In the 'Ecclesiastical Sonnets,' the lines concerning the Monk (Sonnet xxi.),

were suggested to me by a beautiful tree clad as thus described, which you may remember in Lady Fleming's park at Rydal, near the path to the upper waterfall.

S——, in the work you mentioned to me, confounds imagery and imagination. Sensible objects really existing, and felt to exist, are imagery; and they may form the materials of a descriptive poem, where objects are delineated as they are. Imagination is a subjective term: it deals with objects not as they are, but as they appear to the mind of the poet.

The imagination is that intellectual lens through the medium of which the poetical observer sees the objects of his observation, modified both in form and colour; or it is that inventive dresser of dramatic tableaux, by which the persons of the play are invested with new drapery, or placed in new attitudes; or it is that chemical faculty by which elements of the most different nature and distant origin are blended together into one harmonious and homogeneous whole.

A beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power of imagination may be seen in that noble passage of Dyer's 'Ruins of Rome,'[261] where the poet hears the voice of Time; and in Thomson's description of the streets of Cairo, expecting the arrival of the caravan which had perished in the storm,[262]

Read all Cowley; he is very valuable to a collector of English sound sense.... Burns's 'Scots wha hae' is poor as a lyric composition.

Ariosto and Tasso are very absurdly depressed in order to elevate Dante. Ariosto is not always sincere; Spenser always so.

I have tried to read Goethe. I never could succeed. Mr. —— refers me to his 'Iphigenia,' but I there recognise none of the dignified simplicity, none of the health and vigour which the heroes and heroines of antiquity possess in the writings of Homer. The lines of Lucretius describing the immolation of Iphigenia are worth the whole of Goethe's long poem. Again, there is a profligacy, an inhuman sensuality, in his works which is utterly revolting. I am not intimately acquainted with them generally. But I take up my ground on the first canto of 'Wilhelm Meister;' and, as the attorney-general of human nature, I there indict him for wantonly outraging the sympathies of humanity. Theologians tell us of the degraded nature of man; and they tell us what is true. Yet man is essentially a moral agent, and there is that immortal and unextinguishable yearning for something pure and spiritual which will plead against these poetical sensualists as long as man remains what he is.

Scientific men are often too fond of aiming to be men of the world. They crave too much for titles, and stars, and ribbons. If Bacon had dwelt only in the court of Nature, and cared less for that of James the First, he would have been a greater man, and a happier one too.

I heard lately from young Mr. Watt a noble instance of magnanimity in an eminent French chemist. He had made a discovery, which he was informed would, if he took out a patent, realise a large fortune. 'No,' said he, 'I do not live to amass money, but to discover Truth; and as long as she attends me in my investigations so long will I serve her and her only.'

Sir —— I know from my own experience was ruined by prosperity. The age of Leo X. would have shone with greater brilliance if it had had more clouds to struggle with. The age of Louis XIV. was formed by the Port Royal amid the storms and thunders of the League. Racine lived in a court till it became necessary to his existence, as his miserable death proved. Those petty courts of Germany have been injurious to its literature. They who move in them are too prone to imagine themselves to be the whole world, and compared with the whole world they are nothing more than these little specks in the texture of this hearth-rug.

As I was riding Dora's pony from Rydal to Cambridge, I got off, as I occasionally did, to walk. I fell in with a sweet-looking peasant girl of nine or ten years old. She had been to carry her father's dinner, who was working in the fields, and she was wheeling a little wheelbarrow, in which she collected manure from the roads for her garden at home. After some talk I gave her a penny, for which she thanked me in the sweetest way imaginable. I wish I had asked her whether she could read, and whether she went to school. But I could not help being struck with the happy arrangement which Nature has made for the education of the heart, an arrangement which it seems the object of the present age to counteract instead of to cherish and confirm. I imagined the happy delight of the father in seeing his child at a distance, and watching her as she approached to perform her errand of love. I imagined the joy of the mother in seeing her return. I am strongly of opinion (an opinion you, perhaps, have seen expressed by me in a letter to Mr. Rose[263]) that this is the discipline which is more calculated by a thousand degrees to make a virtuous and happy nation than the all-engrossing, estranging, eleemosynary institutions for education, which perhaps communicate more knowledge. In these institutions what the pupils gain in knowledge they often lose in wisdom. This is a distinction which must never be lost sight of.

Education should never be wholly eleemosynary. But must the parent suffer privations for the sake of the child? Yes; for these privations endear the child to the parent, and the parent to the child; and whatever education the parent may thus gain or lose for his child, he has thus gained the noblest result of the most liberal education for himself—the habit of self-denial.

Next to your principles, and affections, and health, value your time.[264]

(f) REMINISCENCES OF THE REV. R.P. GRAVES, M.A., FORMERLY OF WINDERMERE, NOW OF DUBLIN.

I was struck by what seemed to me a beautiful analogy, which I once heard him draw, and which was new to me—that the individual characters of mankind showed themselves distinctively in childhood and youth, as those of trees in Spring; that of both, of trees in Summer and of human kind in middle life, they were then alike to a great degree merged in a dull uniformity; and that again, in Autumn and in declining age, there appeared afresh all their original and inherent variety brought out into view with deeper marking of character, with more vivid contrast, and with greater accession of interest and beauty.

He thought the charm of Robinson Crusoe mistakenly ascribed, as it commonly is done, to its naturalness. Attaching a full value to the singular yet easily imagined and most picturesque circumstances of the adventurer's position, to the admirable painting of the scenes, and to the knowledge displayed of the working of human feelings, he yet felt sure that the intense interest created by the story arose chiefly from the extraordinary energy and resource of the hero under his difficult circumstances, from their being so far beyond what it was natural to expect, or what would have been exhibited by the average of men; and that similarly the high pleasure derived from his successes and good fortunes arose from the peculiar source of these uncommon merits of his character.

I have heard him pronounce that the Tragedy of Othello, Plato's records of the last scenes of the career of Socrates, and Isaac Walton's Life of George Herbert, were in his opinion the most pathetic of human compositions.

In a walk one day, after stopping, according to his custom, to claim admiration for some happy aspect of the landscape, or beautiful composition on a smaller scale of natural objects, caught by him at the precisely best point of view in the midst of his conversation on other subjects, he added, good-humouredly, that there were three callings for success in which Nature had furnished him with qualifications—the callings of poet, landscape-gardener, and critic of pictures and works of art. On hearing this I could not but remember how his qualifications for the second were proved by the surprising variety of natural beauties he managed to display to their best advantage, from the very circumscribed limits of the garden at Rydal Mount, 'an invisible hand of art everywhere working' (to use his own exquisite expression) 'in the very spirit of Nature,' and how many there were who have owed the charm of their grounds and gardens to direction sought from his well-known taste and feeling. As to works of art, his criticism was not that of one versed in the history of the schools, but, always proceeding upon first principles, the 'prima philosophia,' as he called it; and it was, as it appeared to me, of the highest order.

He was a very great admirer of Virgil, not so much as a creative poet, but as the most consummate master of language, that, perhaps, ever existed. From him, and Horace, who was an especial favourite, and Lucretius, he used to quote much.[265]

(g) ON THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE.

The death of Coleridge was announced to us by his friend Wordsworth. It was the Sunday evening after the event occurred that my brother and I walked over to the Mount, where we found the Poet alone. One of the first things we heard from him was the death of one who had been, he said, his friend for more than thirty years. He then continued to speak of him; called him the most wonderful man that he had ever known—wonderful for the originality of his mind, and the power he possessed of throwing out in profusion grand central truths from which might be evolved the most comprehensive systems. Wordsworth, as a poet, regretted that German metaphysics had so much captivated the taste of Coleridge, for he was frequently not intelligible on this subject; whereas, if his energy and his originality had been more exerted in the channel of poetry, an instrument of which he had so perfect a mastery, Wordsworth thought he might have done more permanently to enrich the literature, and to influence the thought of the nation, than any man of the age. As it was, however, he said he believed Coleridge's mind to have been a widely fertilising one, and that the seed he had so lavishly sown in his conversational discourses, and the Sibylline leaves (not the poems so called by him) which he had scattered abroad so extensively covered with his annotations, had done much to form the opinions of the highest-educated men of the day; although this might be an influence not likely to meet with adequate recognition. After mentioning, in answer to our inquiries about the circumstances of their friendship, that though a considerable period had elapsed during which they had not seen much of each other, Coleridge and he had been, for more than two years, uninterruptedly, in as close intimacy as man could be with man, he proceeded to read to us the letter from Henry Nelson Coleridge which conveyed the tidings of his great relation's death, and of the manner of it. It appeared that, his death was a relief from intense pain, which, however, subsided at the interval of a few days before the event; and that shortly after this cessation of agony, he fell into a comatose state. The most interesting part of the letter was the statement, that the last use he made of his faculties was to call his children and other relatives and friends around him, to give them his blessing, and to express his hope to them that the manner of his end might manifest the depth of his trust in his Saviour Christ. As I heard this, I was at once deeply glad at the substance, and deeply affected by Wordsworth's emotion in reading it. When he came to this part his voice at first faltered, and then broke; but soon divine faith that the change was a blest one overcame aught of human grief, and he concluded in an equable though subdued tone. Before I quit this subject, I will tell you what I was interested in hearing from a person of the highest abilities,[266] whom I had the good fortune of meeting at Rydal Mount. He said that he had visited Coleridge about a month before his death, and had perceived at once his countenance pervaded by a most remarkable serenity. On being congratulated on his appearance, Coleridge replied that he did now, for the first time, begin to hope, from the mitigation of his pains, that his health was undergoing a permanent improvement (alas! he was deceived; yet may we not consider this hopeful feeling, which is, I believe, by no means uncommon, to be under such circumstances a valuable blessing?); but that what he felt most thankful for was the deep, calm peace of mind which he then enjoyed; a peace such as he had never before experienced, or scarcely hoped for. This, he said, seemed now settled upon him; and all things were thus looked at by him through an atmosphere by which all were reconciled and harmonised.[267]

(h) FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH BY THE SAME, SENT TO THE PRESENT EDITOR.

And so with regard to the Prayer Book, he reverenced and loved it as the Church's precious heritage of primitive piety, equally admirable for its matter and its style. It may be interesting to add, that in reference to this latter point I have heard him pronounce that many of the collects seemed to him examples of perfection, consisting, according to his impression, of words whose signification filled up without excess or defect the simple and symmetrical contour of some majestic meaning, and whose sound was a harmony of accordant simplicity and grandeur; a combination, he added, such as we enjoy in some of the best passages of Shakespeare.

But notwithstanding that he held these opinions, which will evince that he was not one who would lightly touch either sacred volume, he did not think that plain mistakes in the translation of the Bible, or obsolete words, or renderings commonly misunderstood, should be perpetually handed down in our authorised version of the volume of inspiration, or that similar blemishes in the Prayer Book, which, as being of human composition, would admit of freer though still reverential handling, should be permitted to continue as stumbling-blocks interfering with its acceptableness and usefulness.

The plan which he suggested as meeting the difficulties of the case was the following:

That by proper authority a Committee of Revision of the English Bible should be appointed, whose business should be, retaining the present authorised version as a standard to be departed from as little as possible to settle upon such indubitable corrections of meaning and improvements of expression as they agreed ought to be made, and have these printed in the margin of all Bibles published by authority. That, as an essential part of the scheme, this Committee of Revision should be renewed periodically, but not too frequently—he appeared to think that periods of fifty years might serve—at which times it should be competent to the Committee to authorise the transference from the margin into the text of all such alterations as had stood the test of experience and criticism during the previous period, as well as to fix on new marginal readings.

He was of opinion that in the constitution of the Committee care should be taken to appoint not only divines of established reputation for sound theology, and especially for their knowledge in connection with the original languages of the sacred volume, but some one author at least noted for his mastery over the vernacular language.

It will be seen that this plan, while it provides for corrections of errors and substitution of understood for obsolete or mistaken expressions, leaves undisturbed the associations of aged Christians, and prepares the younger generation for receiving the marginal amendments into the text. Wordsworth conceived that fixing the duration of the period of revision was of great consequence, both as obviating all agitation in the way of call for such a process, and as tending in the matter of critical discussions respecting the sanctioning, cancelling, and proposing of amendments to bring them to something of definitiveness in preparation for each era of revision.

The same process, under certain modifications, he thought applicable to the Book of Common Prayer. In this he deprecated all tampering with doctrine, considering that alterations ought to be confined to changes rendering the services more clearly understood or more conveniently used. It is fair to add, however, that I have heard him express a strong desire that the Athanasian Creed were rid of the so-called damnatory clauses; at the same time declaring that no one was ever more profoundly convinced than himself of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity.

He was in favour of a collection of metrical hymns, more peculiarly Christian in character than the Psalter, being set forth by authority for use in the Church; and for the choice of such hymns he thought a Committee should be appointed in which the knowledge of divine, of poet, and of laymen trusted for common sense and experience in life should be severally and conjointly engaged. As a practical suggestion of moment in the composition of such hymns he advised that composers should not in the four-line stanza do more than make the second and fourth lines rhyme; leaving the other two unrhymed, he said, would give an important addition of freedom both to the sense and the style.

R.P. GRAVES. Windermere, 1850.

To the above memorandum I now (Sept. 1874) add two items, of which I retain a distinct remembrance.

(1) He was in favour of the officiating clergyman being allowed to introduce into his reading of the Lessons in church the authorised marginal corrections.

(2) He expressed in very strong terms his opinion that the prefatory portion of the Marriage Service should be altered so as to make it not only less repulsive to modern feelings, but more accordant with the higher aspects of the union to be solemnised.

Passion in Poetry.—One day, speaking of passion as an element of poetry, he referred to his own poems, and said that he thought there was a stronger fire of passion than was elsewhere to be found among them in the lyrical burst near the conclusion of 'The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle:'

Chronological Classification of Poems.—Many years ago I expressed to Wordsworth a wish that his poems were printed in the order of their composition, assigning as reasons for the wish the great interest which would attach to observing the progressive development of the poet's thought, and the interpretative value of the light mutually reflected by poems of the same period. I remember being surprised by the feeling akin to indignation which he manifested at the suggestion. He said that such proceeding would indicate on the part of a poet an amount of egotism, placing interest in himself above interest in the subjects treated by him, which could not belong to a true poet caring for the elements of poetry in their right proportion, and designing to bring to bear upon the minds of his readers the best influences at his command in the way best calculated to make them effectual. I felt that his ground of objection made me revere him the more both as a man and as a poet; yet I retained the opinion that much might be said on the reader's part in the case of a great poet for such an arrangement of his poems as I had been suggesting, and I welcomed in after-days the concession made by him in consenting to put dates to the poems, while adhering to their classification according to subject or predominant element.

Verbal Criticism.—Wordsworth not only sympathised with the feelings expressed in Southey's touching lines upon The Dead, but admired very much the easy flow of the verse and the perfect freedom from strain in the expression by which they are marked. Yet in the first two stanzas he noted three flaws, and suggested changes by which they might have been easily avoided. I have underlined the words he took exception to:

In the first stanza, for 'Where'er these casual eyes are cast,' which he objected to as not simple and natural, and as scarcely correct, he suggested 'Where'er a casual look I cast;' and for 'converse,' the accent of which he condemned as belonging to the noun and not to the verb, he suggested 'commune.' In the second stanza he pointed out the improper sequence of tenses in the third and fifth lines, which he corrected by reading in the latter 'My cheeks are oftentimes bedew'd.' Of the narrative poems of his friend, well executed as he considered them, and of the mainly external action of imagination or fancy in which they deal, I have certainly heard him pronounce a very depreciatory opinion; whether I ever heard him use the hard words attributed to him, 'I would not give five shillings for a ream of them,' I cannot now assert, but if used, they were said in reference to the nobler kind of imaginative power which reveals to man the deep places and sublimer affinities of his own being. But to some others of Southey's verses, as well as to the lines above quoted, and to his prose writings in general, he was wont to give liberal praise; and no one could doubt the sincerity and warmth of his admiration of the intellect and virtues of the man, or the brotherly affection towards him which he not unfrequently expressed.

R.P. GRAVES. Dublin, 1875.

(i) AN AMERICAN'S REMINISCENCES.

It was half-past one when we reached Ambleside, where I left Mr. and Mrs. B., and walked on alone to Rydal Mount. I was full of eager expectations as I thought how soon I should, perhaps, be in the presence of Wordsworth—that after long years of waiting, of distant reverential admiration and love, I was, as I hoped, to be favoured with a personal interview with the great poet-philosopher, to whom you and I, and so many, many others, feel that we are under the deepest obligation for the good which has come to us from his writings. At two o'clock I was at the wicket gate opening into Wordsworth's grounds. I walked along the gravel pathway, leading through shrubbery to the open space in front of the long two-story cottage, the Poet's dwelling. Your sketch of the house by Inman is a correct one, but it gives no idea of the view from it, which is its chief charm. Rydal Mere with its islands, and the mountains beyond it, are all in sight. I had but a hasty enjoyment of this beauty; nor could I notice carefully the flowers which were blooming around. It was evident that the greatest attention had been paid to the grounds, for the flower-beds were tastefully arranged, and the gravel walks were in complete order. One might be well content, I thought, to make his abode at a spot like this.

A boy of about twelve years was occupied at one of the flower-beds, as I passed by; he followed me to the door, and waited my commands. I asked if Mr. Wordsworth was in.... He was dining—would I walk into the drawing-room, and wait a short time?... I was shown into the drawing-room, or study, I know not which to call it.... Here I am, I said to myself, in the great Poet's house. Here his daily life is spent. Here in this room, doubtless, much of his poetry has been written—words of power which are to go down with those of Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Milton, while our English tongue endures. It was a long apartment, the ceiling low, with two windows at one end, looking out on the lawn and shrubbery. Many engravings were on the walls. The famous Madonna of Raphael, known as that of the Dresden Gallery, hung directly over the fire-place. Inman's portrait of the Poet, your gift to Mrs. Wordsworth, being a copy of the one painted for you, had a conspicuous place. The portrait of Bishop White, also your gift (the engraving from Inman's picture), I also noticed.

I could have waited patiently for a long time indulging the thoughts which the place called up. In a few minutes, however, I heard steps in the entry, the door was opened, and Wordsworth came in, it could be no other—- a tall figure, a little bent with age, his hair thin and grey, and his face deeply wrinkled.... The expression of his countenance was sad, mournful I might say; he seemed one on whom sorrow pressed heavily. He gave me his hand, and welcomed me cordially, though without smiling. 'Will you walk out, Sir, and join us at the table?' said he. 'I am engaged to dine elsewhere.' 'But you can sit with us,' said he; so, leading the way, he conducted me to the dining-room. At the head of the table sat Mrs. Wordsworth, and their three grandchildren made up the party.... It was a humble apartment, not ceiled, the rafters being visible; having a large old-fashioned chimney-place, with a high mantelpiece.

Wordsworth asked after Mr. Ticknor of Boston, who had visited him a few months before, and for whom he expressed much regard. Some other questions led me to speak of the progress we were making in America in the extension of our territory, the settlements on the Pacific, &c.; all this involving the rapid spread of our English tongue. Wordsworth at this looked up, and I noticed a fixing of his eye as if on some remote object. He said that considering this extension of our language, it behoved those who wrote to see to it, that what they put forth was on the side of virtue. This remark, although thrown out at the moment, was made in a serious thoughtful way; and I was much impressed by it. I could not but reflect that to him a deep sense of responsibility had ever been present: to purify and elevate has been the purpose of all his writings. Such may have been at that moment his own inward meditation, and he may have had in mind the coming generations who are to dwell upon his words.

Queen Victoria was mentioned—her visit to Ireland which had just been made—the courage she had shown. 'That is a virtue,' said he, 'which she has to a remarkable degree, which is very much to her credit.'

Inman's portrait of him I alluded to as being very familiar to me, the copy which hung in the room calling it to mind, which led him to speak of the one painted by Pickersgill for St. John's College, Cambridge. 'I was a member of that College, he said, 'and the fellows and students did me the honour to ask me to sit, and allowed me to choose the artist. I wrote to Mr. Rogers on the subject, and he recommended Pickersgill, who came down soon afterwards, and the picture was painted here.' He believed he had sat twenty-three times. My impression is he was in doubt whether Inman's or Pickersgill's portrait was the better one.

He spoke with great animation of the advantage of classical study, Greek especially. 'Where,' said he, 'would one look for a greater orator than Demosthenes; or finer dramatic poetry, next to Shakspeare, than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not to speak of Euripides?' Herodotus he thought 'the most interesting and instructive book, next to the Bible, which had ever been written.' Modern discoveries had only tended to confirm the general truth of his narrative. Thucydides he thought less of.

France was our next subject, and one which seemed very near his heart. He had been much in that country at the out-break of the Revolution, and afterwards during its wildest excesses. At the time of the September massacres he was at Orleans. Addressing Mrs. W. he said, 'I wonder how I came to stay there so long, and at a period so exciting.' He had known many of the abbés and other ecclesiastics, and thought highly of them as a class; they were earnest, faithful men: being unmarried, he must say, they were the better able to fulfil their sacred duties; they were married to their flocks. In the towns there seemed, he admitted, very little religion; but in the country there had always been a great deal. 'I should like to spend another month in France,' he said, 'before I close my eyes.' He seemed to feel deep commiseration for the sorrows of that unhappy country. It was evidently the remembrance of hopes which in his youth he had ardently cherished, and which had been blighted, on which his mind was dwelling. I alluded to Henry the Fifth, to whom many eyes were, I thought, beginning to turn. With him, he remarked, there would be a principle for which men could contend—legitimacy. The advantage of this he stated finely.

There was tenderness, I thought, in the tones of his voice, when speaking with his wife; and I could not but look with deep interest and admiration on the woman for whom this illustrious man had for so many years cherished feelings of reverential love.

is a line which you will recall from one of the beautiful poems Wordsworth has addressed to her; and this seemed peculiarly the temper of her spirit—peace, the holy calmness of a heart to whom love had been an 'unerring light.' Surely we may pray, my friend, that in the brief season of separation which she has now to pass, she may be strengthened with divine consolation.

I cannot forbear to quote here that beautiful passage, near the end of the great poem, 'The Prelude,' as an utterance by the author of tender feelings in his own matchless way. After speaking of his sister in tones of deepest thankfulness, he adds,

I have been led away from my narrative; but I wished to record the feelings which had arisen within me with regard to this excellent lady; she who has been, as —— has so happily expressed it in his letter to you, 'almost like the Poet's guardian angel for near fifty years.'

I may here mention, that throughout the conversation Wordsworth's manner was animated, and that he took pleasure in it evidently. His words were very choice: each sentence seemed faultless. No one could have listened to his talk for five minutes, even on ordinary topics, without perceiving that he was a remarkable man. Not that he was brilliant; but there was sustained vigour, and that mode of expression which denotes habitual thoughtfulness.

When the clock struck four, I thought it time for me to go. Wordsworth told me to say to his friends in America, that he and his wife were well; that they had had a great grief of late, in the loss of their only daughter, which he supposed they would never get over. This explained, as I have already mentioned, the sadness of his manner. Such strength of the affections in old age we rarely see. And yet the Poet has himself condemned, as you remember, in 'The Excursion,' long and persevering grief for objects of our love 'removed from this unstable world,' reminding one so sorrowing of