The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-04 00:00:00

their desires; they saw them under aspects unknown to:„
and unseen by common men, and which' enabled them to
cense ive and execute those hardy enterprise:, deemed
rash and foeliste ti'l their wisdom was establithed
heir success. It is in feet the great passiona.alnue
which enable men to distinguish between what is diffi-
cult and what is impossible: a distinction always don-
founded by merely sensible men; who do not even suspect
the existence of those means, which men of genius .
employ to effect their object. It is only passion which
gives a man that high enthusiasm for his country, and
makes him regard it as the only object worthy of human'
attention ;—au enthusiasm, which to common eyes
appears madness and extravagance; but which always
creates fresh powers of mind, and commonly ensures
their ultimate success. In fact, it is only the gieet
passions, which, tearing us away from the reductions of
indolence, endow us with that cositinuity of attention, to
which alone superiority of mind is attached. It is to
their passions alone, unr!er the providence of God, that
nations must trust, when peril, gather thick about them,
and their last moment, seem to he at hand. The history
of the world shows us that rarn are not to be counted
by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their
sense of injury; hy their memory
passions; by their deep
of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their
clear and steady reeolutam of e.r.sitig to live, or of
achieving; a pait;cular übjPet, which, when ir is once
formed, strikes off a load of manacle. and chains, a tici
gives free space to all heavenly and hero c feelings. All
great and extraordinary actions come from th.. hear!.
There are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit
enough to conduct the common business of lie, are
feeble and useless; and when men must trust to Quiettee,
for that safety which reason at such tim,s can nsver give.
These are the feeling: which led the ten thousand over
the Carduchian mountains; these are the feelings by
which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of
Persia: they have, by turns, humbled Austria, reduced
Spain; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the moun-
tains of the Swiss, defended the happiness, and revenged
the oppressions of man! God calls all the passions out
in their keenness and vigour, fir the present safety of
mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind,
and a readiness to suffer;—all the secret strengtb, all the
invisible array, of the feelings,—all that nature has
reserved for the great scenes of the world. For the
usual hopes, and the common aids of man, are all gonel
Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations moul-
dered away! Nothing remains, under God, but those
passions which have often proved the best ministers of
His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world.--
Sydney Smith.

ESTIMATE OF THE POETICAL

CHARACTER OF WORDSWORTH.

(From " The Poetry and Poets of Britain." By
Daniel Scrymgeour.)
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
(1770- .)
A great portion of Mr. Wordsworth's life, since
the completion of his education at Cambridge, has
been passed amidst the mountain seclusion of Rydul
Lake, in Westmoreland. His genius was compli-
mented with the laureateship on the death of Mr.
Southey. No man, perhaps, ever made poetry, not
merely the constructive part of the art, but its whole
feelings and contemplations, so completely his occu-
pation. His youth fell fortunately in an age when
the poetical literature of Fngland had begun to re-
vive; but the criticism of the times, independently of
political animosities, did not yet seem to have tem-
pered its taste to the novel music of the " Lake ''
bards. (1) Cowper, and Burns, and Crabbe had struck
out new paths, and the academic steps of Wordsworth
followed their track into nature with such literal
fidelity as to border on the practical exaggeration of
his own theory respecting the extent of field and mi-
nuteness of variety afforded by nature for the pure
poses of poetry.(2) His new (8) poetical experiment,
in which Mr. Coleridge shared, appeared in the Ly-
rical Ballads in 1798. The poet and his associated
friends struggled stoutly against the ridicule and
hostility which their " school " drew down on
them ; and their perseverance has been rewarded in
the popularity of much that was so mercilessly derided.
The feelings touched by some of these pieces, their
pathos, and truth to nature, won them way in popular
estimation. Mr. Wordsworth's great work, "The
Excursion," is a portion of a philosophical poem, in
three parts, to be entitled " The Recluse," "contain-
ing views f man nature, and society,"(4) " having
for its principal object the sensations and opinions of a
poet living in retirement." The portion published
presents a group of beautiful and profound thoughts,
—of splendid and pathetic descriptions, united by a
slight narrative, resulting from the poet's accidentally,
meeting a Scottish pedlar, "the grey-haired Wan-
derer," whose peculiar education has made him a
moralist, a philosopher, and a Christian. They join,
and are joined by, other personages, and the poem
consists chiefly- of a semi-dramatic exchange of argu-
ment and sentiment among the characters. The main
moral seems to be to justify the ways of God to man,
and to encourage the hopes of the wretched beyond
the grave. The ethereal metaphysical specula-
tions of "The Excursion" render the thought
often obscure, or at least difficult to be appre-
hended ; but the calm beauty of its pictures
of solitude,—of lowly, suffering worth,—the fre-
quent energy and vivacity of its imagery—and its un-
ceasing heavenward enthusiasm—are qualities that
stamp it with the seal of one of the noblest of ima-
ginations. Many of Mr. Wordsworth's smaller.
poems are "flowers fresh with childhood ;" and among
those of a more extonded aim, what, in grace of de-
lineation, or delicacy of fancy, can equal ".ttuth;"
in affecting simplicity of circumstantial lineament of
things in them elves morally and poetically beautiful,
than " Michael," or the " Cumberland Beggar ?"
and in " Tintern Abbey," the whole sympathies of
the poet's nature, in reference to the relation of man
to the external world, are poured forth in exemplifi-
cation of one of the prominent characteristics of
Cowper's genius. If Cow per has taught the new
generation to renew the habit of looking " at nature,"
the telescopic power of Wordsworth's poetry has
vastly extended our sphere of vision—has brought
the minutest and the nearest, as well as the most die
tent, the vastest, and most undefined objects, within
the sphere of our sympathies—has widened the glance
of faith, and hope, and charity—and has given to the
" humblest daisy on the mountain-side," not merely
" a voice to bid the doubting sons of men be still"—
the cold tongue of dogmatic theology might do this—
but a voice with the power of the Mosaic rod, to
draw from the flinty and unfeeling heart the gushing
waters of all that is holy in piety, pure in affection,
and hopeful and consoling amidst the obduracy of
sorrow-hardened humanity. In Wordsworth's poetry
the soul of man animates nature, as, in the Platonic
philosophy (5), the Deity was the innate spirit of
the universe. Nature inhabits him, and he inhabits
nature, with a reciprocity of life-giving influence.
" The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion.
• • • •

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms were then to me
An apps tite, a feeling, and a love."
Byron and Burns are beings apart from Nature, to
whose enjoyment she bolds the cup, accepted by the
one with haughty disdain, or drained with the sullen
gratification of selfish passion—by the other with
hearty and benevolent relish of the enjoyment, but
with the eagerness that deadens and kills while it
gratifies. But Wordsworth shares her " boon-ness"
with herself, as if the very flowers were conscious of
his verse; " using," Christian-like, "as not abusing."
In estimating the spirit and tendency of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry, we have looked on its better
side, and have disregarded the adhering vitiations that
d
lvpoeticalomrhrtidh los,tssl
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afatsne
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Words-
worth's oprharipadni
ievsd:
clung to his style, from the original peculiarity of his
fawr 00l
e
penetrated our subsequent poetical literature, we may
reasonably predict that posterity will approve the
criticism of his friend.
Mr. Wordsworth has classified his collected works
—which he is fond of viewing as parts of an architec-
tural whole, and would wish to be judged as such—
into, I. Poems referring to Childhood; IL Poems
founded on the Affections ; 111. Poems of the Fancy;
IV. Poems of the Imagination; V. Sonnets, Inscrip-
tions, &c. ; all forming, as it were, " the little cells,
oratories, and sepulchral recesses" of the " Gothic
Church" to be reared in " The Recluse." •
(1) From the residence of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr.
Southey, and Mr. Coleridge, near each other swot% h.
lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, they and t h eir
" school" were termed in ridicule, by some of the re -
views, the " Lake Poets."
(2) See Works, vol. iv., Edit. 1827..
(3) Mr. Wordsworth's first p
(4) Consult the noble " Pr(usbleiceatutisT wofasthle79d3o.sio,
Works, vol. v., Preface, Edit. 182.
724.
(5) See Virg.

id of death, when we are in
icertioal Cook's,
pupilsJGo u
Rrn ()also_f.
the habit of re
SCHOOL
LtioOnT I—pEr EiDz iel ic:
rehearsing it every night.—Eliza
_G.Ertsioi
e l)sdeci
:at
distribution
took
this school of medicine place on Thursday, Sir James
Clark, Bart., F.R.S., in the chair. Thy honorary secretary,
wr. V. Pettigrew, read the report, which showed the
Dr.
continued prosperity of the school, there being upwards of
too attending pupils. The prizes were awarded as follows,
appropriate remarks being made to each student, by the
Chairman, as the prizes or certificates were presented :.--
Senior Anatomy : gold medal, Mr. H. Bullock; silver me-
v t 11
-INS
071. Iv.
. rt absurd
co
dal, Mr. F. Tutner ; certificate, Mr. W. Bloxam. Junior
Anatomy : bronze medals, Mr. Benson and Mr. A. Um-
PhelbY ; certificates, Mr. 11. Lawrence and Mr. Waters.
Medicine: prize, Mr. H. Bullo, k ; certificates Mr. Brown,
Mr. Dyer. Surgery: prize, Mr. H. Bullock,l. certificate,
Mr. Brown. Midwifery: prize, Mr..H..Wilkin. Chemistry:
prize, Mr. Waters ; certificate, /11.. Benson. Clinical Sur-
gery ; prize, Mr. H. Bullock. Botany : prize, Mr. A. Tel.
hot ; certificates, Mr. H. Lane, Mr. Ilalford, and Mr. Fowl?
tain. Medical Jurisprudence; prize, Mr. Brown; certificate,
Mr. A. Talbot. Practical Chemistry : prize, -Mr,. Brown;
certificates, Mr. 11. Lane, Mr. Baker, Mr. Fountain, Mr. H.
Lawrence, and Mr. H. Bluck. Votes of thanks w'ere given
to the Chairman and Mr. Ferguson for examing the clinical
surgery reports, and also to the lecturers, proposed and se-
conded by the students.
In Spain condemned criminals are put to death
by an iron screw being fixed between the cervical vertebra,
• the criminal having his neck secured in an iron ring.