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ERRATA.

For Pelagian, read Pelasgian, page 36, last line.

For Jo, read Io, page 36.

For haggy, read shaggy, page 120.

For Temple, read Tempe, page 214, third line from foot.

For observative, read observation, page 225, last line but one.

CHAPTER I.

THE GATEWAY OF LIFE.

I can say but little about him, and insufficient at best. A man who could
be resolved into words must be an every day man. The star heaven no
star map paints, altho' painting may represent a landscape. This beloved
spirit resembled the swans which in the harsh season of the year keep
the waters open by their motion. Born as it were with a love potion of
fervid passion for Nature, like a Brahmin, with the lofty Spinozism of
the heart, he cherished and held fast to his heart, every animalculæ, and
every blossom.
He and Goethe are our restorers of singing Greece,
whose Philomel tongue not all the powers of foregone centuries had been
able to loose. He was a Fort overgrown with flowers. A Northern Oak
whose branches were sensitive plants.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.-ON HERDER.
Vorschule der Esthetik.

A LIFE which has been of sufficient importance to be the subject of a Biography, is so from its having embodied to the world some principle-some central action or truth. There will ever be felt an interest-an intuitional curiosity to know the inner world of an eminent and celebrated man, and to compare it with his outer life. What were his habits and his inner resources? On what did he build his character? How far was he consistent

B

in his private and social relations with his words as Author and Teacher? To what extent was he a mere Artist, to what extent was he a Man? These are the questions, and these have to students of human character absorbing interest.

The character of William Wordsworth is curiously interesting to us, for he illustrates a most remarkable place in the literary history of our country. He stands as the central light of a new school of Poetry. It was for some time the fashion to class Him with Coleridge and Southey, and two or three others, beneath the general denomination of the Lake School; in fact nothing could be more false in classification. Southey was fond of recounting the story of human interest. He wanted the lofty imagination, and the deep intuition to make the Epic Poet, but his tastes lay entirely with that school. Coleridge was, indeed, the Poet of Metaphysical Analysis and colour, of all men most liberated from the actual world in the flights of his fancy, and yet preserving the balance of his wings steadily aloft, through fields of azure and gold, reflecting themselves on his pages. Neither of these although possessed

of a very clear personal identity among Poets, can be regarded as the centre of a school, certainly not as having in their Poet character greatly influenced their age. But Wordsworth stands as a Poet at the centre and head of a new Order and Æra. He not only created a new school, but he greatly influenced all other schools. There is not one of all the young Poets-the men who are now read-who has not derived from him

WHAT IS ÆSTHETIC BIOGRAPHY.

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light and strength. He is as lonely in his place of power as either Milton or Shakspere, and he has exercised and will exercise a more perennial influence than any writer since those illustrious masters. The reason of this we shall analyse presently; meantime this is the foundation of his great claim on our homage-this constitutes our interest in him, that He is the greatest Subjective Poet of our language. It is also true that more than is perceptible either in Shakspere or Milton, his poems constitute his life; this may be regarded as either praise or blame; it seems as if he lived only to record in verse his own experiences, emotions, and volitions; and hence equally with the poets to whom reference has been made it may be said he does not need a biographer; then let us hope that we may not be wasting the reader's time while we attempt to make him the expositor of his own verse and philosophy.

By Esthetic Biography is simply intended a Life in its Ideal Attitudes. A life sketched from the Artist's point of vision, in which the faces, and dates, and events, shall be subsidiary to their effect on the study and habits of thought of the subject of his life. Thus there is no interference at all with the affectionate and voluminous life of Dr. Wordsworth, the poet's nephew. The aim throughout of the present author is, simply interfusion, and as he has said before, exposition; partially to bring the life and the poem into their mutual aspect, and contemplate them from one point of vision, and so shew how the life, and habits, and friendships, of the poet acted on his works; and again, by doing this to

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