of those which linger most tenderly on our | sagest antiquarian might muse over in vain, memories. The poet here takes almost the and his name engraven in a wreath or posy lowliest of his species-an aged mendicant, around three bells with which he had endowed one of the last of that class who made regular the spire. "So," exclaims the poet, in strains circuits amidst the cottages of the north-and as touching and majestic as ever were breathed after a vivid picture of his frame bent with over the transitory grandeur of earthyears, of his slow motion and decayed senses, "So fails, so languishes, grows dim and dies, he asserts them not divorced from goodAll that this world is proud of. From their spheres traces out the links which bind him to his The stars of human glory are cast down; fellows and shows the benefit which even Perish the roses, and the flowers of kings, he can diffuse in his rounds, while he serves Princes and emperors, and the crowns and palms as a record to bind together past deeds and Of all the mighty, withered, and consumed." offices of charity-compels to acts of love by In the Excursion, too, is the exquisite tale "the mild necessity of use" those whose of poor Ellen-a seduced and forsaken girl— hearts would otherwise harden-gives to the from which we will give one affecting inciyoung "the first mild touch of sympathy and thought, in which they find their kindred with dent, scarcely to be matched, for truth and a world where want and sorrow are"-and and tales which have been founded on a simibeauty, through the many sentimental poems enables even the poor to taste the joy of bestowing. This last blessing is thus set forth and illustrated by a precious example of selfdenying goodness and cheerful hope, which is at once more tear-moving and more sublime than the finest things in Cowper:

"Man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
-Such pleasure is to one kind being known,
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though prest herself
With her own wants, she from her chest of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old mendicant, and, from her door
Returning with invigorated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in Heaven."

Then, in the Excursion, there is the story of the Ruined Cottage, with its admirable gradations, more painful than the pathetic narratives of its author usually are, yet not without redeeming traits of sweetness, and a reconciling spirit which takes away its sting. There, too, is the intense history of the Solitary's sorrows

there the story of the Hanoverian and the Jacobite, who learned to snatch a sympathy from their bitter disputings, grew old in controversy and in friendship, and were buried side by side-there the picture of Oswald, the gifted and generous and graceful hero of the mountain solitude, who was cut off in the blossom of his youth-there the record of that pleasurable sage, whose house Death, after forty years of forbearance, visited with thronging summonses, and took off his family one after the other, "with intervals of peace," till he too, with cheerful thoughts about him, was "overcome by unexpected sleep in one blest moment," and as he lay on the "warm lap of his mother earth," "gathered to his fathers." There are those fine vestiges, and yet finer traditions and conjectures, of the good knight Sir Alfred Irthing, the "mild-hearted champion" who had retired in Elizabeth's days to a retreat among the hills, and had drawn around him a kindred and a family. Of him nothing remained but a gentle fame in the hearts of the villagers, an uncouth monumental stone grafted on the church-walls, which the

lar wo:

"Beside the cottage in which Ellen dwelt

Stands a tall ash tree; to whose topmost twig
A thrush resorts, and annually chants,
At morn and evening from that naked perch,
While all the undergrove is thick with leaves,
A time-beguiling ditty, for delight

Of his fond partner, silent in the nest.

-'Ay why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,
'Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge;
And nature that is kind in Woman's breast,
And reason that in Man is wise and good,
And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge,-
Why do not these prevail for human life,
To keep two hearts together, that began

Their spring-time with one love, and that have need
Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet

To grant, or be received, while that poor bird,
-O come and hear him! Thou who hast to me
Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly creature,
One of God's simple children that yet know not
The universal Parent, how he sings
As if he wished the firmament of Heaven
Should listen, and give back to him the voice
Of his triumphant constancy and love;
The proclamation that he makes, how far
His darkness doth transcend our fickle light!'

"Such was the tender passage, not by me
Repeated without loss of simple phrase,
Which I perused, even as the words had been
Committed by forsaken Ellen's hand
To the blank margin of a Valentine,
Bedropped with tears."

With these tear-moving expressions of illfated love, we may contrast the following rich picture of the affection in its early bloom, from the tale of Vandracour and Julia, which will show how delightedly the poet might have lingered in the luxuries of amatory song, had he not chosen rather to brood over the whole world of sentiment and passion :

"Arabian fiction never filled the world

With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements
Before his eyes to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber window did surpass in glory
The portal of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move
Beneath a sun that walks a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality."

with emotions equally remote from pedantry and from intolerance-regarding not only the grace and the loveliness of their forms, but their symbolical meaning-tracing them to their elements in the human soul, and bringing before us the eldest wisdom which was imbodied in their shapes, and speedily forgotten by their worshippers. Thus, among “the palpable array of sense," does he discover hints of immortal life-thus does he transport us back more than twenty centuries-and enable us to enter into the most mysterious and farreaching hopes of a Grecian votary:

"A Spirit hung,

Perhaps the highest instance of Words- | pher as well as of a poet. He reviews them worth's imaginative faculty, exerted in a tale of human fortunes, is to be found in "The White Doe of Rylstone." He has here succeeded in two distinct efforts, the results of which are yet in entire harmony. He has shown the gentle spirit of a high-born maiden gathering strength and purity from sorrow, and finally, after the destruction of her family, and amidst the ruin of her paternal domains, consecrated by suffering. He has also here, by the introduction of that lovely wonder, the favourite doe of his heroine, at once linked the period of his narrative to that of its events, and softened down the saddest catastrophe and the most exquisite of mortal agonies. A gallant chieftain, one of the goodliest pillars of the olden time, falls, with eight of his sons, in a hopeless contest for the religion to which they were devoted-the ninth, who followed them unarmed, is slain while he strives to bear away, for their sake, the banner which he had abjured-the sole survivor, a helpless woman, is left to wander desolate about the silent halls and tangled glades, once witnesses of her joyous infancy-and yet all this variety of grief is rendered mild and soothing by the influences of the imagination of the poet. The doe, which first with its quiet sympathy excited relieving tears in its forsaken mistress, which followed her, a gentle companion, through all her mortal wanderings, and which years after made Sabbath visits to her grave, is, like the spirit of nature, personified to heal, to bless, and to elevate. All who have read the poem aright, will feel prepared for that apotheosis which the poet has reserved for this radiant being, and will recognise the imaginative truth of that bold figure, by which the decaying towers of Bolton are made to smile upon its form, and to attest its unearthly relations :

"There doth the gentle creature lie
With these adversities unmoved;
Calm spectacle, by earth and sky
In their benignity approved!
And ay, methinks, this hoary pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,

A gracious smile, that seems to say,
'Thou art not a Child of Time,

But daughter of the eternal Prime!'"' Although Wordsworth chiefly delights in these humanities of poetry, he has shown that he possesses feelings to appreciate and power to grasp the noblest of classic fictions. No one can read his Dion, his Loadamia, and the most majestic of his sonnets, without perceiving that he has power to endow the stateliest shapes of old mythology with new life, and to diffuse about them a new glory. Hear him, for example, breaking forth, with holy disdain of the worldly spirit of the time, into this sublime apostrophy:

"Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn:
So might I, standing on some pleasant lee,
Have glimpses which might make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea,

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn!"

But he has chosen rather to survey the majesties of Greece, with the eye of a philoso

Beautiful region! o'er thy Towns and Farms,
Statues, and Temples, and memorial Tombs ;
And emanations were perceived, and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave Philosopher imposed
And armed Warrior; and in every grove,
A gay or pensive tenderness prevail'd
When piety more awful had relaxed.
'Take, running River, take these locks of mine,'
Thus would the votary say, this sever'd hair,
My vow fulfilling, do I here present,
Thankful for my beloved child's return.
Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
Thy murmurs heard ; and drunk the crystal lymph
With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And moisten all day long these flowery fields.'
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of life continuous, Being unimpair'd
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall be,-seen, and heard, and felt, and known,
And recognised,-existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution free, and weakening age,
While man grows old, and dwindles and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart and leave no vestige where they trod."

We must now bring this long article to a close-and yet how small a portion of our author's beauties have we even hinted! We have passed over the clear majesty of the poem of "Hart Leap Well"-the lyrical grandeur of the Feast of Brougham Castle-the masculine energy and delicate grace of the Sonnets which, with the exception perhaps of one or two of Warton and of Milton, far exceed all others in our language-" The Wagoner," that fine and hearty concession of a waterdrinker to the joys of wine and the light-hearted folly which it inspires-and numbers of smaller poems and ballads, which to the superficial observer may seem only like woodland springs, but in which he who ponders intently will discern the breakings forth of an undercurrent of thought and feeling which is silently flowing beneath him. We trust, however, we have written or rather quoted enough to induce such of our readers as hitherto have despised the poet on the faith of base or ignorant criticism to read him for themselves, especially as by the recent appearance of the Excursion in octavo, and the arrangement of the minor poems in four small volumes, the whole of his poetical works are placed within their reach. If he has little popularity with the multitude, he is rewarded by the intense veneration and love of the finest spirits of the age. Not only

REVIEW OF "NORTH'S LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD.'

[RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.]

younger brother, and at last, in the fulness of | what should become of him, if he should lose

his heart, discloses, by a little quotation, that he is speaking of himself-this breaking from his usual modest narration into the only personal feeling he seems to have cherished-is beautifully characteristic of the spirit which he brought to his work.

"But I ought to come nearer home, and take an account of his benevolences to his paternal relations. His youngest brother (the honourable Roger North) was designed, by his father, for the civil law, as they call that professed at Doctors' Commons, upon a specious fancy to have a son of each faculty or employ used in England. But his lordship dissuaded him, and advised rather to have him put to the common law; for the other profession provided but for a few, and those not wonderful well; whereas, the common law was more certain, and, in that way, he himself might bring him forwards, and assist him. And so it was determined. His lordship procured for him a petit chamber, which cost his father £60, and there he was settled with a very scanty allowance; to which his lordship made a timely addition of his own money more than all this, he took him almost constantly out with him to company and entertainments, and always paid his scot; and, when he was attorney general, let him into partnership in one of the offices under him; and when his lordship was treasurer, and his brother called to the bar, a perquisite chamber, worth £150, fell; and that he gave to his brother for a practising chamber, and took in lieu only that which he had used for his studies. When his lordship was chief justice, he gave him the countenance of practising under him, at nisi prius; and all the while his lordship was a house-keeper, his brother and servant were of his family at all meals. When the Temple was burnt, he fitted up a little room and study in his chambers in Serjeant's Inn, for his brother to manage his small affairs of law in, and lodged him in his house till the Temple was built, and he might securely lodge there. And his lordship was pleased with a back door in his own study, by which he could go in and out to his brother, to discourse of incidents; which way of life delighted his lordship exceedingly. And, what was more extraordinary, he went with his lordship in his coach constantly, to, and from, the courts of nisi prius, at Guildhall and Westminster. And, after his lordship had the great seal, his brother's practice (being then made of the king's counsel, and coming within the bar) increased exceedingly, and, in about three years' time he acquired the better part he afterwards was possessed of. At that time, his lordship took his brother into his family, and a coach and servants assigned him out of his equipages; and all at rack and manger, requiring only £200 a year; which was a trifle, as the world went then. And it may truly be said, that this brother was a shadow to him, as if they had grown together. And, to show his lordship's tenderness, I add this instance of fact. Once he seemed more than ordinarily disposed to pensiveness, even to a degree of melancholy. His lordship never left pumping, till he found out the cause of it; and that was a reflection

this good brother, and be left alone to himself: the thought of which he could scarce bear; for he had no opinion of his own strength, to work his way through the world with tolerable success. Upon this his lordship, to set his brother's mind at ease, sold him an annuity of £200 a year, at an easy rate, upon condition to re-purchase it, at the same rate, when he was worth £5000. And this was all done accordingly.

"O et præsidium et dulce decus meum."

We will now conduct our readers through Lord Guilford's life-introducing as many of the nice peculiarities of his historian as our limits will allow-and will then give them one or two of the portraits with which the work is enriched-and add a word on the changes which have taken place in the legal profession, since the time when the originals "held the noisy tenour of their way" through its gradations.

The Hon. Francis North, afterwards Baron Guilford, was the third son of Dudley, Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, who deserved the filial duty of his children, by the veneration which he manifested towards his own father, beyond even the strictness of those times; for, though he was an old man before his father died, he never sat or was covered in his presence unbidden. He sent his son, at an early age, to school, but was not very fortunate in his selection, for the master was a rigid Presbyterian, and his wife a furious Independent, who used "to instruct her babes in the gift of praying by the spirit, making them kneel by a bedside and pray;" but as "this petit spark was too small for that posture, he was set upon the bed to kneel with his face to the pillow." This absurd treatment seems to have given the child an early disgust for those who were esteemed the fanatics, which never left him. He finished his scholastic education under a "cavalier master," with credit. After he left school, he became a fellow-commoner of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he improved greatly in solid learning, and acquired a knowledge of music, which he afterwards used as a frequent solace amidst the toils of his profession.

He next became a member of the Middle Temple, and occupied “a moiety of a petit chamber, which his father bought for him." Here he "used constantly commons in the hall at noons and nights," studied closely, and derived much benefit from the practice of putting cases, which was followed in the old temple cloisters by the students, and for the convenience of which they were rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in their present form. He, also, diligently common-placed the substance of his reading, having acquired a very small but legible hand-"for," as his biographer observes," where contracting is the main business, it is not well to write, as the fashion then was, uncial or semi-uncial letters to look like pig's ribs." In his studies, he was wont by turns to read the reports and institutes; "as, after a fulness of the reports in a morning, about noon, to take a repast in Stamford,

Crompton, or the Lord Coke's Pleas of the rejoicing at a cause that came to him, became Crown, and Jurisdiction of Courts, Manwood cock of the circuit; and every one that had a of the Forest Law, and Fitzherbert's Natura | trial rejoiced to have him on his side." One Brevium." He, also, " despatched the greatest piece of artifice which he used on behalf of a part" of the year-books, beginning with the relative is so curious, that we will insert it in book termed Henry the Seventh, from whence the words of our author. he regarded the common law derived "as from a copious fountain." While thus engaged, he did not altogether refuse recreation, but delighted in a small supper and a temperate glass with his friends in chambers, sometimes fancied "to go about town and see trade-work, which is a very diverting and instructive entertainment," and visited every thing extraordinary in town, "as engines, shows, lectures, and even so low as to hear Hugh Peters preach!" The only obstacle to his legal success was his excessive bashfulness, which so oppressed him, that when he dined or supped in the hall of the Middle Temple, he would not walk in alone, but "used to stand dogging at the skreen till other company came, behind whom he might enter."