Here taste, again, would prove a dangerous guide,
And raise a prejudice on error's side.
-Behold the slow procession move along!
The Pontiff's blessing on the prostrate throng;
The solemn service, and the anthem loud,
The altar's radiance on the kneeling crowd.~
Or seek, at summons of the convent bell,
Deep, sacred shades, where fair recluses dwell;
See the long train of white-rob'd sisters come,
Appearing now-now lost amid the gloom,
Chaunting shrill vespers in the twilight dim,
-The plaintive music of the virgin's hymn.
Then would not taste and fancy join the cry,
Against the rude, barbarian heresy,
That sought those sacred walls to overthrow,
And rend the veil from that seducing show?
And yet, according to our present light.
That barb'rous, tasteless heretic-was right.' pp. 20—21. The party-man, the ecclesiastical dogmatist, and the true sectarian, are portrayed with unsparing freedom. We were, for our own part, particularly well satisfied to have the bad spirit which often brings disgrace on a good cause, exposed in the instance of the party Dissenter, and to meet with the remark, that
while Nathaniels stand on either side
The boundary lines that differing sects divide,
Unchristian tempers every form may take
And truth itself be loved for party's sake!
'Experience is the title of the second Essay. It is not perhaps desirable that the anticipations of youth should be lowered down to the melancholy colouring of such a retrospect; but indeed there is no danger of our being led to expect too little from the world. We never recollect, however, to have had the utter insufficiency of earthly pleasures and possessions, brought home to the feelings with so affecting an emphasis, as in this simple, unexaggerated tale of the heart. It is not by the 'complaint' of disappointed ambition, by weeping monodies, or by philosophic declamations on the nothingness of grandeur, that the mind can be made to renounce its own peculiar projects of happiness. Those writers who throw all the blame of our disappointment on the objects of life, only betray their ignorance of the true seat of unhappiness; while those who represent life as altogether gloomy, shew that they have ill performed its duties, and that they have not appreciated in the spirit of gratitude, these common mercies' which fall to the lot of all. The view of life which is given in this Essay, will appear gloomy
to those only who have never known what is to be awakened out of the day-dreams of romance to the encountering of
from whom grief has never extorted conviction, or whom the pressure of present evil has never forced to exert the energies of prayer. The picturesque of fancy, and the real of truth, are admirably contrasted in the following lines.
'A tatter'd cottage, to the view of taste,
In beauty glows, at needful distance plac'd:
Its broken panes, its richly ruin'd thatch,
Its gable grac'd with many a mossy patch,
The sunset lighting up its varied dyes,
Form quite a picture to poetic eyes;
And yield delight that modern brick and board,
Square, sound, and well arrang'd would not afford.
But cross the mead to take a nearer ken,—
Where all the magic of the vision then?
The picturesque is vanish'd, and the eye
Averted, turns from loathsome poverty;
And while it lingers, e'en the sun's pure ray
Seems almost sullied by its transient stay.
The broken walls with slight repairs emboss'd,
Are but cold comforts in a winter's frost:
No smiling, peaceful peasant, half refin'd,
There tunes his reed on rustic seat reclin'd;
But there, the bending form and haggard face,
Worn with the lines that vice and misery trace.
Thus fades the charm by vernal hope supplied
To every object it has never tried.' pp. 43, 44.
The tenor of this Essay is adapted, not to encourage any feelings bordering upon disgust with the world, but rather to shew the unreasonableness of our expectations. This is instanced in the romantic estimates of early friendship; and we could not perhaps select a passage more strikingly displaying the refined correctness of sentiment and the experimental wisdom, which characterize these moral dissertations.
Blind to ourselves,-to others not less blind,
We slowly learn to understand mankind.
Sanguine and ardent, indisposed to hold
The cautious maxims that our fathers told,
We place new objects in the fairest light,
And offer gen'rous friendship at first sight.
Expect, (though not the first rate mental pow'rs)
A mind, at least, in unison with ours;
Free from those meaner faults, that most conspire
To damp our love, if not put out its fire.
Cold o'er the heart the slight expression steals,
That first some trait of character reveals;
Some fault, perhaps, less prominent alone,
But causing painful friction with our own.
Long is the harsh, reluctant thought supprest,
We drive the cold suspicion from our breast;
But when confirm'd, our gen'rous love condemn,
Turn off disgusted with the world and them,
Resolve no more at Friendship's fane to serve,
And call her names she does not quite deserve.
But this is rash-Experience would confess
That friendship's very frailties chill us less
(Sincere and well-intentioned all the while)
Than the world's complaisant and polish'd smile.
With other chattels, nameless in my verse,
Friends must be held for better and for worse;'
And that alone true friendship we should call,
Which undertakes to love us faults and all;
And she who guides this humble line could prove,
There is, there is, such candid gen'rous love,
And from the life, her faithful hand could paint
Glowing exceptions to her own complaint.' pp. 46, 47.
We shall make room for one more extract from this Essay: Every real sufferer must feel how just is the following representation.
When hope her seat to memory has resign'd,
And our chief solace is to look behind,
Then shall we learn, perhaps too late, to know
That sin weighs heavier on the mind than woe.
Grief, genuine grief, that comes at God's command,
In which our own misconduct has no hand,
Though, for the present, not a joyous thing,
Yet, when it passes over, leaves no sting.
The pains we fear'd, the ills we dreaded most,
Departed-seem a weak and harmless host;
We suffer'd, wept, but now can smile serene,
And wonder that our anguish was so keen:
Or if some blow that struck the tend'rest part,
Has left its deep impression and its smart;
Still years allay it, and at length diffuse
A pleasing sadness that we would not lose.
But when by conscience, memory's eye is cast,
Pain'd and reluctant, on the guilty past,
And sees life's path bestrew'd on every side
With sins and follies thick and multiplied,-
Follies for which our shame arrives too late,
Sins that Heav'n only can obliterate,
And what slight efforts had restrain'd their pow'r,
How bitter the remembrance to this hour! pp. 54, 55.
The tale which closes this Essay, will disappoint readers who are interested only by incident. It portrays a person of an or
dinary character under ordinary circumstances ;-a sort of subject on which Wordsworth is fond of expending all the force of his genius, but which he could not have ventured to treat with more perfect simplicity, nor have rendered more affecting, without the slightest aid from poetical embellishment. We do not suspect our Author of having the design to support any metaphysical theory on points of taste: but it is singular, how carefully she avoids the decorative phraseology and all the artifices of poetry, as though a Doric severity of style was alone befitting the subject. If this be the mere undesigned result of native taste, it evinces a passion for simplicity and a delicacy of tact, not very common in young poets; and we may be assured that some ambitious effort to be fine, some occasional glitter of expression, would let out the secret, were this simplicity of style accidental, or connected with poverty of imagination.
Egotism' is in a different strain, and perhaps not equal to the preceding Essay as a whole. We do not think the illustrations are uniformly the most forcible or appropriate that could be selected. There is however much smartness and inoffensive humour in the descriptions; and we have now and then an exquisite couplet, as for instance,
"Woe to themselves, and woe to small and great
When two good egotists are tête à tête !'
The concluding part reminded us continually of Cowper. 'Poetry and Reality' is written with more sustained vigour than any Essay in the volume: the satire is very keen without being broad, and the moral is excellent. It is this, that
'A poet's soul may miss the road to Heaven!'
The contemplative devotion of the mere man of taste, the
religion of philosophic sentiment, is exquisitely ridiculed.
O, he approves the Bible, thinks it true;
(No matter if he ever read it through)
Admits the evidence that some reject,
For the Messiah professes great respect,
And owns the sacred poets often climb
Up to the standard of the true sublime.
Is this then all? is this the utmost reach,
Of what man learns when God descends to teach?
And is this all-and were such wonders wrought,
And tongues, and signs, and miracles, for nought?
If this be all, his reason's utmost scope,
Where rests his faith, his practice, and his hope?' p. 81.
His heathen altar is inscrib'd, at best,
To" God unknown," unhonour'd, unaddress'd;
His Heav'n, the same Elysian fields as theirs,
-Much such a world as this, without its cares;
Where souls of friends and lovers, two and two,
Walk up and down, with nothing else to do.
He, in that path the ancient sceptic trod,
"Knows not the Scripture nor the pow'r of God;"
Nor loves nor looks to Zion's heavenly gate,
Where many mansions for believers wait;
Where ransom'd sinners round their Saviour meet,
And cast their crowns rejoicing at His feet;
And where, whate'er pursuits their pow'rs employ,
His presence makes the fulness of their joy.
-This is the bliss to which the saint aspires,
This is that," better country" he desires;
And ah! while scoffers laugh, and sceptics doubt,
The poor way-faring man shall find it out.' pp. 83-4.
Our Author has not spared to lash sectarian prejudice. Our church-going friends must not therefore be angry at her exposing, in turn, the delusions of the enthusiast in reference to all that is captivating to the senses in the pomp of ecclesiastical architecture, and the scenic decorations of Christian temples. They must recollect that Popery is,' according to an Episcopalian author, the religion of cathedrals.'
The village church, in rev'rend trees array'd,
His fav'rite haunt-he loves that holy shade;
And there he muses many an eve away,
Though not with others, on the Sabbath day.
Nor cares he how they spend the sacred hour,
But-how much ivy grows upon the tow'r.
Yes, the deluded poet can believe
The soothing influence of a summer's eve,-
That sacred spot-the train of pensive thought,
By osier'd grave and sculptur'd marble brought,
The twilight gloom, the stillness of the hour,
Poetic musings on a church-yard flower,
The moonshine, solitude, and all the rest,
Will raise devotion's flame within his breast;
And while susceptive of the magic spell,
Of sacred music and the Sabbath bell.
And each emotion nature's form inspires,
He fancies this is all that God requires.
Indeed, the Gospel would have been his scoff,
If man's devices had not set it off;
For that which turns poor non-conformists sick,
Touches poetic feeling to the quick.
-The gothic edifice, the vaulted dome,
The toys bequeath'd us by our cousin Rome,-
The pompous festival, the splendid rite,
The mellow window's soft and soothing light,
The painted altar, and the white-rob'd priest,
(Those gilded keep sakes from the dying beast)
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