HOW TO POPULARIZE WORDSWORTH.

MR. ARNOLD, in the somewhat thin but humorous critical essay on Wordsworth which appears in the new number of 21facmillan'a Magazine, asserts that ever since Wordsworth's death, in 1852, the influence of his poetry has waned. "To tenth-rate critics," he says, "and compilers for whom any violent shock to the public taste would be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to speak of Wordsworth's poetry not only with ignorance, but with impertinence. On the Con- tinent he is almost unknown." And yet—counting only those who arc no longer living—Mr. Arnold himself places Wordsworth next to Shakespeare and Milton amongst our modern poets,— i.e., excluding Chaucer, as belonging to a different world,— places him above Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats. "Wordsworth," says Mr. Arnold, "taking the performance of each as a whole, seems to me to have left a body of poetical work superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, to that which any one of the others has left." This is a bold judgment, with which only the few among the lovers of English poetry would agree; and yet if the value of poetry is to be estimated by the degree in which it stimulates with a healthy stimulus, freshens, and elevcites the hearts of those who know and love it, the present writer at least would be disposed to assign him even a place higher in the roll of English poets, and affirm that, to him at least, a more serious and sensible blank would be left in English literature by the extinction of Wordsworth's poems, than even by the extinc- tion of the grand Puritan classic himself. No doubt the volume of Wordsworth's voice is not so mighty as that of Milton's, nor the music of his verso so rich and various. But the intellectual world in which Wordsworth lived is in- finitely more unique and wholesome, more abounding in the healing waters which human nature needs for its rest and re- freshment, more thoughtful, and more lucid, than the intel- lectual world of Milton,—and these qualities far more than make up for the matchless volume of Milton's force and the richer music of his speech. Still, we confess to a doubt whether the most perfect test of poetry, as poetry, be the test which would assign to Wordsworth so supreme a place in our Literature. And if you judge chiefly by any other test,—say, by the degree in which poetry is capable of exciting the imagination of the majority of cultivated men and women,—doubtless not only Milton, but Byron and Shelley, perhaps even Burns and Keats and Cole- ridge, would take rank above him. For it must be admitted, we think, that after allowing all we may for the injudiciousness of Wordsworth's admirers and interpreters, Wordsworth is not, and probably never will be, a popular poet. And here we use the word " popular " not in the sense of appealing to the homeliest hearts, as Burns appeals, but in the sense of having the power to haunt the cultivated fancy, as Byron's "Isles of Greece" and Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark" haunt the fancy of the literary multitude. To some extent, we imagine that the power of a poet must be measured by the extent of the dominion over which he rules; and, so measured, we imagine that neither our own nor Mr. Arnold's estimate of Wordsworth's place is likely to be ac- cepted by the majority of good literary judges, English or Con- tinental. We doubt, for instance, whether Goethe could over have been made to enter into Wordsworth's transcendent great- ness, or whether there was any element in Goethe to which that greatness could have been made clear. Could HeMe have been made to understand it? Could even Sir Walter Scott? Mr. Arnold justly enough says that Scott was "too genuine himself not to feel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with au instinc- tive recognition of his firm hold on nature, and of his local truth, always admired him sincerely and praised him genuinely ;" but there is not a trace of Scott's assigning to Wordsworth any- thing approaching to the high place which Mr. Arnold assigns,

and indeed we think it clear that what Sir Walt.ir most appreciated in Wordsworth's poetry was not by any means its highest level. Take his praise of the poem called " The Fountain,"—and subtle and discriminating praise it was,—but it was all praise for the dramatic touch in Wordsworth's de- scription of the old man who passes so easily from the mood of melancholy to the mood of almost harebrained mirth, not praise for the strain of noble and passionate melancholy which is the real burden of that beautiful poem. We suspect Scott, though far too fresh and great to miss altogether the freshness and great- ness of Wordsworth, would not have placed him very high on the roll of English poets.

And though, undoubtedly, wise exposition might make Words- worth a far more popular poet thau he now is, we are strougly disposed to think that the qualities in which he is greatest will never be those for which the greater number of his readers will admire him. The truth is, that most lovers of poetry look to poetry for immediate imaginative stimulus, just as they look to champagne. for immediate nervous stimulus. And the first effect of Wordsworth is not immediate imaginative stimulus, but rather to breathe on us a strangely lucid and bracing atmos- phere of solitary power. The highest influence of Wordsworth is, no doubt, a stimulating influence in that sense in which the solitude of the Alps is stimulating, but liot in the sense in which the parade of a great army, or the murmur of an agitated mul- titude, is Stimulating. And, to get such stimulus as Wordsworth's, you must .first pass into a solitude so profound that the chill of it strikes, and perhaps numbs you, so that you become insensible to the mental thrill which would otherwise follow. And here we are speaking of his really highest work, of such poems as the lines written near Tintern Abbey, or the "Ode to Duty,"— and, not, of come% of that considerable admixture of genuine prose which, as Mr. Arnold very justly says, repels many who are quite capable of appreciating his highest work, from over grappling truly with a poet capable of such miserable humdrum.

If we were to attempt to make Wordsworth as popular as, in the nature of the case, he is ever likely to be, we should begin by reiterating Mr. Arnold's warning against the" White Doe of Rylstone," the "Excursion," and, in a loss degree against even the " Prelude " and "Peter Bell,"—as the poems by which to test Wordsworth ; and by confessing at once that in many of these poems passages may be found,—like that so humorously referreckto by Mr. Arnold in the following criticism,—which not only do not prove the poet, but taken by themselves might fairly, though erroneously, be supposed. to prove absolute in- capacity for poetry :—

"Finally, the scientific system of thought ' in Wordsworth," says Mr. Arnold, "gives as at last such poetry as this, which the devout Verdsworthian accepts :— for the coining of that glorious time When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wcailli And beet protection, this Imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation, on her part, to teach Them who are born to servo her and obey ; Binding herself by statute to swum For all the children whom her soil maintains The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religions truth.'

Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment ! Ono can hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress • one can call up the whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns ; dusty air and jaded afternoon daylight ; benches full of men with bald heads and women in spectacles ; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without, to declaim these lines of Wordsworth ; and in the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woo ! But turn we,' as Wordsworth

says, 'from these bold, bad men,' the haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let its be on our guard, too, against the exhibitors and extollers of a 'scientific system of thought' in Wordsworth's

poetry. The peek), will never be seen aright while they thus oxbibit it."

No; 'Wordsworth's poetry will never be seen aright while it is thus exhibited. But neither, we suspect, will it ever become even as popular as it may yet become, if those who fail to admire Wordsworth are simply told of "the power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in Nature, the joy offered to us in the simple, elementary affections and duties," and of "the power with which in case after ease he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it."

We should attempt to popularise Wordsworth, so far as he can be popularised, by first presenting to the uninitiated some of those pure and lucid pictures of simple beauty in which, though they, too, embody the "lonely rapture of lonely minds," everybody may take some delight, if only for the colour and the animation with which the poet's buoyant mind has invested them. Where, for instance, is there a lover of poetry of auy kind who could not enter into the vivacity of such a poem as this I'— "Tux DAFFODILS.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils ; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending lino Along the margin of a bay ; Ton thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced ; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee : A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company : I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought : For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils."

The colour, the life, the motion in that exquisite picture will reconcile many to the significance of the last verse, who would fail, at first at least, to see that in the last verse lies the real pith and power of the poem. Next, we should go on to point out the fidelity and strength with which Wordsworth can take up into his musing imagination, and isolate there, the simplest and most permanent of the human passions, as, for example, in the noble poem called "The Affliction of Margaret," in which a bereaved, mother, who waits in vain to learn her long-lost son's fate, pours forth her heart's yearnings :— " Perhaps Some dungeon hears thee groan,

Maimed, mangled by inhuman men; Or thou upon a desert thrown

Inheritest the lion's den' •

Or hast been summoned to the deep, Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep An incommunicable sleep.

I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me : 'tie falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead ; For, surely, then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night, With love and longings infinite.

My apprehensions come in crowds ; I dread the rustling of the grass ; The very shadows of the clouds Have power to shako me as they pass I question things and do not find One that will answer to my mind ; And all the world appears unkind.

Beyond participation lie My troubles, and beyond relief; If any chance to heave a sigh, They pity me, and not my grief.

Then come to me' my Son, or send

Some tidings that my woes may end ; I have no other earthly friend!"

The intensity of maternal passion, as it is reflected in the lonely musings of one who can concentrate as well as understand it, was never more powerfully translated into human speech. After this, we would place before the reader some of the many poems in which Wordsworth's feeling for the purest grace and beauty of human life, and his fine sense of the analogy between the beauty of nature and the beauty of human loveliness, are most exqui- sitely expressed,—as, for example, the lovely sonnet to a lady beautiful in her old age :— "Such age how beautiful ! 0 Lady bright,

Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined " By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind To something purer and more exquisite Than flesh and blood ; wheneer thou =meet my sight, When I behold thy blanched unwithered check, Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white, And head that droops because the soul is meek, Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare; That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb From desolation toward the genial prime ; Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air, And filling more and more with crystal light As pensive Evening deepens into night."

And then, rising a little higher, we would entreat the reader to let the perfect melody of "The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle" sink gradually into him, observing especially the remarkable contrast between the calm, sweet wisdom engendered in "The Shepherd-Lord" by his long seclusion in homely and peaceful scenes, and the eloquent conventional hopes of the local minstrel, with which it concludes :— "Again he wanders forth at will,

And tends a flock from hill to hill: His garb was humble ; ne'er was seen Such garb with such a noble mien ; Among the shepherd grooms no mate Hath he, a Child of strength and state!

Yet lacks no friends for simple glee, Nor yet for higher sympathy.

To his side the fallow-deer Came, and rested without fear; The eagle, lord of land and sea, Stooped down to pay him fealty ; And both the undying fish that swim Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him ; The pair were servants of his eye In their immortality ; And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright, Moved to and fro, for his delight.

Ho knew the rocks which Angels haunt Upon the mountains visitant ; He hath konned them taking wing : And into caves where Faeries sing He hath entered ; and been told By Voices how mon lived of old.

Among the heavens his eye can see The face of thing that is to be ; And, if that men report him right, His tongue could whisper words of might. —Now another day is come, Fitter hope, and nobler doom ; He bath thrown aside his crook, And bath buried deep his book ; Armour rusting in his halls

On the blood of Clifford calls;— 'Quell the Soot,' exclaims the Lance—

Bear me to the heart of France,

Is the longing of the Shield—

Toll thy name, thou trembling Field ; Field of death, whereer thou be, Groan thou with our victory Happy day, and mighty hour When our Shepherd, in his power, Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword, To his ancestors restored Like a reappearing Star, Like a glory from afar, First shall head the flock of war !"

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed How he, long forced in humble walks to go,

Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the Race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead : Nor did ho change ; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity bad bred.

Glad wore the vales, and every cottage-hearth ; The Shepherd-lord was honoured more and more ; And ages after he was laid in earth, 'The good Lord Clifford' was the name he bore."

if, after such an initiation as this, any average cultivated matt were not convinced that Wordsworth at his best was a great poet, we should almost despair of any large measure of popularity for Wordsworth. But with such an initiation, we think almost any cultivated man might be convinced that in Wordsworth there was indeed a great poet, however much also that was not great poetry, might have come out of him. And then, perhaps, we might go a little further, and the reader who had appreciated Wordsworth thus far, might by this time learn to understand the mystical grandeur of the "Ode to Duty ;" the meditative passion which, like a river which some- times runs above and sometimes underground, makes of "The Prelude," in spite of considerable intervals of prose, BO mag- nificent a poem ; the subtle splendour of the three poems on Yarrow ; and this latest of all the really great poems of Words- worth, his spiritual " Skylark " (written in 1825), in which the genius of the man may be said to be almost perfectly em- bodied :— " Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of [ho sky ! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? Thy neat which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still !

To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring Warbler ! that love-prompted strain ('Twist thee and thine a never-failing bond), Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : Else might'st thou seem, proud privilege ! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; A privacy of glorious light is thine ;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!"

Any one who had really learned to love this poem as it deserves, would hardly fail to love, in time, all that is great in Words- worth,—and is it not nearly half of all that he has written