finds her out, and takes again to following herwhereupon Mr. Wordsworth breaks out into this fine and natural rapture.

Oh, moment ever blest! O Pair!
Belov'd of Heaven, Heaven's choicest care!
This was for you a precious greeting,-
For both a bounteous, fruitful meeting.
Join'd are they; and the sylvan Doe
Can she depart? can she forgo
The Lady, once her playful Peer?

That day, the first of a re-union
Which was to teem with high communion,
That day of balmy April weather,
They tarried in the wood together.

What follows is not quite so intelligible,

When Emily by morning light
Went forth, the Doe was there in sight.
She shrunk -with one frail shock of pain,
Received and followed by a prayer,

Did she behold-saw once again;
Shun will she not, she feels, will bear;-
But wheresoever she look'd round

All now was trouble-haunted ground.

It certainly is not easy to guess what could be in the mind of the author when he penned these four last inconceivable lines; but we are willing to infer that the lady's loneliness was cheered by this mute associate; and that the doe, in return, found a certain comfort in the lady's company—

Communication, like the ray

Of a new morning, to the nature
And prospects of the inferior Creature!

In due time the poor lady dies, and is buried beside her mother; and the doe continues to haunt the places which they had frequented together, and especially to come and pasture every Sunday upon the fine grass in Bolton churchyard, the gate of which is never opened but on occasion of the weekly service.-In consequence of all which we are assured by Mr. Wordsworth that she is approved by Earth and Sky, in their benignity; and moreover, that the old Priory itself takes her for a daughter of the Eternal Prime,'-which we have no doubt is a very great compliment, though we have not the good luck to understand what it means.

And aye, methinks, this hoary Pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,
A gracious smile, that seems to say,
'Thou, thou art not a Child of Time,
But Daughter of the Eternal Prime!'

[Before the review of the Excursion, Jeffrey had written only one article on Wordsworth (Poems of 1807-October, 1807), but he had referred to Wordsworth frequently, as in the articles on Thalaba (October, 1802), Crabbe (April, 1808), and Burns (January, 1809). He reviewed the Tour on the Continent in November, 1822. He reprinted only the articles on the Excursion and the White Doe.

The term 'the Lake school', or 'the Lake poets', is due to Jeffrey. The article of October, 1807, begins thus:-"This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who have haunted for some years about the Lakes of Cumberland; and is generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been labouring to establish.' But the attack on the school had been opened in the article on Thalaba:-'The author who is now before us, belongs to a sect of poets, that has established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years,' &c.]

ROBERT SOUTHEY

(JUNE, 1815.)

Roderick: The Last of the Goths. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., Poet-Laureate, and Member of the Royal Spanish Academy. 4to, pp. 477. London, 18141.

THIS is the best, we think, and the most powerful of all Mr. Southey's poems. It abounds with lofty sentiments and magnificent imagery; and contains more rich and comprehensive descriptions-more beautiful pictures of pure affection-and more impressive representations of mental agony and exaltation than we have often met with in the compass of a single volume.

A work, of which all this can be said with justice, cannot be without great merit; and ought not, it may be presumed, to be without great popularity. Justice, however, has something more to say of it: and we are not quite sure either that it will be very

I have, in my time, said petulant and provoking things of Mr. Southey :-and such as I would not say now. But I am not conscious that I was ever unfair to his poetry: and if I have noted what I thought its faults, in too arrogant and derisive a spirit, I think I have never failed to give hearty and cordial praise to its beauties-and generally dwelt much more largely on the latter than the former. Few things, at all events, would now grieve me more, than to think I might give pain to his many friends and admirers, by reprinting, so soon after his death, any thing which might appear derogatory either to his character or his genius; and therefore, though I cannot say that I have substantially changed any of the opinions I have formerly expressed as to his writings, I only insert in this publication my review of his last considerable poem: which may be taken as conveying my matured opinion of his merits and will be felt, I trust, to have done no scanty or unwilling justice to his great and peculiar powers.

popular, or that it deserves to be so. It is too monotonous-too wordy-and too uniformly stately, tragical, and emphatic.-Above all, it is now and then a little absurd--and pretty frequently not a little affected.

The author is a poet undoubtedly; but not of the highest order. There is rather more of rhetoric than of inspiration about him-and we have oftener to admire his taste and industry in borrowing and adorning, than the boldness or felicity of his inventions. He has indisputably a great gift of amplifying and exalting; but uses it, we must say, rather unmercifully. He is never plain, concise, or unaffectedly simple, and is so much bent upon making the most of everything, that he is perpetually overdoing. His sentiments and situations are, of course, sometimes ordinary enough; but the tone of emphasis and pretension is never for a moment relaxed; and the most trivial occurrences, and fantastical distresses, are commemorated with the same vehemence and exaggeration of manner, as the most startling incidents, or the deepest and most heart-rending disasters. This want of relief and variety is sufficiently painful of itself in a work of such length; but its worst effect is, that it gives an air of falsetto and pretension to the whole strain of the composition, and makes us suspect the author of imposture and affectation, even when he has good enough cause for his agonies and raptures.

How is it possible, indeed, to commit our sympathies, without distrust, to the hands of a writer, who, after painting with infinite force the anguish of soul which pursued the fallen Roderick into the retreat to which his crimes had driven him, proceeds with redoubled emphasis to assure us, that neither his remorse nor his downfall were half so intolerable to

him, as the shocking tameness of the sea birds who flew
round about him in that utter solitude! and were
sometimes so familiar as to brush his cheek with their
wings?
For his lost crown

And sceptre never had he felt a thought
Of pain Repentance had no pangs to spare
For trifles such as these. The loss of these
Was a cheap penalty: . . that he had fallen
Down to the lowest depth of wretchedness,
His hope and consolation. But to lose
His human station in the scale of things,
To see brute Nature scorn him, and renounce
Its homage to the human form divine! . . .
Had then almighty vengeance thus reveal'd
His punishment, and was he fallen indeed
Below fallen man, ... below redemption's reach,...
Made lower than the beasts ?

This, if we were in bad humour, we should be tempted to say was little better than drivelling;— and certainly the folly of it is greatly aggravated by the tone of intense solemnity in which it is conveyed : but the worst fault by far, and the most injurious to the effect of the author's greatest beauties, is the extreme diffuseness and verbosity of his style, and his unrelenting anxiety to leave nothing to the fancy, the feeling, or even the plain understanding of his readers-but to have everything set down, and impressed and hammered into them, which it may any how conduce to his glory that they should comprehend. There never was any author, we are persuaded, who had so great a distrust of his readers' capacity, or such an unwillingness to leave any opportunity of shining unimproved and accordingly, we rather think there is no author, who, with the same talents and attainments, has been so generally thought

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