WORDSWORTH'S POEMS OF EARLY AND LATE YEARS. Tam volume contains

"The Borderers," a tragedy, composed in 1795-6, but kept secret even from the author's friends; a variety of occasional poems, written long since, but now first published ; "Memoriala of a Tour in Italy," performed within these few years, and consisting of themes suggested by some of the scenes visited ; together with a variety of Sonnets, composed for the most part at a late period.

"The Borderers" is the peculiar feature of the volume, for it exhibits WORDSWORTH as a dramatic poet ; a character to which he is unequal by nature, unfitted by his whole course of study and meditation, and which it would have been as well for his reputation had be never thought of claiming, especially after his own well- grounded doubt of half a century. In "The Borderers" there is neither action, passion, nor dialogue,—meaning by dialogue, a dis- course natural to people in the circumstances of the dramatis person, and not a series of soliloquies or polylogues, in which the author is giving utterance to his own sentiments, or acquainting the audience with matters which the tellers must know already. Nor is there, what will for a season sometimes compensate for all these things, situation : once there is a momentary burst from the outlaws, and once there is a sudden entrance, which are effective in themselves and cause an expectation that something will follow ; but the momentary swell of the high-toned lyre quickly sinks down to the piping of the oaten reed.

The scene of "The Borderers" is the confines of England and Scotland; the time that of Henry the Third ; the subject, the love of Marmaduke, a gentle leader of a band of outlaws, for Idonea, brought up as a blind beggar's daughter, but which beggar is in reality a noble, dispossessed of his estates by an enemy during his absence in the Crusades. The dramatic interest sought to be evolved is to cross this love : which is accomplished by Oswald,

the villain of the piece, possessing Marmaduke with the belief that the beggar is not the father of Idonea, but has brought her up to

sell her to a licentious baron. This very shallow artifice, very flimsily enforced, is successful ; Marmaduke exposes the beggar on a barren moor to the "judgment of God" ; and Lord Herbert is found dead just as his daughter announces the restoration of his titles and estates.

To many readers, the very subject itself will seem unnatural; but, though doubtless extreme, and in its nature much more fitted for a border ballad than a tragedy, an outlaw in those times might be a person of some humanity and moral principle, and a noble re- duced to the depths of distress. The failure consists in the inherent improbability of the conduct of the story. Oswald has no sufficient motive for his villany; Marmaduke believes a most unlikely tale on testimony obviously suspicious ; and all this is done in the teeth of warning from his band as to the character of his confidant Oswald. Though these incongruities would have prevented " The Borderers" from ever ranking high as a drama, it might have been effective as a play had it possessed more dra-

matic spirit in character and language. But the persons are not

cast in the mould of the age. Oswald is a metaphysical creation, who speculates himself into crime ; Marmaduke is what actors call a "walking gentleman" ; and the others, if distinctive, have no dramatic distinction. The language is often poetical, with de- scriptions curiously felicitous or sentiments characteristic of the writer ; though the last are often injured in effect, not merely by being out of' place, but by the author constraining himself as far as he could to the necessities of the drama.

The other principal poem is " Guilt and Sorrow "; expanded from " The Female Vagrant," published in 1798. The theme of this poem is a sailor murderer, returning after long years of absence to meet his vagrant wife, without recognizing her, to hear of the loss of his children and witness her own death. And here are the elements of bumble tragedy—such tragedy as occurs daily when abject poverty with its evil concomitants impels to crime. It is developed, too, in the most effective manner. The incidents are natural, the accessories appropriate ; the manners, presented in their essence, have truth without grossness ; and the style is adapted to the theme. The poem is better appreciated as a whole than in quotation ; but we take the beginning as a sample, which describes the opening-scene and indicates the origin of the tragedy

"A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare; Stooping his gait, but not as if to gain Help from the staff he bore ; for mien and air Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care Both of the time to come and time long fled: Down fell in straggling locks his thin gray hair; A coat he wore of military red, But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred.

'While thus he journeyed, step by step led on, He saw and passed a stately inn, full sure That welcome in such house for him was none: No board inscribed the needy to allure Hung there; no bush proclaimed to old and poor

And desolate, Here you will find a friend!,

The pendant grapes glittered above the door. On he must pace, perchance 'till night descend, Where'er the dreary roads their bare white lines extend.

"The gathering clouds grew red with stormy fire, In streaks diverging wide and mounting high: That inn be long had passed ; the distant spire, Which oft as he looked back had fixed his eye, Was lost, though still he looked, in the blank sky. Perplexed and comfortless he gazed around, And scarce could any trace of man descry, Save corn-fields stretched and stretching without bound; But where the sower dwelt was nowhere to be found.

"No tree was there, no meadow's pleasant green, No brook to wet his lip or soothe his ear;

Long files of corn-stacks here and there were seen,

But not one dwelling-place his heart to cheer. Some labourer, thought he, may perbanee be near; And so he sent a feeble shout—in vain ; No voice made answer ; he could only hear Winds rustling over plots of unripe grain, Or whistling through thin grass along the unfarrowed plain.

"Long had he fancied each successive slope Concealed some cottage, whither he might tarn And rest ; but now along heaven's darkening cope The crows rushed by in eddies, homeward borne. Thus warned, be sought some shepherd's spreading thorn Or hovel, from the storm to shield his head; But sought in vain ; for now, all wild, forlorn, And vacant, a huge waste around. him spread ; The wet cold ground, he feared, must be his only bed.

"And be it so—for to the chill night shower And the sharp wind his head he oft bath bared : A sailor he, who many a wretched hour Bath told : for, landing after labour hard, Three years endured in hope of just reward,

Be to an armed fleet was forced away

By seamen, who perhaps themselves had shared.

Like fate; was hurried off, a helpless prey, 'Gainst all that in his heart, or theirs perhaps, said nay."

The sonnets and miscellaneous poems are numerous, and of varying merit ; but none of them have struck us as being of a high character. We are not, however, indiscriminate admirers of

WORDSWORTH, and our opinion must therefore be taken with a

large allowance by those who are. The most curious (though by no means the best) are the two sonnets on Thrasymene, for the

comparison they enable the reader to make with BYRON'S powerful passage on the same subject. (C/elide Harold) Canto IV, stanza

lxii, et seq.)