A vision, and adored the thing he saw.

Arabian fiction never filled the world

With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring:
Life turned the meanest of her implements

Before his eyes, to price above all gold:

The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;

Her chamber window did surpass in glory

The portals of the dawn; all paradise

Could, by the simple opening of a door,

Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks,

Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank
Surcharged within him,- overblest to move
Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world

To its dull round of ordinary cares;

A man too happy for mortality!'

On the whole, a plain, sincere, manly, wise, and happy man, calm, contemplative, and self-supported, to whom existence was moral and divine; quite inexplicable, indeed, by English mud and English utilities!

Influence.-On the poetry of his age, beneficial and extensive. He supplied an inexhaustible fund of antagonism to the philosophy which wraps the soul in a sensual fleece,' and gave the final quietus to the theory of mere taste and imitation, opposing to romantic themes and inflated diction, sense, nature and simplicity. More than any other, perhaps, did he contribute to spiritualize modern imaginative literature. He enlisted intellects in favor of an expansive and kindly philanthropy, brightened daily life with images of beauty and grace, gave us nobler loves and nobler cares.

Too little sensuous to be, as yet, widely popular; but that popularity will extend in proportion as the general mind ascends to his mount of vision. As long as perfection is the pole-star of humanity, admiring reverence will be paid

TO THE MEMORY OF

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

A TRUE PHILOSOPHER AND POET,

WHO BY A SPECIAL GIFT AND CALLING OF ALMIGHTY GOD,
WHETHER HE DISCOURSED ON MAN OR Nature,

FAILED NOT TO LIFT UP THE HEART TO HOLY THINGS,
TIRED NOT OF MAINTAINING THE CAUSE OF THE POOR AND SIMPLE,
AND SO, IN PERILOUS TIMES, WAS RAISED UP TO BE

A CHIEF MINISTER, NOT ONLY OF NOBLEST POESY,
BUT OF HIGH AND SACRED TRUTH."1

'Inscription on the mural monument in Grasmere Church.

BYRON.

Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair.-Macaulay.

Biography.-Born in London, in 1788; son of a brutal roisterer, who ill-treated his wife, squandered her property, then deserted her; his mother a lioness,' so passionate that in moments of fury she would rend in pieces her dresses and bonnets, call him a lame brat,' throw the fire-shovel at his head, then caress him, weep over him. Both were alternate storm and calm. Once they quarrelled so terribly, that each went privately to the apothecary's to see whether the other had been to purchase poison. Another time, they snatched from his hand a knife with which, in one of his silent rages, he was in the act of cutting his throat. To school at five, and at eight, like Dante, a lover:

'My passion had its usual effects upon me. I could not sleep - I could not eat-I could not rest; and although I had reason to know that she loved me, it was the texture of my life to think of the time which must elapse before we could meet again, being usually about twelve hours of separation. But I was a fool then, and am not much wiser now.'

At twelve he fell in love with his cousin, who died a year or two afterwards, 'one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings.' At fifteen he formed an ardent attachment for Mary Chaworth, whose father the poet's grand-uncle had slain in a tavern brawl. She became the betrothed of another, and their parting interview is immortalized in The Dream:

'I saw two beings in the hues of youth,
Standing upon a hill; a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last,
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave,
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men,
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke,
Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing- the one on all that was beneath,
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;

The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.'

At twenty-seven, when the soul had well-nigh exhausted the body, and the body the soul, he married Miss Milbanke, of whom he had said:

'Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella, which I answered. What an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress a girl of twenty- - a peeress that is to be, in her own right-an only child and a savante, who has always had her own way. She is a poetess, a mathematician, a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages." Meanwhile he had studied at Harrow and at Cambridge, reading much, exercising vehemently, living irregularly, devouring all sorts of learning except that which was prescribed; had travelled on the Continent, had risen to renown, had been the idol of the gay and the life of the riotous; had been lashed to madness by the critics, had declared war upon society. His wife thought him insane, had him examined by physicians, learned that he was in his right mind, then left him, after a union of twelve months, and refused ever to see him again. This is his wail:

'Would that breast were bared before thee,

Where thy head so oft hath lain,

While that placid sleep came o'er thee

Which thou ne'er canst know again. . .

All my faults perchance thou knowest,

All my madness none can know:
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Fare thee well! thus disunited,

Torn from every nearer tie,

Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.'

A daughter, Ada, reminded the wretched parents of what might have been, a child of love, though born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion.' In the touching lines which close the third canto of Childe Harold, he has vision of the sweet face that is lost without hope, and of the happiness which he shall never know: 'My daughter! with thy name this song begun,

My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end,

I see thee not, I hear thee not,-but none

Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend

To whom the shadows of far years extend;
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend,
And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,-
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.'

The blame rested upon him.

He

Miserable

Popular feeling was strong.
was abused in the papers, and hooted in the streets.
and reckless, he left England in 1816 forever:

'Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.'

He went to Geneva, the poisoned arrows rankling in his memory and his heart; to Rome, to Ravenna, to Venice, where he steeped himself in the voluptuous Italian life; wrote continually, in scornful isolation, inspired by the sublimity without and the tempest within; braved danger, a score of times near death; sank even to debauchery; roused himself, and in 1823 embarked for Greece, to aid in her struggle for independence. There, from exposure, he was seized with a fever, and expired in a few days, at the age of thirty-six, amid the mourning of the nation, having raised himself to the height of glory, and debased himself to the depth of shame.

Writings. Such a man will transcribe himself into his verses. Childe Harold is a diary of travel and experience. All were captivated. 'I awoke one morning and found myself famous.' All saw the author in the hero, who

'Was sore sick at heart,

And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his e'e:
Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,

And from his native land resolved to go,

And visit scorching climes beyond the sea:
With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for woe.'

Later he throws off the mask, and avows:

'Yet must I think less wildly:-I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:

And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poisoned. "Tis too late!
Yet am I changed: though still enough the same
In strength to bear what life cannot abate,

And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.'

When nature is thus surveyed, every word will note an emotion.
Every touch will be vivid. The most powerful will reveal the
caged panther that rages to leap upon some satisfying object.
Thus:

'Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well may be
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
Of your departing voices is the knoll

Of what in me is sleepless,-if I rest.

But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?

Could I embody and unbosom now

That which is most within me,- could I wreak

My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe-into one word,
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;
But as it is, I live and die unheard,

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.'

In this furnace-flame history becomes animate, and we see again the pomps and splendors of its plumed and disorderly procession:

'I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;

A palace and a prison on each hand;

I saw from out the wave her structures rise

As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand;

A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the far times when many a subject land

Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!'

The far past is repeopled, palpitates and lives. Within the vacant, magic circuit of the Coliseum, the thronged amphitheatre rises to view, with the sights and sounds of Rome's brutal sports. Here 'murder breathes her bloody steam,' and the eager nations murmur pity or roar applause. You shall behold the distant cottage of the dying athlete, slaughtered for the imperial pleasure, then the avenging Alaric descending upon the doomed city:

'I see before me the Gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand,- his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,