Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1849-1856, 1854-12-14
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
The PocTicAL WoRKs OF WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH. z volumes. Boston
Ill. n-a...x. a. o. loKA

WORDSWORTH. volumes. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co. 1854.
These volumes form portion Of the
publishers edition OF the British poets,
which they have been issuing during the
last year. The size and style of the vol
umes are those Of Pickering's Aldinc Po-
cts, being in very neat and convenient
form, printed on beautiful thick white pa.
per, and with large elegant type and the
volumes are furnished at the exceeding low
price of seventy five cents. This edition
is edited by F. J. Child, Boylston Professor
Of Rhetoric and Ontory in Harvard Col
lege. The writings of Wordsworth are
quite voluminous, and he has large num-
Der Of warm and enthusiastic admirers, who
rank him among the first OF British poets.
This, however, with all his many excellen-
cies and undeniable poetic talent of high
but peculiar character, is not his proper
position among the poets of the world
During his long literary career he had ma
ny bitter enemies, and his productions were
severely criticised by the Reviewers; still,
this did not disturb him, at least il did not
prevent him from pursuing the even tenor
of his way, just as if nothing had been said
agninst his productions. On the other hand,
it did not have the same effect upon him, at
all events, in the same way, that il did up
on Byron. 1t did not arouse in him what
some term the fire of genius, for he did not
produce, as Byron did, any of those great
and striking poems which thrilled the
world at their appearance, and have ever
since held peculiar place in the regard of
the literary public. Still, in the language
Of his biographer, che reads the poems of
Wordsworth without understanding, who
does not find in them the noblest incentives
TO faith in man and the grandeur OF his
destiny, founded always upon that personal
dignity and virtue, the capacity for whose
affair ment alone makes universal liberty
possible and assures its permanence."-
Again, says the same writer, "His mind
had not that reach and elemental movement
Of Millions, which, like the trade wind,
gathered to itself thoughts and images like
stately fleets from every quarter some
deep with silks and spicery, some brooding
over the silent thunders Of their battaious
ornaments, but all swept forward in their
destined track, over the long pillows of his
verse, every inch Of canvas strained by the
unifying breath of their common epic pulse.
1t was an organ that Milton mastered,
mighty in compass, capable equally of the
trumpet's ardors or the slim delicacy of the
flute, and sometimes il bursts forth in great
crashes through his prose, as if he touched
il for solace in the intervals of his toll. If
Wordsworth sometim s puts the trumpet to
his lips, yet he lays it aside soon and will
lingly for his appropriate instrument the
pastoral reed. And il is not one that grew
by any vulgar stream, but that which Apol-
10 breathed through, tending the focks Of
Admetus,--that which Pan endowed with
every melody of the visible universe,-the
same in which the soul oi the despairing
nymph took refuge and gifted with her dual
nature,-so that ever and anon, admid the
notes of human joy or sorrow, there comes
suddenly deeper and almost awful tone,
thrilling us into dim consciousness of a
forgotten divinity"
There is naturalness, a truthfulness, a
philosophy in the poems Of Wordsworth
which will always give them warm and
abiding place in the hearts and affections
Of large number ofreaders. They should
be in every family Library, for the youth
full mind will early be pleased with many
of them, and as the child increases in years
it will seize upon and admire the greater of
the authors productions, all Of which con-
tain healthy nutriment for the intellect.
The public are largely indebted to Lit
tie, Brown g. Co. for this excellent edi-
ton.
For sale by A. J. Ward and C. E. Ham
nett, Jr.