At the meeting of the Wordsworth Society, on Wednesday, which
was held in the Deanery, Westminster, Mr. Matthew Arnold presided, and delivered one of his eloquently humorous and humorously eloquent speeches on the genius of Words- worth. He had reached an age, he said, at which it be- came a man to spend much of his time in reviewing his. past life, and striving after the final exaltation Old amend- ment of his own character. In old times, one in his position would have entered a monastery. It was not possible for him to enter a monastery, but the next thing to it that was open to him was probably the step he had taken in joining the- Wordsworth Society. The monastic life involved. vows of poverty, of chastity, and of obedience. To join the Words- worth Society was to submit oneself to the spirit of Words- worth, and the spirit of Wordsworth had consecrated "plain. living and high thinking," the severity of a crystal purity, and a reverent submission to the authority of higher and nobler minds. His address, unfortunately delivered on a day when there was much else (much of it of less significance) to report, has received little notice from the Press, but was. curiously felicitous, and passed from gentle badinage to true criticism by those delicately graded transitions of which Mr. Arnold is one of the few living masters. Interesting papers were also read, one written by Mr. Aubrey De Vere, on the highly-charged personality of Wordsworth's poems, and one by the Rev. Stopford Brooke, on the poetical feeling exhibited in Wordsworth's "Guide to the Lakes."
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