guardian of the reputation of his frailer brother? What had parties, and systems, and schools, and nicknames, to do with such a matter as this? Are there no healing moments in which men can afford to be free from the fetters of their petty self-love? Is the hour of genial and cordial tenderness, when man meets man to celebrate the memory of one who has conferred honour on their common nature-is even that sacred hour to be polluted and profaned by any poisonous sprinklings of the week-day paltriness of life?-My displeasure, in regard to this affair, has very little to do with my displeasure in regard to the general treatment of Mr Wordsworth in the Edinburgh Review. That the poems of this man should be little read and little admired by the majority of those who claim for themselves the character of taste and intelligencethat they should furnish little, except subjects of mirth and scorn, to those who, by their own writings, would direct the judgment of othersthese are things which affect some of his admi rers with astonishment-they affect me with no sentiments but those of humility and grief. The delight which is conferred by vivid descriptions of stranger events and stronger impulses than

we ourselves experience, is adapted for all men, and is an universal delight. That part of our nature, to which they address themselves, not only exists in every man originally, but has its existence fostered and cherished by the incidents of every life. To find a man who has no relish for the poetry of Love or of War, is almost as impossible, as to find one that does not enjoy the brightness of the sun, or the softness of moonlight. The poetry of ambition, hatred, revenge, pleases masculine minds in the same manner as the flashing of lightnings and the roaring of cataracts. But there are other things in man and in nature, besides tumultuous passions and tempestuous scenes ;-and he that is a very great poet, may be by no means a very popular one.

The critics who ridicule Mr Wordsworth, for choosing the themes of his poetry among a set of objects new and uninteresting to their minds, would have seen, had they been sufficiently acute, or would have confessed, had they been sufficiently candid, that, had he so willed it, he might have been among the best and most powerful masters in other branches of his art, more adapted for the generality of mankind and for themselves. The martial music in the hall of

Clifford was neglected by the Shepherd Lord, for the same reasons which have rendered the poet that celebrates him such a poet as he is.

"Love had he seen in huts where poor men lie,
His daily teachers had been woods and rills;
The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

Before a man can understand and relish his poems, his mind must, in some measure, pass through the same sober discipline-a discipline that calms, but does not weaken the spirit-that blends together the understanding and the affections, and improves both by the mixture. The busy life of cities, the ordinary collisions of sarcasm and indifference, steel the mind against the emotions that are bred and nourished among those quiet vallies, so dear to the Shepherd Lord and his poet. What we cannot understand, it is a very common, and indeed a very natural thing, for us to undervalue; and it may be suspected, that some of the merriest witticisms which have been uttered against Mr Wordsworth, have had their origin in the pettishness and dissatisfaction of minds, unaccustomed and unwilling to make, either to others or to themselves, any confessions of incapacity.

But I am wandering sadly from him, who, as Wordsworth has beautifully expressed it,

"walked in glory and in joy,

Following his plough along the mountain's side."

-However, I shall come back to him in my

next.

P. M.

LETTER XII.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR DAVID,

In order to catch the post, a few days ago, I sent off my letter before my subject was half concluded; which, doubtless, you will attribute chiefly, or entirely, to my old passion for parentheses and episodes. To return to my eposthe Burns's dinner.

One of the best speeches, perhaps the very best, delivered during the whole of the evening, was that of Mr June Wen, in proposing the health of the Ettrick Shepherd. I had heard a great deal of Wen from W, but he had been out of Edinburgh ever since my arrival, and indeed had walked only fifty miles that very morning, in order to be present on this occasion. He showed no symptoms, however, of being fatigued with his journey, and his style of elo