nalist, but he has thought his residence in France of so much importance as to devote a larger space to it in the Portrait and History of the growth of his own mindand therefore it seems natural to pause a short time to review the course of it. It is to be recollected that at this time Wordsworth was a Republican-to whatever extent he changed his views and convictions it is necessary that his biographer should avow this. A youthful poet may be forgiven if he was once enchanted with the too flattering exhibition and enunciation of the Rights of Man. That was the day when the youth and genius of Europe were deluded and deceived; the domestic and foreign Rule of England too was not then so enchanting a picture as to present an antidote to foreign theories. It is only the noble, the beautiful, and the youthful who are fascinated with the inborn and inherent beauty of Republican Dreams, for they read human nature and history in the light of their own spirit. Our poet read in the light of his own spirit and his own experience too. In his Native Vales he had beheld something of the character of a Republic-he says, that through his youth he had beheld no one vested with especial respect on account of wealth, or blood; and when he went to Cambridge he found there too, how all stood upon the same equal footing as scholars and gentlemen; the first enunciation of the doctrines of the Revolution therefore seemed to him nothing out of nature's course. Ultimately the renewal of the voice of the revolutionary storm, and his neighbourhood to it, so that he could hear its utterance clearly and distinctly, saved him

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from the great error into which many of the noblest spirits of the world, and especially of England, had been seduced-the error of supposing that the abstract truth is that most fitted for the guidance of the destinies of the present hour; for as has indeed been remarked, it is with our calculations respecting the course and progress of truths, as it is with the progress of the Cometary and Celestial bodies-those calculations, in order that they may evidence their truth, must take into account the power of the velocity of the body itself, but also, the Resistance offered by the Medium through which it has to pass. When Wordsworth inclined to embrace the doctrines of the Rights of Man, he was simply regarding the Abstract Truth-his residence in France furnished him with illustrations of the Resisting Medium; he saw passions raging in all their most virulent vehemence; he saw prejudices the most blind and bigoted operating around him.

We cannot but feel regret, and more than regret, something of annoyance too when we recollect that one of the chief poets of the world, was in France-was in Paris, during those days of horror-that he mingled with the Actors in that great bloody Tragedy; and that he has left us no notes of his secret thoughts and observations at that time. Could he not have described to us the men; he saw the snaky eye of Robespierre, and heard Danton thunder from the Tribune, and Marat rave on the Carrousel; he beheld the Tumbril rolling

sea of horrors rolled and tossed, and heaved around him, but he has only noted the generalization of the picture; all its details were lost on him, and are lost to us: we cannot but conceive instead, Goethe there, and what an interesting addition should we have had to the Autobiography. The intense feelings of our author interest us too-the horrors robbed him of rest, for he was in Paris but a very short time-less than a month, after the September Massacres-he walked through the streets and heard the hawkers crying the denunciation of Robespierre by Louvet, but individual circumstances of the scene appear to have passed away from him, or to have been absorbed in the features of a more general portrait; so he paced the streets, no doubt visited the stormy assembly-beheld the place where now the King lay a prisoner, and eventually had to tear himself away from the scene of these vehement and contending passions lest he too should be dragged into the whirlpool, for he had formed serious thoughts of entering into the conflict; he had revolved his duty and position much; he had formed an intimacy with one of the noblest of the Girondists, Beaupuis, and often he had meditated how frequently the destiny of Man and of States hung upon single persons-the principal actors around him were young men like himself— the feeling that he was not a Frenchman was met by the recollection that humanity was one, and that in its essential unity it transcends all local divisions and distinctions; he had further meditated that his youth, his

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weakness, his character as an alien, were all balanced by noble aspirations, by hope, by strong conviction, and by the recollection that

"A spirit thoroughly faithful with itself,

Is for Societies unreasoning herd,

A domineering instinct."

It would appear that his feelings and his reasonings at this time lay almost complete around him, inviting him to an effort to turn aside the course of the Revolution by his individual will and power. One paramount mind he argued would have abashed those impious crests, and in despite of the ignorance and corruption of the people, would have cleared a way for just government. He has given the processes and the results of these ideas which obtained so strong a hold over his mind, in the Prelude and the Excursion-for a time they were with him in his loneliness an intoxication, but the time of trial as we have seen, passed, and he returned to England, to brood over the Spectres, the Revolution had raised within him.

We have seen in the pages of one Review* in this country, some sanguine hoverings round that singular and curious possibility, Wordsworth a member of the French Assembly-Wordsworth one of the Girondists. It is very probable to our minds that he really had mingled much with their counsels. The writer we have referred to cherishes fruitful ideas and fancies touching the influence of the mind of Wordsworth on the mind

• British Quarterly.

H

of the Assembly; softening and giving stability and magnanimity to its aims and paths. We can indulge in no such dreams-it is one of those phantasmal pictures which sport before the eye with a sort of licence in fact, but which fact as speedily dispels. He was not a man of action at all-his decisions were not prompt and momentary, kindled by the exigency of the occasion, and taking power from the difficulty of the circumstance and the conflict. He was essentially a Poet -a musing, meditative man, and among the furious devils who were engaged in tearing out each others hearts, he walked like the spirit of another and a better world. He saw, perhaps no eye in France saw so clearly as did his young eye, what was wanted there; but he had not the mailed hand, and the gauntleted will, and the remorseless nature capable of coping in that arena; and beside, Force is the mother of Force; the one can only incarnate the other, forth from that boiling sea of blood, who could be expected successfully to emerge, but the strong and wily young soldier, whose energies were perfectly equal to his will, and whose will was the ready creature of his passions and ambition.

But if the reader will construct a Romance there are the materials ready to his hand-Wordsworth leader of the Girondists-Wordsworth President of the Assembly-Wordsworth First Consul-taming the haughty spirit of the Republic; allaying its feverish thirst for blood; framing for it a Constitution; by the sovereignty of superior genius and goodness, overawing and crush