he does well, in seeing that there is a fervor not of passion, and a poetry richer than the dreams of a sick fancy. The influence of the example is very obvious in his own poems. It has given them a freshness, and a simplicity, often homely, but interesting. The tone of sentiment is high. His is the doctrine, which contains all, Faith in Man; and his the ethics which may be all summed up in Love. And yet something, we know not what, makes us ever and anon suspect that he is not yet at home among these great ideas. He reasons too much about them. The Poet, as such, lives in his cherished sentiments; he does not preach them. The Poet differs from the Philosopher in this, that he holds the highest truth, without proclaiming it, often without knowing it. He does not discourse much about high matters and abstract ideas; but he feels them all the while he is talking about little casual things; a holy light goes forth from his heart over all around him; a holier glow is in his words. The Poet is known, not by what he talks about, but by the way in which he talks about any thing. What in the philosopher is thought, in him is feeling.

Our objection to Mr. Bacon's theory of poetry is this. He seems to underrate poetry in comparison with reflection. He speaks of it as hardly a solid thing, as the mere ornament, where reason is the substance. He denies its universal power over the common mind; and seems to hint that the decay of poetry, (though he does not fear any such decay,) would be a comparatively small evil to society. We cannot agree with the following passage from the note above mentioned:

"The poets can never wield the nation: he who thought that, give him the making of the songs of a nation, and he would thereby mould its character, was a Utopian in theory, and would have been found worse than that in practice. There is a set of principles to be elucidated, and sent abroad among the gifted and powerful spirits of the day, and there diffused, that they may work themselves gradually into the

economy of society, with which poets have nothing to do. Poetry is too volatile in spirit, and delicate in substance, to affect the common mind to any considerable degree, where the philosopher has not previously been, and succeeded in laying a deep and broad foundation."-p. 129.

It

Now we believe that Poetry is a very substantial thing; a thing deep and eternal as the spirit of Man; one of the primeval forces of the moral universe. is earlier than Philosophy or Ethics, and is the foundation of them. Man, as philosopher, can only reflect on what Man, as poet, has felt. Philosophy, in itself, has no power at all, until it is lived and becomes poetry. Certainly feeling is the substance of life; ideas are only the forms. In desiring poetry to be wedded to a sound philosophy, which shall save it from passion, and make it pure and universal, true to the instincts of all men, our poet goes too far, and forgets that in true poetry the germ of the highest philosophy is contained. He thinks that philosophy is to work out the needed revolutions in society; and that when the "solid columns of the superstructure " are already reared upon the basis of accurate knowledge, then "the poet may step in and think to give it the decorations." But shall poetry have no part in the revolution? Does not it always help to mould characters and institutions? Much is due to Wordsworth for showing how much poetry gains by its union with pure philosophy. But this writer exaggerates the theory of Wordsworth, when he places the poetic element so low. "A set of principles with which poets have nothing to do"!-How can this be said by a disciple of Wordsworth, whose ideal of a bard, is of one "who loves all things"?

We admire the noble sentiments which breathe through this volume of poems. But considered as poetry, we think the poetic element does not predominate in them. It may be doubted whether Wordsworth is the fairest specimen of what may be distinctively called the poet. We should rather point to Burns; or to Byron, though, perhaps, corrupt as a

man; or to Schiller, though philosophizing gradually spoiled the simplicity of his native poetry. Our author seems to have a poet's heart, and a poet's eye; he finds his world of beauty every where; he aspires to full communion with the highest; he sighs for lost childhood; he reverences the simple, loving, trusting child as the prophet of Humanity; - only would he were not quite so didactic! Must the lyric wholly disappear from poetic literature? The most cherished sentiments of the poet seem to be uttered in the last piece in his volume, a Valedictory Poem on leaving College. We extract the following:

"Man is a gifted being. There is that
In the eternal temper of his mind,
Which showeth his affinity to Heaven!
And greatness sits upon him naturally!

And goodness-when the bad world is shut out,
And virtue when the heart lives in itself,

And sweetness - when its sweet streams are all free:
And woman gives him her warm heart to keep,
And children climb his knee and lisp his name,
And widows call down blessings on his head,
And orphans steep his ashes in their tears,
And he is that bright being Heaven designed!
-But in him is another principle

God-like and great, and in his hours of ease,
It cometh with a voice of witchery,
And giveth his strong spirit to the world.
It is Ambition! and upon his heart,
Robing itself like a fallen child of light,
It sits and breathes a madness in his ears.
Around his brow it wreathes a band of fire,

Within his grasp a sceptre, and his foot

Treads proudly over graves and dead men's skulls.
Virtue is all forgotten; all his dreams,

Distempered by the madness of his heart,

Are foul, and his great thoughts are thoughts of blood.
Peace is his discord; the soft slavery

Of the domestic circle is despised,
And woman is the plaything of his lust,
And virtue is a thing that hath no name.
And so it leads him on, till, tearing out,
One after one the virtues from his heart,

It sends him to the grave without one tear."

"This is the lesson love, love all the world!
He wrongs his nature who has learned to hate.
God hath made nothing man should dare despise.
The fountains, and the feelings, and the thoughts
That make up virtue, He hath so advised,
Shall only bring the heart true happiness,
And he but starves himself who turns away.
The natural passion of the heart is virtue,

Its streams flow backward when hate centers there;
It lives in its affections, and the man

With a warm bosom may look down on kings!
The world has more of truth in 't than appears.
He's but half villain who seems wholly so.
Nero was all a villain, yet one heart

Loved him, and strewed fresh garlands on his grave.
And at this parting hour, should truth have weight.
Sorrow is most forgiving, and to be

Made humble by its true nobleness.
Forgiveness is true happiness, and he
Is happiest most who shall the most forgive.
And happiness is holiness, for he

Can only holy be whose heart is love.

So live

- and, trust me, a long life is yours!
So live and ye shall proudly walk with men !
The great man with you shall forget his greatness,
The good shall come to you and call you theirs,
And she, to whom man's slavery is no sin,
Why even she shall lay aside her pride,
And come to you and tell ye of her love.

And when that last, dread, parting hour comes on,
And the bright sky, and the bright world around
With all it hath of beauty and of sweetness,
With all it hath of poetry and life,

With all it hath to elevate, and purify,

And make men's natures noble; when all these

Fade from thy vision, and thy hold on life

Is frail and feeble, then lift up thine eye,

And where the star of faith hangs in the heavens,
Look! and go hence-rejoicing."

pp. 118, 119, 124, 125.

The following is a professed imitation of Wordsworth. It is graceful, and musical, and simple; and