gained enormous sums, and when, six years later, the pen dropped from his hand, and overborne by his herculean labor, he passed away from earth, the indebtedness, though not all paid, was in the course of ultimate extinction.

No more manly, no more charming novels, exist in any language than those of Sir Walter Scott. They abound with the spirit of chivalry and patriotism. They could be read by all young people, and those of more mature judgment will find them attractive and stimulating. As a relief from the cares of life, and as a means of relaxation, I know of nothing so valuable as a course of Waverley novels.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

(1770-1850.)

WORDSWORTH'S position in literature has been the cause of more wrangling among the critics than that of any other poet. Was he the greatest of English poets after Shakespeare, or must his name follow those of some of his contemporaries, such as Byron, Shelley, Scott, Keats and Coleridge? It is a dispute that has been going on for at least three-quarters of a century and is really as far from settlement as ever. That is to say, there seems to be no general popular sentiment as to where Wordsworth should stand in the English Pantheon, and, as Dr. Johnson said in respect to Gray, "it is by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtlety and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honors." That is to say, after we have heard all that the

That is to say,

critics have to say for and

against the claims made for any poet, we then read for ourselves, and in the light of the argument decide the question. But in this case the difficulty is that when we take up a volume of Wordsworth's poems we read one containing the most elevated and ennobling sentiments clothed in superb diction, such as the great odes "On Duty" or "Intimations of Immortality," and say "here is indeed the greatest of poets." We turn a page or two and come upon "The Idiot Boy," or "Goody Blake," or "Peter Bell," and the volume is thrown down with disgust. We are ready to place the poet on a level with his idiot boy. Unless indeed we are born Wordsworthians, and then we accept every line he wrote with the submission with which good Mohammedans receive the Koran.

Wordsworth was long in receiving any sort of recognition from the public or the critics. His first volume," An Evening Walk," was published in 1793, and he was admonished by the critics to "amend his lines" if he wished to be considered a poet. He continued to write and publish for many years, and the praise he got was in proportion to the censure as one to twenty. When "The Excursion" appeared in 1814 Jeffrey burst out with the now memorable phrase, "This will

never do." The next year came "The White Doe of Rylstone," and Jeffrey said it was the very worst poem ever imprinted in a quarto volume. "In the Lyrical Ballads he [Wordsworth] was exhibited, on the whole, in a state of very pretty deliration ; but in the poem before us he appears in a state of low, maudlin imbecility which would not have misbecome Master Silence himself, in the close of a social day."

Jeffrey's judgment on these on these poems has generally been accepted, although "The Excursion" contains many noble passages. But its length, and

often tediousness, confounds and paralyzes the majority of readers even where they honestly wish to compass the whole of it. Wordsworth's greatest poetry was written prior to 1808, but it was not until after 1830 that he began to receive just appreciation. To the day of his death he was not popular, nor can it be said that he has been at any time since. Ruskin and Matthew Arnold have done the most by their appreciation of Wordsworth to render his poetry popular, but, great critics though they are, their success has only been partial.

And yet when all has been said that can be said about the silliness and fatuity of much of Wordsworth's verse, there remains a splendid

mass that will be as imperishable as the tongue in which it is written, full of the noblest thoughts and the most beautiful imagery. Wordsworth was mistaken in his theory of simplicity and in his effort to render the commonplace poetical, just as many think Browning was mistaken along the same lines, but if we ignore his errors in this respect and read only his true poems, we will find that as the high priest of nature he stands unrivaled save by Shakespeare alone. He brings to the mind serenity and repose, and stirs the emotions to the love of beauty.

In his autobiography John Stuart Mill speaks of his first reading of Wordsworth's poems and of their effect upon him:

What made his poems a medicine for my state of mind was that they expressed not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling and of thought colored by feeling under the excitement of beauty. I needed to be made to feel that there was real permanent happiness in tranquil contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only without turning away from, but with greatly increased interest in, the common feelings and common destiny of human beings.

age,

George Eliot, when she was twenty years of took up Wordsworth's poems and they became her favorites for life. "I never before," she said, "met with so many of my own feelings