Of open projects, and his inward hoard
Of unsunned griefs, too many and too keen,
Was overcome by unexpected sleep,

In one blest moment. Like a shadow thrown
Softly and lightly from a passing cloud
Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay
For noontide solace on the summer grass,
The warm lap of his mother earth."

But we pause; every one who has read these tales must have observed how visible in them is the hand of a master in its slightest touches. Every one too must have sympathized with the kindly tone, the tender spirit, which pervade and animate them, and so honourably distinguish them from the hard, dry, caustic, unsympathizing, parish-beadle sketches of Crabbe, who seems to take a pleasure in uncovering the sores of human nature, not to heal, but to expose them. Well might the Wan

derer characterize these, in the closing lines of the seventh book, as,

"Pathetic records" -"Words of heartfelt truth,

Tending to patience when affliction strikes-
To hope and love; to confident repose

In God, and reverence for the dust of man."

The EIGHTH and NINTH BOOKS, which worthily conclude the poem, would alone be sufficient passports to immortality. They mingle highsouled declamation, philosophical disquisition, vivid pictures of persons and things, and sublime devotion.

What a vivid picture in p. 296 of a Factory at night-work, and in p. 302, of a factory child.

"His raiment whitened o'er with cotton flakes,
Or locks of wool, announces whence he comes.
Creeping his gait, and cowering; his lip pale,
His respiration quick and audible;

And scarcely could you fancy that a gleam'

Could break from out those languid eyes, or a blush
Mantle upon his cheek. Is this the form,

Is that the countenance, and such the port

Of no mean being? One who should be clothed

With dignity befitting his proud hope;
Who, in his very childhood, should appear
Sublime from present purity and joy!
The limbs increase; but this organic frame,
So gladsome in its motions, is become
Dull, to the joy of her own motions dead;
And even the touch, so exquisitely poured
Through the whole body, with a languid will
Performs its functions; rarely competent,

To impress a vivid picture on the mind
Of what there is delightful in the breeze,
The gentle visitations of the sun,

Or lapse of liquid element-by hand,

Or foot or lip, in summer's warmth, perceived.
Can hope look forward to a manhood raised
On such foundations?

How few poets would recognize in a factory child “no mean being!" Then, on the other side of the question, what a vivid picture in p. 305, of an English ploughboy, to embody which in visible form and colour, would have required and tasked the genius of a Wilkie. And how forcibly all these illustrations are made to bear upon the necessity and duty of public education, and of the state's founding all prosperity upon the "moral law."

In the ninth and last book, what a glowing assertion (p. 322) of the universal capacity for all virtues and all enjoyments, commencing

"Alas! what differs more than man from man," &c.

If any readers of this magazine have not read that angelic exhortation to Britain's Imperial Realm,

let us recommend it to their stillest meditation. And now how gladly would we extract, if our space permitted, the fine epitome of the Lake voyage, the glorious sunset, and the sublime prayer which that sunset prompts, and which closes "serious song."-song which "gentle hearts most cherish, and lofty minds approve."

We think a candid, thoughtful, and repeated study and comparison of these two poems will conduct to the conclusion that the "Excursion," contains poetry of higher grade than the "Childe Harold;" of a higher grade of original thought, and of natural and moral feeling. The Childe Harold indeed opens no new veins of thought, and is at best but a forcible reproduction of what is familiar to every educated mind; and in point of natural and moral feeling, whether sublime or tender, it must surely be allowed to be most deficient. Fine passages occur as oases in a desert, or hot-springs in Iceland, very cheering, no doubt, but so far and dreary between! The Childe Harold does not "place its chief interest in universal truth," exhibits no general principles, and recognizes no supreme law of duty-that zone of the Graces, which, whilst it binds, supports and adorns. It is owing to the absence of this recognition of duty, that Byron so seldom, if ever, reaches the moral

sublime, which, in the present world, is the almost exclusive product of the struggle between principle and passion, duty and self-interest, in its many forms. On the other hand, how "Wordsworth's sensibility is controlled without being injured," but rather deepened and enriched "by a constant recognition of the supreme and immutable authority of duty," must have been obvious to the most cursory reader of his works. Whilst the Childe Harold is thus deficient in lofty moral principle, it is equally wanting, with rarest exceptions, in those touches of natural feeling, which "make the whole world kin." Instead of appealing to the universal heart, the poet would fain have us believe that his feelings are peculiar to himself—infinitely deeper than those of all other men, and he is never weary of expressing his contemptuous indifference, or positive dislike, to much that is dear, and justly dear, to his fellow-men. So deficient in natural and moral feeling, he substitutes an unnatural, unreal, baseless passion, which vainly attempts to conceal its shallowness by frothy and turbid agitation. The very man who was calling on all sufferers to merge their private and particular griefs in the contemplation of the ruins of Rome, was at that very moment intent on his guilty pleasures, and hurrying through the inspection of all that Italy presented, of sublime, and beautiful, and touching-to awe the voluptuary, surely, as well as to divert the mourner-to return to one whom he had successfully tempted to break the marriage vow. Need we remind the reader of the ineffable charm, which the "Excursion" derives from the numberless, varied, graceful, tender recognitions of all those natural ties by which men are bound together, and taught to apprehend the relations in which they stand to the universal Parent.

We have now only to observe, that the other conclusion to which we think we shall be conducted, is, that the execution of the Excursion is as much more finished than that of the Childe Harold, as its spirit and tone are loftier.

We have already pointed out the inequalities of Byron in the expression of one and the same conception. How incapable he seems of that unbroken continuity of thought and feeling which so characterize his great rival! How fitful the flashes of his volcanic genius! and how much smoke mingles with the flame! Whilst Wordsworth's diffuses the steady and pure light of the ample moon, that reveals and brightens all objects, without making them glare, then leaving them in double night, Byron, as if conscious of the inadequacy of his feeling to his theme, often attempts to supply the deficiency by a spasmodic, or rather galvanic, energy of language, and exhibits all the contortions of the sibyl, with, alas! but little of her inspiration. Such passages as

the 15th and 19th stanzas of the Third Canto present the melancholy

spectacle of genius in convulsions-writhing in all the agonies of an epileptic fit; whilst Wordsworth, never aiming to describe more than he sees, or to express more than he feels-his verse "with truth corresponds," and "sinks or rises as venerable nature leads." Nothing is more conspicuous than his exquisite choice of ornament, his severe rejection of all common-place ornament, the clearness and keeping of his imagery; whilst his diction is so inimitably appropriate, that "the words seem rather the thoughts themselves made palpable, than symbols of thoughts."

How conspicuous, too, the subdued character of the style—whence its subduing power. "To many," says a Quarterly Reviewer, "his language would be a dead letter, as well as his theme. To such readers, violence is power; abrupt and startling ejaculations, or extravagant figures of speech, constitute the language of passion. Mr. Wordsworth's language addresses itself to other ears-to the ears of those who feel that truthfulness of language gives force, and that habits of just and exact thinking, give truthfulness-to the ears of those who understand the strength which lies in moderation, where thought is to be conveyed; or, where feelings are the subject, the enthusiasm which lies in the language of reserve." The speciality of this praise demonstrates the rareness of the merit which prompted it.

Although in Wordsworth individual words and phrases are generally singularly powerful and suggestive, so much so, that you might often brood over a single epithet for an hour without exhausting its meaning; yet, forcible as each part is in itself, it is in their mutual adaptation, their combination, their united force, their perfect discipline, that their mightiest power resides; and it is this capability of harmonizing parts, of constructing a perfectly symmetrical whole, which distinguishes a first-rate from a second-rate poet-a Wordsworth from a Byron.

One word as to the versification of the Excursion, and we have done. How adapted its sound and movement to its meaning! What a Miltonic variety of pause and cadence! What equable sweetness! What "liquid lapse!" And, where occasion calls, what a full and sweeping current of song! as different from "the regular sing-song of Pope, as the motion of Pegasus from that of a rocking-horse !"*

We cannot conclude, without simply expressing our hope, that Wordsworth will now give, to the wish of thousands, the remainder of the Work of which the Excursion is only a part. Like Milton, he prayed for "fit audience though few;" and, neglected as the Excursion was on its first appearance, the successive editions which have been subsequently called for-the last this present year-prove, that like Milton, he too has "gained more than he asked!"

Hazlitt.

J. B.

ART. V.-HISTORY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES, from the Earliest to the Present Times. By the Rev. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A., Fellow and Tutor (now Master) of Trinity College, Cambridge; Vice-President of the Geological Society of London. three Volumes.- -[London: John W. Parker, West Strand: Cambridge; J. & J. J. Deighton. 1837.]

It is now several years since these volumes issued from the press, but the recent publication of another work (the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences), intimately connected with them, and avowedly written in pursuance of the same design, furnishes us with an opportunity, of which we gladly avail ourselves, to make a few comments on this work, and the subject of which it treats.

It is manifest that a history like the present, professing to trace the progress of science from that remote period, when the first dawn of day broke upon the dark and chaotic wilds of primeval ignorance, down to the present æra, when the most capacious intellect would scarcely suffice to comprehend the intensity of that light, by which philosophers are now enabled to pry into the secrets of nature; and to do this not merely with a view of composing a chronological history of facts, but with a further intention of drawing from them, as a moral, a system of philosophy founded on induction, and doubtless intended to accomplish the object which Bacon has assigned to the History of Philosophy, of “rendering learned men wise in the use and administration of learning;" it is manifest that such a work is one of no ordinary difficulty; and that if it does in any way fulfil this design, it must possess considerable influence on the future welfare and prosperity of science. Lord Bacon, in the admirable passage to which we have just alluded, describes in eloquent terms the utility and design of a History of Philosophy, and discloses the motives of his own exertions for the reformation of science; and, though he probably more immediately contemplated that philosophy which is connected with the practical sciences of morals and politics, yet his observations are applicable with the same, or perhaps even greater force and truth, to such a history as the present, the History of the Inductive Sciences. Previously to the publication of the present volumes, many of the requisitions of Bacon in regard to a just story of learning had been satisfied by the works of Tiedemann, Buhle, Tennemann, and other Continental writers, as well as by the discourses of