4

poor, high and low, man, woman, child,

could it be conveyed so fully, so instantaneously, as by this figure of the wild flower? On hill and plain, in valley and dell, near rock and river, on every acre of Scottish ground, fertile or barren, where man has made a dwelling, wild flowers are found. By this simple comparison Wallace is felt to be everywhere. At first the simplicity veils from us the efficiency, the beauty, the power of the figure.

Through his long life Wordsworth walked almost daily about the beautiful mountain-andlake region where he lived. The maid-servant at Rydal Mount, showing the rooms to a stranger, said of the one which he took for the poet's study, "This is the library; master's study is out of doors." He made several visits to Scotland to walk through some of her most attractive scenery. By means of this intimate intercourse with nature he absorbed much of her spirit as well as her features and forms. In such walks it is the visionary, the poetic eye, that sees the best that is to be seen, and out of this best the meditative activity seizes new likenesses and works into the woof of its task fresh analogies and subtleties. From this inward meditative superiority, thus nourished, it is that comes what Wordsworth calls

"The great nature that exists in works

Of mighty poets."

His mood and condition in these studious walks he describes in the following lines. At one period he was always accompanied by a knowing terrier :

"A hundred times when, roving high and low,

I have been harassed with the toil of verse,
Much pains and little progress, and at once
Some lovely image in the song rose up
Full-formed, like Venus rising from the sea;
Then have I darted forwards to let loose
My hand upon his back with stormy joy,
Caressing him again and yet again.
And when at evening on the public way
I sauntered, like a river murmuring
And talking to itself when all things else
Are still, the creature trotted on before;
Such was his custom; but whene'er he met
A passenger approaching, he would turn
To give me timely notice, and straightway,
Grateful for that admonishment, I hushed
My voice, composed my gait, and, with the air
And mien of one whose thoughts are free, advanced
To give and take a greeting that might save
My name from piteous rumors, such as wait
On men suspected to be crazed in brain."

IV.

BEAUPUIS.

Of his growing consciousness of poetic power, during the latter part of his stay at Cambridge, Wordsworth gives intimation in the following significant passage of "The Prelude:"

"Those were the days
Which also first emboldened me to trust
With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
By such a daring thought, that I might leave
Some monument behind me which pure hearts
Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,
Maintained even by the very name and thought
Of printed books and authorship, began
To melt away; and further, the dread awe
Of mighty names was softened down and seemed
Approachable, admitting fellowship

Of modest sympathy."

Accompanied by a friend and fellow-student, Robert Jones, of Wales, Wordsworth spent his last summer vacation in a pedestrian tour through France, Savoy, Switzerland, and the north of Italy. They landed in Calais on the 13th of July, 1790, the eve of a national

jubilee, the day when the King of France took the oath of fidelity to the new constitution, a day which thrilled Europe with joy :

"France standing on the top of golden hours,

And human nature seeming born again."

Southward from Calais they held their way, and saw how bright a face is worn when "joy of one is joy for tens of thousands." They passed through hamlets and towns gaudy with the faded garlands and remains of the great festival. To shorten the journey they walked for three days through sequestered villages:

"And found benevolence and blessedness

Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when spring
Hath left no corner of the land untouched."

And thus by the vine-clad hills and slopes of Burgundy they reached the "gentle Saône." Then the rapid Rhone bore them as with wings on its current between lofty rocks, a lonely pair of strangers floating down the stream, clustered together with a merry crowd of travelers returning from the grand national festival at Paris. With this jocund company they landed at night, and after a joyous supper, enlivened by fragrant Burgundy, they all rose and danced hand in hand round the board, the two young Englishmen sharing heartily the triumph and the hope of the hour.

Again the two took to their staffs and knapsacks, and, "kept in a perpetual hurry of delight by the almost uninterrupted succession of sublime and beautiful objects that passed before their eyes," as Wordsworth wrote to his sister, they wandered through parts of Savoy and Switzerland and the lake region of Italy, first crossing the Alps over the Simplon, wondering, as they descended into the southern gorge, at

"The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,

And in the narrow rent at every turn.
Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light,
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree
Characters of the great Apocalypse,

The types and symbols of Eternity,

Of first, and last, and midst, and without end."

Arrived at Basle, the pedestrians bought a boat, and floated down the Rhine to Cologne, returning to England by Calais.

This tour furnished material for another