orders; he therefore was the cause of no little anxiety to his friends. What was to be his ultimate destination, his prospects were not bright in life at present; the whole of the money which should have been a source of income to his family, was kept by the bad Lord Lonsdale. There appeared even in the event of its being paid to the Executors, as it was ultimately, no probability of monetary independence. What was he to do? His education had been desultory; he had taken we have seen a degree of bachelor of arts, but we have also seen that the week before he took his degree, he spent his time in reading Clarissa Harlowe. Some of his friends. proposed that he should attempt to write on a London Newspaper, and this was determined on. Owing to a most singular and providential circumstance he never attempted that work, for which it is difficult to conceive how he could ever have become fitted; writing to him was so great a toil and physical effort that we have in his life the record of his allowing three months to elapse without taking a pen in his hand; and it is as difficult to conceive how his style of prose, so singularly destitute of ease or humour, or flexibility, could ever have accommodated itself to the pages of a newspaper; life however was beginning to assume to his eyes a very serious, almost a frowning aspect; writing of his brother Christopher, he says, "He is a lad of talents and industrious withal. This same industry is a good old Roman quality, and nothing is to be done without it." His life was quite aimless. The law, and the church he determined against; his friends were displeased and

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disappointed; it is clear that he was looked upon by them with suspicious eyes; he was not likely to turn out well; he had wasted years in continental wanderings and travellings, and the question was constantly recurring to his uncles, who were his guardians,—and now more frequently to him-what is to be done? how are you going through life.? The newspaper idea was determined on, and our juvenile poet wrote to a friend in London expressing his views and feelings; but he wrote from Penrith, where he was engaged in attendance on a sick friend, "My friend," he writes "has every symptom of a confirmed consumption, and I cannot think of leaving him in his present debilitated state." In a short time his friend died, and it was found on opening his will that he had left to the companion of his dying hours and days, the sum of nine hundred pounds.

Thus was the poet saved from much anxiety, and many difficulties, perhaps not too soon; not before he had so clearly realised the difficulty of his way that he was prepared in some measure to sympathise with those who were doomed to suffer without the friendly hand held out to relieve. The friend who thus aided him was Raisley Calvert, son of R. Calvert, Esq., the Steward of the Duke of Norfolk; he was no poet himself, says the nephew of Wordsworth, but he was endowed with that faculty almost as rare as genius-the power to perceive and know genius-to know a man likely to benefit mankind, he determined to do what he could to procure

G

for his friend a competency, in order that he might devote himself to literary leisure.

This is a very interesting period of our author's life -judging from his writings we must say his mind had not entered into light; his faith in politics and in religion was not that high, clear, vigorous exercise that it shortly became. Indeed, our faith in objective things depends much on our subjective faith; clouds without, are ever the reflections of clouds within. The objects of his mind have not as yet taken shape; he has hitherto only spread the canvas, and prepared the colours; he has done but little-attempted but little; we shall find however now, that he begins the life of an artist in earnest; indeed from the death of his friend and the reception of his legacy, it really might seem that heaven had spoken to him, and delegated to him the task of reforming the literature of his age.

We do not profess to present mercly the stream of narrative; we must stop or turn aside to make our commentaries on events as they move. Our author is saved from the dangerous mountain pass of poverty. We have heard something said at this time of an attempt at starting a school; no doubt many a scheme-many a dim iden passed in review through his mind; of course he would have commanded our veneration more, had he been called out into active service to fight the wild temptations of life, and the probability is, we should have had a more rugged and daring poetry-he might have approached somewhat nearer to Milton. As we

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believe that Wordsworth was really a true and brave man, we must regret that the adventitious fortune fell at his feet, because the greatest souls always look so much more noble when making their own fortunes, than when being crowned with the fortunes made for them. The truth is, the necessities of the outer world never sat severely on Wordsworth; he never heard the harsh voice of nature saying to him, "You must work or starve." Poor Coleridge heard that voice. Southey too, perhaps. One cannot but wonder how Wordsworth would have succeeded in a real encounter with the fiercest foes of human life-bodily vigour he had-shrewd sagacity he had-we feel that he must have been successful. He was apparently one of those men born to command evil to retire from them. Looking at his entrance on life-his desultory habits-his unfixed mind-his comparative poverty-all appear the prophecy of some future, like that which the lives of nearly all the Poets record. He escaped by no Providence within him, but by a Providence acting for him. His prudence,—his general economy, lead to the impression that wherever he had been cast,-whatever had been his lot, he would have retained his soul in tranquility, and his life in dignity; but we cannot but think of the hundreds of sons of genius less favored than he: men sublime as teachers-heroic as sufferers, on whom no kindly dispensation smiled;-Otway, Chatterton, Burns. Our more rigid philosophy opposes the thought; and yet for a time it will hold us. Had they only held the same

golden key, committed to their trust, what might they not have done, or been? This is certain, Wordsworth now resigned all thought of a profession; his means were poor indeed still, but he practices the spirit of his celebrated line

"Plain living and high thinking;

And henceforth he yielded himself to the life of the student of Nature, and of Man.