

*It was next before that which begins, Down a swift stream, thus far.' It is a pleasing coincidence, that Professor Reed, in reply to a letter from Mr. Wordsworth, speaking of our visit and his promise, proposed the same place.

† He selected his own, however, and did far better. His rest

ing on Bishop White, was in accordance with my hint, and I am proud of his confirmation of my remark, that 'patient energy may be regarded as the great characteristic of our great departed Bishop.'

It is very rich in first editions of the English Poets, and in presentation copies of rare books, of which one of Burns' seemed quite his favorite. Of the inscriptions, I remember two. One, in the first edition of Paradise Lost, Nov. 13, 1820. My dear Wordsworth, pray accept this little volume, one of the most precious that I can give, or you receive. It will acquire a new value by becoming yours. SAMUEL ROGERS.' Another, the edition of 1671. C. LAMB, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasing edition. June

"It was on the 5th day of August that we drove from Kendal, by Winandermere, to Ambleside, and thence to Rydal Mount. As we approached the gate we stopped involuntarily. Could it be possible that we were there? And was that simple, yellow cottage, all overgrown with roses and ivy, the real Wordsworth's? It was but to open the little wicket, and in another moment we were in a sweet book parlor, and in the very presence of the Seer! It was a rainy day. He had been out in it, and drenched, and was taking his comfort, with a book, in a half-coat, half-gown, of plaid. In a moment we were never more at home. It was an hour till dinner, and meanwhile we must just take a peep at some of the choice views of Rydal wa-1840, is just. But neither picture nor description can convey ter and Winandermere. Then, while dinner was any adequate notion of the hale and hearty vigor of his green served, the American Sonnet was discussed. He was old age, much less of the delightful flow of his whole-hearted doubtful where in the series it should come in. I cheerfulness. Much of this freshness of body and mind comes, doubtless, from his out-door life. I should like to see your asked to see the volume, and he handed me Profes-master's study,' said one, to a servant of his, 'is that it where sor Reed's edition, (Philadelphia.) I indicated the the books are?' That is my master's library,' was her reply,

2, 1820. The likeness of Mr. Wordsworth, in Moxon's edition,