Memoirs of the poet. This is the more unpardonable, inasmuch as De Quincy is a man of the highest intellect and scholarship, possessing the widest acquaintance with general literature of any man who has lived in this generaration. Unpardonable, likewise, because De Quincy was a devout lover and a chivalrous defender of Wordsworth, when it was not fashionable to speak well of him. Neither can I ever forgive the poet himself, for his cold neglect of the great Opium-Eater. Professor Wilson shares the same fate as De Quincy in the Memoirs, and is not once alluded to, although both these men were on the most intimate terms with Wordsworth for a long period. De Quincy has written a graphic account of his first visit to the poet, in company with Mrs. Coleridge, Hartley being then nine years old, in Tait's Magazine, entitled "Lake Reminiscences." And to this account the reader is now referred, as it is too long to quote here.

Southey was then living at Greta Hall, and Mrs. Coleridge was on her way there, when the above-named visit took place. It had been previously arranged that Coleridge and his family should reside with Southey, and during the week that De Quincy spent in the neighbourhood at this time, he went to see the household at Greta, and has given a beautiful picture of Southey, and his habits. De Quincy returned to Grasmere in 1808, and found that Wordsworth had removed to Allan Bank. He immediately hired, therefore, and took possession of the late cottage of the poet. The reason for Wordsworth's removal was the increasing number of his family. Here is a list of his children :

John, born 18th June, 1803.
Dorothy, called and generally known

as Dora, born 16th August, 1804. Thomas, born 16th June, 1806. Catharine, born 6th September, 1808. William, born 12th May, 1810. Thomas and Catharine died in childhood; John and William are still living; and Dora, "My own Dora," as the poet loved to call her, after a wedded life, more or less happy (she married Edward Quillinan, Esq.) died in 1847, just three years before her venerable father.

Wordsworth was singularly fortunate in his family. There were no

jars nor discords in the sacred temple of his home; but beauty, love, and all the virtues and the graces dwelt with him, and ministered to his happiness and repose. He loved his children with an intense affection, and sweet Dora, his best beloved, exercised an influence over him, more beautiful and harmonising, perhaps, even than that which his sister exercised in his early life, and still continued to exercise, because it was deeper, and struck deeper into the very being of the poet. This child threw a sacred halo round his soul, and inspired one of the sweetest of his lyrics. He addresses her only a month after her birth; and in the autumn of the same year we find him writing the lines, "The Kitten and the Falling Leaves," suggested by her delight at the pretty frolics of a kitten on the wall playing with the leaves of autumn. "The Longest Day," is addressed to her; and later on, when the possibility of blindness came like a gloomy shaddow to darken his more thoughtful moments, he anticipates the time when his own Dora shall guide his lonely steps. But in all the poems in which she is alluded to, that called "The Triad" is the best. There is a surfeit of sweet painting in this poem which is true to the spirit of the beautiful girl; the spirit which stirs her thoughts, and makes all her movements an impulsive comminglement of music and poetry. A more airy, celestial form could not be imagined than hers. seems to float in the atmosphere.

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When Wordsworth was living at Allan Bank, and during the time that Coleridge sojourned with him, two prose works appeared by these two poets, which are memorable to all scholars. The former wrote his famous

Essay on the Convention of Cintra,' and the latter dictated (for he did not write it) his still more famous work entitled, "The Friend." Wordsworth and Professor Wilson contributed several papers to this serial. In 1810, Wordsworth wrote an introduction to, and edited the text of a folio volume entitled, "Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire," by the Rev. Jos. Wilkinson, which was afterwards printed in his volume of "Sonnets on the River Duddon," and still later as a separate publication.

In 1811, the poet left Allan Bank, and took up his temporary residence

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at the parsonage, Grasmere; but his children, Catharine and Thomas, dying in 1812, threw such a gloom over the neighbourhood, that he resolved to quit it altogether. Accordingly, he removed to Rydal Mount in 1813, where he resided until his death, in 1850. It was in 1814 that the great poem was published, upon which Wordsworth's fame is built, viz., "The Excursion." We have no room here to give any analysis of this poem, and must be content therefore with the simple announcement of its publication. "The White Doe of Rylestone," written under the lee of a row of corn-stacks in a field near Stocton-on-Tees, in 1807, was published in 1815. The next group of poems, and two of them certainly amongst the grandest triumphs of poetic art, were composed respectively as follows: "Laodamia, in 1814; "Dion," in 1816; and the “Ode to Lycoris," in 1817. "Peter Bell" ap-| peared in 1819, although composed, as we have already said, twenty years before. Five hundred copies were exhausted in one month. "The Waggoner," and "Sonnets on the River Duddon," appeared during the same year. In 1822, Wordsworth published a volume of sonnets and other poems, entitled, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent." In 1828, accompanied by his daughter Dora, he mode an excursion to see Coleridge, through Belgium and up the Rhine. It was at this time that the "Incident at Bruges" was written. In 1829, the poet made a tour in Ireland with J. Marshall, Esq., M.P., of Leeds. It supplied him, however, with very few materials for poetry, although the lines in the poem on the

Power of Sound," one of the finest poems which Wordsworth has written, commencing

"Thou, too, be heard, lone Eagle !" were suggested near the "Giants' Causeway," where he saw a pair of eagles wheel over his head, and then dart off, as "if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun." It was about this time also that the sweet poem, entitled "The Triad," was written, in which the daughters of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge are bound together in the most musical and flowing forms, as the three graces. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss Southey; the wild, bird-like nature of Dora; the mystic, spiritual, meditative

beauty of Miss Coleridge;-here was material enough for the highest art— and something finer than the most vivid sculpture was the result, as the poem proves. A great number of minor poems succeeded the "Triad," down to the year 1831, when the poet wrote his "Elegaic Musings," on the death of Sir George Beaumont, who died February 7th, 1827. In the same year were composed "The Armenian Lady," "The Egyptian Maid," and the "Russian Fugitive"-poems in which all the beauties of language are pressed, along with the simplicity which marks the old English ballads.

In 1835 Wordsworth published his "Yarrow re-visited, and other Poems;" and in 1842 appeared his "Poems, chiefly of early and late years." In 1839 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, which was conferred on him in the Sheldonian Theatre, amidst shouts of rejoicing such as had never before been heard in the city, except upon the occasion of an unexpected visit of the Duke of Wellington. In 1838 Wordsworth prepared a new edition of his poems, to be published by Moxon, and continued to live at Rydal in his quiet and musical manner, writing poems, taking rambles, and conducting his correspondence until 1843, when he was appointed Poet Laureate of England, Southey having died on the 21st of March of that year, and the appointment having been offered to Wordsworth on the 31st of the same month.

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From the time of Wordsworth's appointment as Laureate which it ought to be said he at first refused, and only accepted with the understanding that it should be an honorary office-he wrote very little poetry. His work indeed, was done; his mission complished; and his old days were spent in rambling over the hills, and in the quiet enjoyment of his family, friends, fame, and fortune. Honours of a high order were subsequently heaped upon him. He was put into nomination for the office of Lord Rector of the University of Oxford, and gained a majority of twenty one votes, in opposition to the premier, Lord John Russell. He lost the election however, through the single vote of the subrector (according to the forms of that election) voting for his superior.

Wordsworth's younger son William

was married 20th January, 1847, and sweet Dora died on the 9th of July, 1847, and was buried in Grasmere church-yard. Wordsworth was now in his 80th year, and the death of this dear child was his death-blow; for, three years afterwards, he was called away. This happened on the 23rd of April, 1850, on the birth-day and death-day of Shakspeare! He was buried on the 27th, in Grasmere church-yard.

Such was the life and death of Wordsworth; a poet of the highest order of mind and genius, whose writings form a new era in literature. Surely he lived a beautiful and poetic life, and was, on the whole, such a man as we shall not for long years see again. His works are his best eulogium-save his life.

JACQUARD.

MARIE JOSEPH JACQUARD was born at Lyons, on the 7th of July, 1752. His father was a journeyman weaver of figured goods, and his mother was a reader of designs in the same manufactory. The duties of a reader of designs consist in directing another operative what threads to put in motion to produce the proper pattern. Biographers further inform us that the grandfather of Jacquard, on his father's side, was an agricultural labourer. He saw, with deep regret, that his son abandoned the plough for the loom, and predicted to him that poverty would be the result a just chastisement, he observed, for those ungrateful children who refuse the sweat of their brow to their mother earth, in return for that bread which she produces for their support. But, allured by the bait of higher wages than those of which he was in the receipt from a neighbouring farmer, the father of Jacquard resisted all persuasion and determined to take his seat at the loom. At this period the silk manufacture of Lyons was rapidly growing in importance, and, like a vampire, sucking the generous blood of the rural populations. The number of hands engaged in agricultural pursuits on the fertile banks of the Rhone sensibly diminished, and the old vine-dressers, of whom these hills were the wealth and the pride, bemoaned to see the most hardy of their children drop off one by one to squat

down on the stool of the draw-boy, and after a few years to die of consumption. Those who did not die, after some years of toil perhaps succeeded in becoming the owners of a loom; but even then the most ordinary lot of such was to see the fruits of their humble savings dwindle away in their enterprize, and after again becoming journeymen weavers, to die in an hospital. When Joseph Jacquard was born, his father was at the height of his fortunes in his career as a workman. He had just established himself on his own account, and the priest who baptized the infant, at the same time blessed the loom, according to the custom of those days. We know not whence Joseph Jacquard was not destined from his infancy to follow the calling of his father. Perhaps the latter had a quicker foresight than others of the probable decrease of his little fortune, and therefore wished to bring up his son to some occupation in which there was less risk and competition; or, it may have been, on the contrary, that entertaining the hope of future prosperity, he had more ambitious views, and meant to educate the child for a sphere superior to that in which he himself had lived contentedly. Whatever the cause may have been, little Joseph Jacquard was sent to school to learn to read, at an age when other children in the same condition of life were entering, at the expense of their health, on the painful apprenticeship of the loom.

At that period, schoolmasters knew and taught but one thing-reading. Joseph Jacquard, in a very short time knew everything that his old teacher could impart to him. It was then that his father, seeing him so learned, decided on giving him the choice of a business. The boy, on being consulted, chose that of a bookbinder. In the house in which his master resided, lived an old clerk, who, after working the whole day at his ledger, came sometimes in the evening, out of pure friendship, to make up the accounts of the bookbinder. He it was who gave the youthful apprentice the first insight into the rudiments of mathematics. Joseph Jacquard was then between twelve and thirteen years, when his turn for mechanics revealed itself by a host of ingenious inventions which perfectly astounded the old

clerk. One evening, when Jacquard had finished his lesson, and whilst chatting with the old man, he had completed a coach made of cards, his teacher thought he would examine the young fellow with a view of sounding him, and endeavouring to discover the bent of his real genius.

"Joseph," said he, "do you not think that some other business would suit you better than that of a bookseller?" "I believe you," answered Joseph, with the air of one who longed for something.

"Well, now, what would you like to be, if you had your choice?"

Joseph scratched his head a little while, and concluded by answering that he did not know.

"It is time you should, though, my boy," rejoined the old man; "apprenticeships are long in every business, and your father is not rich."

"There is the misfortune," replied the boy; "if my father were rich I could have all sorts of tools, anvils, a forge, and workmen, and by dint of hammering and forming the iron, I surely should invent something at last that no one else has thought of. But I have no tools!"

"What! have you already had the idea of inventing something?" asked the old clerk.

"Indeed have I," replied Jacquard. "Why, the other day, on going to the cutler, over the way, I saw, in the course of an hour, the blade of a knife pass through three hands; one workman sharpened the edges, another polished the blade, and a third bored the handle. Then I thought of a machine which should accomplish all that in five minutes. There, now, if I had my choice, I would be a cutler."

The night was far advanced when the father of Jacquard, beginning to feel uneasy at the prolonged absence of his son, knocked at the door of the old bookbinder to inquire after him. He found the boy busy explaining his machine to his instructor, who was listening to him, gaping with admiration. On seeing the father enter, the old clerk put his forefinger on his lips in token of silence, and with the other hand pointed to Joseph, who continued his demonstration, without perceiving that the door had been opened, or that his father stood behind him ready severely to reprehend him. His father,

however, very soon participated in the amazement of the old bookkeeper; and when Joseph had finished speaking, he listened still, enchanted at a facility of speech, the like of which he had never heard in so young a boy. The old man had not much difficulty in convincing the father that young Jacquard's fortune would be made on the day he could carry out his invention. Accordingly, the next day Jacquard was apprenticed to a cutler; but this cutler was a rough, uneducated fellow, without an idea beyond the beaten track of his business, and who laughed both at the invention and the inventor. Jacquard, soon wearied of the railleries of which he was the butt, obtained his father's consent to be placed with a type founder. Here he soon gave proofs of his inventive genius, and would probably have devoted all his faculties to the improvement of this branch of industry, had not the death of his parents caused them to take a new direction. After having been entirely ruined, his father had succeeded in establishing himself anew, and left his son and heir, together with a small sum, the fruits of his savings, two looms, completely fitted up. Joseph Jacquard deemed it a point of honour to follow up the business of his father; and, quite proud to find himself, at only nineteen years of age, at the head of a small workshop, he took it into his head to make his fortune at one stroke-by improving his looms. He had not as yet then conceived those vast modifications and improvements which have resulted in that admirable machine now applied to every description of weaving; all his ambition was limited to render more easy the play of the treadles, by means of which the shuttle-thrower moves the warp-yarns and determines their position. Unfortunately, just as he was about to put the finishing stroke to his work, his finances failed him. Jacquard was the most improvident of men, a failing common to minds absorbed in one great object. He never dreamt, before commencing his work, of calculating how long his father's savings would be likely to last; and when he found his resources exhausted, he believed seriously that he had been robbed. He complained to everybody upon the subject; and in order to convince him that he had not been the victim of dis