The Sun.
London, England, 1819-07-06 00:00:00

Lil'ErtAll7 REV-1ir:617:

Tar, WAGGONER, a POE.M.I:O which are adde, S.ox
By WTLCIAM WOIMSWoRTH.
" If I were not ALEXANDER, I Could wish td be
DIOGENES,'' said we to ourselves, as we finished
the perusal of. " The Waggoner." Let us not,
however, be misunderstood : it. is. not precisely
,lionest BRN.IaMt N in whose person we coitid wish
to embody ourselves, •though we have tits small
affection for him ; but it there be one hu-
man being with whom we should be peculiarly
inclined to exchange our identity, we think it
would be WILLIAM WoRDSWoRTH. We are aware
we must, in such a " barter of being," take the
eail with the good ; and that one of the first pri-
vileges resulting from our transmigration would
be the becoming a butt for all the second and
third-rate Wits of this " sleepy age." We should
be ridiculed in The Edinburgh Reriew, parodied in
the Newspapers, and wondered at in Magazines ;
all this we take into the account : but then we
should have, to compensate these formidable
sources of annoyance, WORDSWORTH'S noble and
elevated philosophy, his devotional enthusiasm,
his fine perceptions of the beauties of external
nature, his °vet flowing philanthropy, and indul-
gent sympathy with the humblest of human be-
ings, and the delightful consciousness, not only
of having written "no line that dying he could
wish to blot," but of having added to the happi-
ness Of many happy hearts, by opening to them
new sources of enjoyment ; and by showing them
how cheap, how simple, and how attainable are
some of the most delightful emotions of which cur
nature is susceptible.
" The Waggoner" is a Poem of much less pre-
tensions than Peter Bell ; but see consider it quite
as successful : it has a good deal of fancy, we
will even say of fine poetical fancy, about it, little
of lofty imagination ; many passages of descrip-
tive beauty, but few or none of deep passion.
There is no story, or ne-at to none. The Poem
opens with a short description of a close sultry
evening in June, dark, with a gathering storm ;
presently BENJAMIN, his waggon Fllld ream are
introduced to our acquaintance ; the tempest be-
gins, and our good-natured Waggonet's coin-
miseratiou is solicited by the wife of a sailor, who,
with her infant and husband, are overtaken by
the storm among the ricks ; he readily accommo-
dates the woman and bet child with a seat in his
waggon, anti they all get on es best they
can, till they reach a tetnpting scene of festivity,
an alehouse by the road-side, where a rural fes-
tival is held that night. Seduced by the alluring
sights anti sounds, by his own social habits, and
the persuasions of his new friend the saiIoi',BEN-
JAMIN loses two whole hours at the (c Cherry
Tree," which so offends his master, that the next
day he is disirlissed from his post ; anti as no suc-
cessor can be found to fill it, there is an end
both to the Waggoner and iris %vain-43,16 is
the story, if it can be called one, and see
really think no living I'oet but Wotanswowrai
could have made any thing of it ; at least we
know of none who could have given us the whole
in such keeping ; who could have ornamented it
with such playful and exquisite gleams of fancy,
yet preserved its simplicity uninjured ; the tone
of indulgent, unaffected, cordial simplicity, with
humble feelings and habits which pervade the
whole, render it still more delightful.—Our limits
must oeeessarily render the specimens we shall in-
dulge ourselves in selecting rather meagre, neither
will they appear to advantage thus detached from
the Poem itself, but we must give a fete. The
opening lines have great sweetness anti beauty.
'Tis spent—this horning 11;ty otJtme !
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing ;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,
That solitary bird
Is all that can be hearth
In silence deeper far thee that of deepest now. !
Confiding glow-worms, 'tis a night
Propitious to your earth-born light !
But, where the scatted stars are seen
In hazy straits the clouds between,
Each in his station twinkling not,
Seems chang'd into a pallid spot.
The air, OS in a Thies den,*
Is don, and hot and now and then
Comes a tir'd and sultry breeze
Like the stifling of disease ;
The mountains rise to wondrous height
And in the heavens there is a weight;
But the dews allay the beat,
And the silence makes it sweet.
Tire first presentment of BENJAMIN and Isis
Waggon, the distant tinkling of his leaders'
the faint grating of the wheels, heard fitfully, the
suspension of these sounds as he stops occAsioneily
to give his horses breath, and the idea of his huma-
nity, conveyed in these brief but expressive lints—
, Steep the way and wearisome,
Yet all the while his whip is dumb!
All these circumstances are admirably managed,
but we must pass them over, as well as iris ren-
contre with the travellers, and the storm itself ;
the homely comment of the Sailor, though, is too
characteristic for us to suppress it.
" And now the same strong voice more near
Said, cordially, " My friend, what cheer?
Rough doings these ! as God's my judge,
The sky owes somebody a grudge !
We've had in half an hour or less
A twelvemonth's trouble and distress!"
We are almost afraid to trust ourselves within
the magic circle of honest BENJAMIN'S seductive
enchantments at the Cherry Tree, but we think
few lovers of hilarity can peruse the following
animated picture, hardly surpassed even in "'Tarn
o'Stianter," without admitting it to he a scene
somewhat tempting to men who had just wea-
thered the pitiless pelting of the elements.
Blithe souls and lightsome hearts have we
Feasting at the Cherry Tire I
This was the outside proclamation,
Tlll3 was the inside salutation :
IVhathustling—jost ling—high and low!
A universal overflow !
What tankards foaming from the tap!
What store of cakes in every lap!
What thumping—stumping—overhead,
The thunder had not been inure busy ;
With such a stir, you would hare
This little place may well be dizzy !
IF a a a
As if it heard the fiddle's call,
The pewter clatters on the wall;
The very bacon skews its feeling,
Swinging from the smoky ceiling!
A steaming bowl—a blazing lire—
What greater good can heart desire?
'Twere worth a wise man's while to try
The utmost ancer of the shy ;
To sea for thoughts of painful cast
If such be the amends at last.
Fur soon, of all the happy there,
Our travellers are the happiest pair.
All care with BENJAMIN is gone—
A C/E4All past the Rubicon

~::.

f' What an idea of orptelsivr heat is couveyed by this

Iwago.

;
Tt
„ ; , -• .
VVC forget OU ,„•
rSeiVeS aS 6 '
Pc
so We must get away from the Cherry Tree.
effect of these two hours delicious tars ienee
13eN;AmtN and the Sailor, after they tesome their
a
journey, their" excess of amity," thus elevate .5
by the bowl, the quarrel between our Waggoner
Mastiff, and the .aildr's Ass—the Sailors sutler
stitious 'comments on the Owl's foltehoding
and honesq explanation of it,-pre
equally good ; but we have no room for thetn'
We must however make room for the following
picture of the ‘vaggon ascending a hill at bread
of morning ; it is, we think, rich in fanCY, aD
most beam i fully drawn
" And In I—op Cast rigg's naked steep
(Where smoothy urg'd the vapours sv.ree(s
Along, and scatter and divide
Like fleecy clouds self-multiplied.)
" The stately waggon is ascending
With faithful BrNJAMIN attending,
Apparent nosy beside his team—
Now lost amid a glittering steam."
Up against the hill they strain ;
Tugging at the iron chain,
Last and foremost, every horse,
To the utmost of his force,
And the smoke and respiration
like an exhalation,
Blends with the mist,—a moving sbroui
To form—an undissolving cloud;
Which with slant ray the merry sun
Takes delight to May upon.
Never, surely, old APOLLO,
1„-le,-or other God as old
Of whom in story we are toll,
Who had a favourite to follow
Through a battle or elsewhere,
Round the object of his care,
In a time of peril threw
Veil of such celestial hue;
Interpos'd so bright a screen
Him and his enemies between!" oof
But we must close our extracts, and taft,
leave of Mr. WottoswoeTH, though we hatlP:',
know bow to refrain from giving some of
concluding reflections, in which he epoiogizelt:e
naturally and poetically for his theme : b"t
forbear, in the hope that the reward of our O
ur;
bearance will be a determination on the part of (').,
Readers to enable themselves to decide, from
perusal of the whole, on the justice of 4)l'i!
praises. We thank the Author most cord's
for the pleasure we have received, and we
if he has any more MS. of thirteen years stAndil'ci"
by him, that he will savour the Public with t4c
without deity.

tO
,
** We areF ..1. indebted for the present cviel
self,
a Correspondent, %rho is a good Poet hiol
and who is therefore the wore entitled to refire
A 9 a liberal Critic. Eptros'