childish, and in his selection of the commonest themes he more than once has selected themes which no human genius could make poetic. In the main, however, the principles of thought which he enunciated he strictly observed throughout a long life, and his noblest effects have been produced within the limitations he invented, and which he was contented to obey. But when we consider the question of his literary expression, we at once perceive that he does not use the language of common life, nor was it possible that he should. The vocabulary of the educated man is far wider than the vocabulary of the illiterate, and the vocabulary of the great poet is usually the fullest of all. Wordsworth simply could not help himself when he used forms of expression which the ploughman and pedlar could never have used. It was in vain that he said: “I have proposed to myself to imitate, and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men. I have taken as much pains to avoid what is usually called poetic diction as others ordinarily take to produce it." In poems like "The Idiot Boy," or "The Thorn," he certainly fulfils this purpose: he has so entirely succeeded in avoiding poetic diction that he has produced verses which by no stretch of literary charity could be called poetry at all. Wordsworth's noblest poetry is noble in direct contravention of his own theory of poetry, and is a pertinent illustration of the futility of all such theories to bind men of real genius. His theory is that true poetry should be merely "the language really spoken by men, with metre superadded," and he asks us, "What other distinction from prose would we have?" We reply that from the true poet we expect melody and magic of phrase-the gift of musical expression which can make words a power

equal to music, in producing exquisite sensations on the ear, and which is a still higher power than music, because it can directly produce noble thoughts and passions in the soul. If Wordsworth had only given us the language of prose with metre superadded, we should not be reading his pages to-day with ever-fresh delight. It is because he discards his own theory of poetic expression, and has given us many verses written in language unmatched for purity and melody of phrase, and wholly different from the "language really spoken by men," that we have judged him a great poet.

When we consider the vehemence of that ridicule with which Wordsworth was greeted, and the virulence of that criticism with which he was pursued for nearly half a century, it is necessary, therefore, to bear in mind how absurd this theory of poetic expression is, and how doubly absurd it must have seemed to those who were the critical authorities of his day. And it must also be recollected that Wordsworth pressed his theory in season and out of season. The temper of mind. which made him attach an overweening importance to the slightest incidents in his own intellectual development made him also blind to the relative values of his poems. He deliberately chose poems like "The Idiot Boy"-which were written in his worst style-and solemnly insisted on their significance as illustrative of his theory. If he had had any sense of humour, he would have perceived how absurd this was; but in humour Wordsworth was singularly deficient. There was a stiffness of controversial temper about him which refused any parley with the enemy. The consequence was that the more strenuously Wordsworth insisted on the value of his worst poems, the more blind men became to the supreme excellence of his best. They

accepted his worst poems as typical of his genius, and it was easy to turn them into ridicule. If poetry were, indeed, only prose with metre superadded, it was obvious that any prose-man could become a poet at will; and the facile retort rose to the lips that Wordsworth had justified his theory by writing prose under the delusion that it was poetry. The astonishing thing is that men of genuine critical ability were so slow to recognise that among many poems which were little better than prose cut up into metrical lengths, there were other poems of great and enduring excellence, which the greatest poets of all time might be proud to. claim. However, a truce has long since been. called to such contentions. No one cares much to-day what particular poetic fads Wordsworth may have advocated the fact that has gradually grown clear and clearer to the world is that in Wordsworth we possess a poet of profound originality and of supreme genius, and his greatness is generally recognised. It is also generally recognised that, more than any other modern poet, Wordsworth has expressed in his poems a noble philosophy; and it is to the study of that philosophy that I invite those who would read Wordsworth with a seeing eye and an understanding heart.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WORDSWORTH'S LIFE AND HIS POETRY.

I

HAVE already said that with Wordsworth, more

than with most poets, the life of the poet must be considered in connection with his poetry. Let us now look at this subject a little more closely. Wordsworth was born on the borders of that Lake Country which he loved so well, at Cockermouth, on April 7th, 1770. From his boyhood he was familiar with English mountain scenery, and the subduing spirit of its beauty touched his earliest life. He himself tells us

Nothing at that time

So welcome, no temptation half so dear

As that which urged me to a daring feat.

Deep pools, tall trees, black chasms and dizzy crags,
And tottering towers: I loved to stand and read
Their looks forbidding, read and disobey.

It is a vivid picture of the wild child of Nature, awed, and yet exhilarated in her presence, which Wordsworth paints in these lines. The boyish Wordsworth described in the "Recluse" is a true boy, touched more perhaps than a boy should be with a sense of mystery in Nature, but not distinguished by any unwholesome precocity or unnatural meditativeness. The awe of

Nature seems to have been a feeling early developed in him, and it never left him. He tells us how one day while nutting he penetrated into a distant solitude of the wood, where the silence and sense of sacredness were so profound, that he hastily retreated, with the feeling that he had invaded a sanctuary. But in other passages, such as the above, the idea left upon the mind is of a sturdy youth, rejoicing in his strength of limb and sureness of foot, and taking a thoroughly healthy delight in outdoor life. He has the wholesome blood of the Cumberland dalesman in his veins, and loves the mountains as only those love them whose life has thriven beneath their shadows; and even as a boy he learned to feel something of that healing serenity which Nature breathes into the soul that loves her. He felt that "whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace;" or, to quote his own memorable words:

But me hath Nature tamed, and bade to seek
For other agitations, or be calm;

Hath dealt with me as with a turbulent stream,
Some nursling of the mountains, which she leads
Through quiet meadows, after he has learnt
His strength, and had his triumph and his joy,
His desperate course of tumult and of glee.

The first noticeable thing, therefore, is that Wordsworth was a true "nursling of the mountains," and the influence of natural beauty and pastoral life was one of the earliest influences which shaped his mind. He had no love of cities, and knew little of them. When he