Coleridge of his own more comprehensive design, and induce him to fulfil it?—There is a sympathy in streams—“ one calleth to another;" and I would gladly believe that " The Brook" will, ere long, murmur in concert with "The Duddon." But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to say, that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter upon such pleasant walks of nature, without receiving and giving inspiration. The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been acknowledged from the earliest ages;-through the "Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius" of Virgil, down to the sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth, by Armstrong, and the simple ejaculation of Burns (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo "Brook"),

"The Muse, nae Poet ever fand her,

Till by himsel he learn'd to wander
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
And no think lang."

This reminds us of the title of one of Shakespeare's plays"Much ado about Nothing." Mr Coleridge is an original Poet; but there is nothing original in the idea of a Rural Poem, to be entitled the Brook ;" and if there were, it would be hard to deter all other Poets from writing about brooks, and, should they do so, to punish them as trespassers "on ground preoccupied" by the Ancient Mariner, "at least as far as intention went, more than twenty years ago." This would be carrying complaisance to Mr Coleridge, and cruelty to the rest of mankind, too far; and would subject us to transportation for our article "Streams." Were this principle of appropriation and exclusion once admitted, why, an indolent or dreaming man of genius might put an end to poetry, by imagining all kinds of subjects, and annually publishing a list which nobody else was to meddle with, on pain of death. Such tyranny far transcends even our ultra-Toryism—and we hereby declare all the rills, rivulets, brooks, streams, and rivers on the globe, free to all the poets and poetasters on its surface or in its bowels.

Neither is there anything at all original-nothing daring -in composing a series of sonnets on the River Duddon. Many a river has been celebrated in song-and there are poems in almost all languages, on particular rivers. The difficulty, indeed, of singing of a stream from source to sea, in one continuous strain, is considerable; and Mr Wordsworth has given it the go-by, in a series of sonnets. This he states -but he puts it on strange grounds. "I have been farther

kept from encroaching on any right Mr C. may still wish to exercise, (poo!) by the restriction which the frame of the Sonnet imposed upon me, narrowing unavoidably the range of thought, and precluding, though not without its advantages, many graces to which a freer movement of verse would naturally have led." Fudge!

But some hundreds of fine sonnets have been distilled from the pen of Mr Wordsworth; and had he written nothing else -an absurd supposition-his fame had been immortal. Some of the most beautiful are to be found in this series-perfect gems.

"I seek the birthplace of a native stream,"

is a simple line in the first sonnet; and these conclude the last

"And may thy Poet, cloud-born stream! be free,
The sweets of earth contentedly resign'd,
And each tumultuous working left behind
At seemly distance, to advance like thee,
Prepared in peace of heart, in calm of mind
And soul, to mingle with eternity!"

What "fancies chaste and noble" imbue with beauty the strains of music that float between those opening and concluding words! The river shows

"The image of a poet's heart,

How calm, how tranquil, how serene!"

But let us have the course of the Duddon given, in the first place, in Green's plain but picturesque prose.

The Duddon is a fine river, and its feeders flow precipitously in their descent to the valley. It rises at the Three County Stones on Wrynose, from which place to its junction with the Irish Sea, it separates the counties of Cumberland and Lancashire. Mosedale, which is in Cumberland, though appearing the highest part of Seathwaite, is, from its head down to Cockly-Beck, a tame unmeaning valley, and would be wholly void of interest, were it not for the grand mountains of Eskdale, which are seen over its northern extremity; but from Cockly-Beck by Black Hall to Goldrill Crag, which is about two miles, the scenery improves at every step; but not the river, which, though occasionally pretty, is, upon the whole, tamely featured and lazy. At Goldrill Crag it brightens into agitation, and, after various changes, becomes at Wallow-barrow Crag one scene of rude commotion, forming in its course a succession, not of high, but finely formed waterfalls. But these furious waters suddenly slumbering, become entranced, displaying little

signs of life along the pleasant plains of Donnerdale. At Ulpha Bridge suspended animation is again succeeded by the clamorous war of stones and waters, which assail the ear of the traveller all the way to Duddon Bridge. From that place to the sea it passes on in an uninterrupted and harmonious calmness.

Nothing can be better than that-except, perhaps, some of Green's etchings, which you may purchase almost paper-cheap from his excellent widow or daughter at the Exhibition either at Ambleside or Keswick. We remember an exquisite one up the river with Wallow-barrow Crag-and another, not less so, down the river with Goldrill Crag. Here they are in words :

The river at Wallow-barrow is opposed to many rude impediments, which are exhibited in an elegant diversity of rocks and stones, some of them of considerable magnitude, and all peculiarly and happily adapted as accompaniments to the many-shaped waterfalls, displayed in the short space of little more than half a mile. From this desirable bottom, the rocks on both sides ascend in individual wildness, and a beautifully undulating assemblage, to a good height; wood is not here in profusion, but it occasionally appears in picturesque association with the rocks and waters. A well-formed mountain terminates this craggy vista, by which the whole is rendered additionally interesting.

Of the view down the river, again, with Goldrill Crag, Green says:

It is a beautiful scene, and different in its character to any other about the Lakes; the rocks are elegant, and the trees spring from their fissures in picturesque variety. The second distance is composed of rocks, with soft turf and trees delightfully scattered over its surface; these rocks have the appearance of rising ground considerably lower than the level of the waters in sight, which is proved by the noise produced after leaving their peaceful solitudes above.

Green goes on describing away, with pen as with pencil, the vale which was the darling of his honest heart. He tells us truly, that perhaps the finest part of this vale is between Seathwaite Chapel and Goldrill Crag-about two miles; that from Goldrill Crag to Cockly-Beck-about two miles-the beauties diminish every step you take northward; and that from Cockly-Beck to the County-stones all is insipid. How fondly he speaks of the cottages! especially of Throng, the hereditary property of the Dawsons, where never stranger found a scanty board. How affectionately of the trees! Almost every sort of tree, says he, is fine when aged, even the

larch, and all the species of the fir. In Seathwaite, he adds, untutored nature seems to have held her dominion with a sway more absolute than in any other dale in the country; exotics have been sparingly introduced; and though there is rather a want than a redundancy of wood, the valley is better without them. From almost every point of this secluded bottom (he is speaking of Throng, under the shadow of its wood-covered hill), rocky knolls of various elevation, graced with the native beauties of the country, oak, ash, and birch, rise sweetly from the lower grounds; and over them, in many waving windings, the craggy mountains swell upon the eye in grand sublimity. The passionate painter is even yet loth to leave the visionand concludes expressively saying with fine feeling, that in every engulfed valley in this country, there is, to his mind, somewhat of a melancholy solemnity; and that, unless it be in Ennerdale-Dale, in none more than in Seathwaite. Though the Vales of Langdale are narrow, yet they possess an air of cheerfulness, probably as being bounded less stupendously than Seathwaite. In diversified beauty they rival all others, even Borrowdale. Yet Borrowdale to its beauty adds an invariable grandeur, not so uniformly seen in Langdale. Seathwaite occasionally exhibits a vastness of desolation, exceeded only in Ennerdale-Dale; but in magnificence of mountain-precipice, Ennerdale-Dale, Wastdale, and Eskdale, excel all others in the country. So far Green—and kind, courteous, ingenious, and enthusiastic spirit, farewell!

Let us turn now, after no undelightful delay, to Wordsworth. In the second sonnet, he says of the Infant Duddon,

"Child of the clouds! remote from every taint

Of sordid industry thy lot is cast;

Thine are the honours of the lofty waste;"

and in the fourth, he speaks, we may say, of the Boy Duddon, playfully appearing like

"a glistering snake,

Silent, and to the gazer's eye untrue,

Thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, through
Dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake.”

But how beautiful is the lad Duddon now—a stripling on the verge of virility-making almost a prime murmur, ere long from his manly bosom to emit a full-grown roar !

"Sole listener, Duddon ! to the breeze that played
With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound
Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound,
Unfruitful solitudes, that seemed to upbraid
The sun in heaven!-but now to form a shade
For Thee, green alders have together wound
Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around;
And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade.
And thou hast also tempted here to rise,

'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey;
Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes
Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day,
Thy pleased associates:-light as endless May
On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies."

Then sings the Bard of old remains of hawthorn bowers, and all the varied sweets of the Pastoral Flora. Not like a mere botanist, the assassin of the Hortus Siccus-but like philosophical and religious Bard as he is, with whom Poetry is Piety-and the inspiration breathed from things of earth connects them all with heaven.

"There bloom'd the strawberry of the wilderness;

The trembling eye-bright show'd her sapphire blue,
The thyme her purple, like the blush of even;
And, if the breath of some to no caress

Invited, forth they peep'd so fair to view,

All kinds alike seem'd favourites of heaven!"

You have seen, we dare say, Stepping-stones across a stream, and have stepped from one to the other lightly or clumsily, as it may have happened, without any other thought than that they were useful, and saved you from the necessity of being wet-shod. We have heard more blockheads than one ask the meaning of those often quoted lines in Peter Bell—

"A primrose by the river's brim,

A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

Such sumphs cannot conceive how it should be anything more to anybody; nor of Stepping-stones can they form any other opinion as to the excellence, than whether they are sufficiently close, and not shoggly. But thou! slim-ankled maiden, with pensive face wilt peruse the first, and with sparkling eyes the second of these sonnets, entitled "STEPPING-STONES."