Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits

His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then; how then? what then? let's see wherein

My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself: if he be free,
Why, then my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?

Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn.

Ori. Forbear, and eat no more!
Jaq.

Why, I have eat none yet.

3

Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be served.
Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of? 3
Duke. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress;
Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point
Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show

Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred,
And know some nurture. But forbear, I say:

He dies that touches any of this fruit

Till I and my affairs are answer'd.

Jaq. An you will not be answer'd with reason, I must die.
Duke. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,
More than your force move us to gentleness.

Orl. I almost die for food; and let me have it.
Duke. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.
Orl. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you:
I thought that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment. But, whate'er you are,
That in this desert 5 inaccessible,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,

Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;

He has many

8 This doubling of the preposition was not uncommon in the Poet's time. instances of it. Thus, a little later in this piece: "The scene wherein we play in."

4 Nurture is education, culture, good-breeding. - Inland, the commentators say, is here opposed to upland, which meant rude, unbred. I am apt to think the use of the word grew

from the fact, that up to the Poet's time all the main springs of culture and civility in England were literally inland, remote from the sea.

5 Desert was used of any wild, uninhabited place.

EXILES DINING IN THE WOODS.

If ever you have look'd on better days;

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 't is to pity and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:

In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.
Duke. True is it that we have seen better days;

And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church;
And sat at good men's feasts; and wiped our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd :
And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command what help we have,
That to your wanting may be minister'd.
Orl. Then but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed,
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, -
I will not touch a bit.

Duke.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till you return.

Orl. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good comfort!

Duke. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy :

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

Jaq.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. As, first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: And then the lover,

6 That is, command, or order, for yourself.

369

[Exit.

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then the soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,7
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;8
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

9

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his1 sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM.

Duke. Welcome: set down your venerable burden,
And let him feed.

Orl. I thank you most for him.

Adam.

So had you

need:

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
Duke. Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you
As yet, to question you about your fortunes.

SHAKESPEARE.

WORDSWORTH'S POETRY.

MR WORDSWORTH appeared in good time, with a marked, original mind, an imagination filled with forms of beauty and grandeur, and with a profound spiritual philosophy, so universally pervasive,

7 Pard is leopard. The usage was common.

8 Saws are sayings; often so used. Modern is trite, common, familiar. Men may still be seen overflowing with stale, threadbare proverbs and phrases, and imagining themselves wondrous wise.

The pantaloon was a stereotyped character in the old Italian farces: it represented a thin, emaciated old man, in slippers.

1 His for its, the latter not being then in use.

WORDSWORTH'S POETRY.

371

so predominant, and partaking so much of system and form, that he may be said to have presented poetry under a new phasis.

Yet he has such an air of thoughtful truth in his stories and characters, and the sentiments put into the mouths of his people, though so elevated, have such a simplicity of expression, and so distinct are his descriptions and so like to what we see around us, that we do not stop to consider we are taken out of the world and daily reality into the regions of imagination and poetry. It may at first seem strange that the poetical interest should be so deep, where there is so slight a departure from plain experience in the circumstances. But it is the silent change wrought in ourselves, through the great depth of the sentiment and the utter and beautiful simplicity of the language, that awakens it in us.

Mr. Wordsworth stirs up right thoughts and pure wishes within our minds and hearts, clears our dim imaginations, and the poetry of our being becomes its truth. In a certain sense, he may be said to have given birth to another creation. The mountains and valleys, the rivers and plains, it is true, are the same, and so are the trees and smaller plants, and the bright passing clouds, - to our mere eye, they are the same as seen yesterday. But a new sense is opened in our hearts, and from out this new and delightful reflections are springing up, and running abroad over the Earth, and twisting themselves about every little thing upon it that has life, and uniting its being with our being with a higher meaning do they now live to us, for they have received a higher life from us. A moral sense is given to things; and the materials of Earth, which had hitherto seemed made only for homely uses, become teachers to our minds, and ministers of good to our spirits.

Here the love of beauty is thoughtful, and touched with a moral hue; and what we had esteemed as little better than an indulgence in idle imaginations is found to have even profounder and more serious purposes than the staid affairs of life. The world of Nature is full of magnificence and beauty, and all in it is made to more than a single end. The fruit we feed on is pleasant to the eye too, that we may find in it a second and a better delight. Purifying and lasting pleasures are awakened within us, and happy thoughts and images take life. In the luxury of this higher existence we find a moral strength, and from the riot of the imagination comes a holier calm.

It is true that other poets have given this twofold existence to creation, imbuing with a moral and intellectual being the material world; but most of them have done it by rapid and short hints only, and with other purposes in view. But in Mr. Wordsworth it is a principle that pervades his whole mental structure, and modifies all its workings. He carries us carefully along through all its windings; and, touching the strings of our hearts, their vibrations make us feel that they run upon and connect themselves with every thing in Nature.2

RICHARD HENRY DANA: 1787

The Same Subject.

PERHAPS I cannot better sum up the whole matter than by adopting the words of a correspondent. He observes, first, That while Wordsworth spiritualizes the outward world more than any other poet has done, "his feeling for it is essentially manly. Nature, he always insists, gives gladness to the glad, comfort and support to the sorrowful. Secondly, There is the wondrous depth of his feeling for the domestic affections, and more especially for the constancy of them. Thirdly, He must be considered a leader in that greatest movement of modern times, care for our humbler brethren; his part being, not to help them in their sufferings, but to make us reverence them for what they are, what they have in common with us, or in greater measure than ourselves." These are the tendencies breathed in every line he wrote. He took the commonest sights of Earth, and the homeliest household affections, and made you feel that these, which men commonly take to be the lowest things, are indeed the highest.

If he seldom ventures within the inner sanctuary, he everywhere leads to its outer court, lifting our thoughts into a region "neighbouring to Heaven, and that no foreign land." If he was not universal in the sense in which Shakespeare was, and Goethe aimed to be, it was because he was smitten with too deep an enthusiasm for those truths by which he was possessed. His eye was too intense,

2 This is from an article in the North American Review for 1819. At that time the subject of it was little known save as a theme of general disparagement and reproach. Thus early was the venerable patriarch of our American letters to feel and own the power of Wordsworth's genius. I think no juster recognition or happier expression of the surpassing virtue of his poetry has since appeared; subsequent criticism having done little more than amplify and enforce the views put forth by Mr. Dana.