feelings, of which the mind is scarcely conscious, except at the moment when the figure is before us, and we are listening with stilled breath to the mysterious march of our inner life.

I will now proceed to give you a few examples of this; but you will observe that I labour under peculiar disadvantages in doing so; for just in proportion as thoughts are delicate, and refined, and subtle, exactly in the same proportion are they unfit for public exposition: they may be fitted for the closet, the study, and for private reading, but they are not fitted for a public room; therefore, the most exquisite productions of Wordsworth I shall not bring before you now; all I shall read to you will be some that will give you a conception of what I have stated. For example, I quote one passage in which the poet describes the consecrating effects of early dawn:

-

"What soul was his when from the naked top
Of some bold headland he beheld the sun

Rise up and bathe the world in light! He look'd-
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces did he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; They swallowed up
His animal being; In them did he live,
And by them did he live; They were his life.

In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the Living God.

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired :
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request :
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!"

There is nothing in these lines except we have the heart to feel them. No man can understand or feel those lines who has led a slothful life, or who has not at one time or other loved to rise early,—no man who, in his early walks, has not mingled with a love of poetry a deep religious sense, who has not felt the consecrating effects of early dawn, or who has not at one time or another, in his early days, in a moment of deep enthusiasm, knelt down amidst the glories of Nature, as the ancient patriarch knelt, canopied only by the sky above him, and feeling that none were awake but the Creator and himself,-bowed down to consecrate and offer up the whole of his life, experiencing also a strange, and awful, and mysterious feeling, as if a Hand invisible was laid upon his brow, accepting the consecration and the sacrifice.

In order to understand the next passage I shall quote, I must remind you of the way in which the ancient Pagans represented the same feeling. Most persons here, either through the originals, if they

As usual, and

are acquainted with them, or through the trans-
lations, which in these times have multiplied, will
remember how the ancient Pagan poets loved to
represent some anecdote of a huntsman or shep-
herd, who, in passing through a wood and plucking
some herb or cutting down some branch, has
started to see drops of human blood issue from it,
or at hearing a human voice proclaiming that
he had done injury to some imprisoned human
life in that tree. It was so that the ancients
expressed their feelings of the deep sacredness of
that life that there is in Nature. Now, let us see
how Wordsworth expresses this.
as we might have expected, he brings it before us
by a simple anecdote of his childhood, when he
went out nutting. He tells us how, in early
boyhood, he went out to seek for nuts, and came
to a hazel-tree set far in the thicket of a wood,
which never had been entered by the profane
steps of boyhood before-as he expresses it, "A
virgin scene." He describes how he eyed with
delight the clusters of white nuts hanging from
the branches, and with exquisite fidelity to nature,
-he tells us how he sat upon a bank and dallied
with the promised feast, as we dally with a letter
long expected, and containing correspondence much
loved, because we know it is our own. At last
the boy rose, tore down the boughs, and on seeing

V

all the ravage and desolation he had caused by his intrusion there came over him a feeling of deep remorse.

"And unless I now

Confound my present feelings with the past;

Ere from the mutilated bower I turned
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,

I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.—
Then, dearest maiden, move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch-for there is a spirit in the wood."

I preface the third illustration that I shall offer, by a remark reminding you that these scenes of Nature become, as it were, a possession of the memory. The value of having felt Nature in her loveliness or in her grandeur is not in the pleasure and intense enjoyment that was then and there experienced, but in this fact, that we have thenceforward gained something that will not be put aside; a remembrance that will form a great part of our future life. Now, all of us,—any man who has seen the Alps, or who has seen an American hurricane, can understand this so far as Nature's grandeur is concerned; but Wordsworth, as usual, shows us how our daily life and most ordinary being is made up of such recollections; and, as usual, he selects a very simple anecdote to illustrate this: It is taken from a circumstance that occurred to him when on a journey

with his sister on the lake of Ullswater, they came upon a scene which, perhaps, few but himself would have observed. The margin of the lake was fringed for a long distance with golden daffodils, "Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

And then, after describing this in very simple language, these lines occur:

"The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company :

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

"For oft, when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

Now, I will give you a specimen of shallow criticism. In a well-known Review for the current quarter there is a review of Wordsworth; and among other passages there is one in which the reviewer, with a flippancy which characterizes the whole of the article, remarks that the passage which has just been read is nothing more than a versified version of a certain entry in Miss Wordsworth's journal. How stands the fact? It is unquestionably true that there was an entry in Miss Wordsworth's journal, written in very strik