production, to the unity of the author. If then we institute a critical inquiry into the unity of the Iliad, and this be once established, only two claims can emerge to dispute the right of having conceived it, those of the author and the editor.

Now the unity of such a work as the Iliad is of a complicated form, composed chiefly of these three elements- Unity of plan, which chiefly consists in the natural connexion and arrangement of events, so that the interest is sustained, and the action advances by necessary, yet unforeseen events, to a denoument which leaves the feeling and the wishes satisfied.- Unity of character is the second essential element, for if the same individual be not consistent with himself, the reader neither can recognise nor take interest in him. This, as well as the former offer strong ground for the belief of a real Homer. But the unity that arises from obvious equality of poetic genius will in most minds leave a strong impression of sameness or identity. We recognise at once the composition of a friend or an acquaintance by his style of thought and feeling; that is, by the mixture of love and power which give a colour to all he does or says. L'HISTOIRE.

John Horie

(To be continued.) Lol
afterwards a Free Pecoltena
minister in England.

A LEAF FROM WORDSWORTH.

IN Our 66 Chapter on Ghosts," the reader would no doubt discover that we entertain feelings of peculiar reverence and affection for the bard of "Rydal Mount." The very name of Wordsworth makes our bosom glow with all the ardour of enthusiasm. The most devoted lover that ever bowed at the shrine of beauty, cannot have experienced more sincere delight in hearing the name of his enchanter, than that which thrills through our very soul at the mention of the name of Wordsworth. We never weary in his presence; for often as we have gazed upon his beauties, and sat entranced till we imagined that nothing remained to be discovered, we never return to his presence without detecting some fresh loveliness which had hitherto escaped our notice. Who then can be surprised that our affection, instead of diminishing, should be constantly acquiring fresh vigour, and a firmer stability?

Those whose intellects are so frigid that they have never once felt the generous and expansive glow which is produced by the free exercise of the powers of imagination, and those who have wooed the muses but have met with a cold repulse, may regard these assertions as senseless rhapsodies. But far rather would we be carried onward by some impetuous stream with a rapidity that might fill a beholder with

dismay, and deprive us of all control over the vessel in which we sailed, if only its banks presented to our transient gaze the beautiful and the grand of nature's works, than sit in quietude upon the bosom of the most placid lake, or be borne by the gentle current of a softly flowing river, if there were nothing in the surrounding scenery to call forth a single emotion.

To do any thing like justice to the poetic merits of Wordsworth would require a work of no mean dimensions. Yea, we have the vanity to think that we could rival even some of the old divines in the number of our volumes, in attempting to delineate all the beauties with which his productions abound. Were we even to attempt to present to the reader a bare outline of his character as a poet, we should far exceed any limits which could be assigned to us in "The Peel Club Papers." We shall, therefore, satisfy ourselves with merely taking a leaf from "The Excursion," and endeavour to communicate to the individuals who may honour our paper with a perusal, a portion of our own enthusiasm

Take then that glorious passage in which the poet describes the youth of his truly sage and venerable Pedlar.

Born of poor but pious parents, "among the hills of Athol," far from the luxurious comforts and the educational advantages of this world's aristrocracy, the Pedlar, whom it is impossible to know and not to venerate, spent his happy childhood on the "small hereditary farm" of his virtuous parents. The summer months saw him on the hills " tending cattle," while the cold months of winter beheld him, equipped with sachel, not we will venture to say, creeping like a snail," as many a boy is wont to do, but now walking with a cheerful step, and now quickening his pace to a gentle run, towards the school where he eagerly drank in all the knowledge which his preceptor could afford, and from which "in solitude returning," he often

"Saw the hills

Grow larger in the darkness, all alone

Beheld the stars come out above his head,

And travelled through the wood, with no one near
To whom he might confess the things he saw.'

His stock of books was small, for though

"He read, and read again,

Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied;"

we may be allowed, without exposing ourselves to the charge of heresy, to express a doubt concerning the weight of literature which that "old shelf" sustained. But books were not the source from which the boy

derived his knowledge. Gifted by nature with a mind of vast capacities, and with a quickness of apprehension rarely equalled,

He studied nature. He sat, as it were, at the feet of the Great Eternal. His mind struggled to comprehend the vast and the sublime, and the very efforts it put forth fitted it for still greater exertions. Every change of season, every variety of aspect which nature assumed, every newly-discovered feature in the scenery around him, left its impression upon his character. Nature, as he communed with her, transferred to his mind a portion of her own greatness. What wonder then that, though a boy, he should have attained a nobility which riches cannot purchase, and of which the proudest aristocrat may be destitute— the nobility of the soul. A boyhood thus spent gave presage of the youth that was to follow. But here let the poet speak

"Such was the boy-but for the growing youth,
What soul was his, when, from the naked top
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light!"

What a spectacle to one so educated! Beautiful to any not utterly destitute of taste and feeling, but thrice beautiful to one endowed with an intelleet so capacious and an imagination so powerful. What sight, even in nature which teems with wonders, can be compared to the coming forth of the glorious luminary of day? And yet how few have ever witnessed it, or have done so with that delight which it never fails to awaken in the bosoms of those who commune with deity through the medium of his works. But our youth was an early riser. He wasted not the calm invigorating hours of morning upon a luxurious and enervating couch, but his mind received from the morning air a tone of vigour which fitted it for active contemplation.

"He looked

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched,
And in their silent faces could he read
Unutterable love."

What truth! what beauty! is in this description. Who cannot see the calm repose of the dark blue ocean the tranquil beauty of the rich and varied landscape, and the smiling softness of the scarcely-moving

clouds! We are at once transported to the same "bold headland," and standing beside the youth, we gaze in pleasing wonder upon the scene. Rapt in the contemplation of so glorious a spectacle, his every power was absorbed.

"Sound needed none,

Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,

And by them did he live; they were his life."

Let no one accuse the poet of too far materializing the mind in thus representing it as blending with the material universe, or imagine that the association degrades rather than exalts the soul. We have no sympathy with the grovelling creed of the materialist. We glory in the spirituality of that mysterious principle which constitutes us the lords of this lower creation. We feel the dignity which it imparts to that curious mechanism of ours, which "is of the earth, earthy," for it links us to the bright spirits who surround the throne of the Infinite. We know that the most glorious object of the material universe, which has ever excited the wonder and admiration of the beholder, is unconscious of the hand that made it, is unable to rise to the contemplation of the infinite perfections of that inscrutable Being who spake it into existence, and is destined to perish. But still we can see how the mind, in all its loftiness and spirituality of nature, may receive much of its greatness from that which is outward and material. Nature, in every part, bears the impress of its Almighty Creator, and reflects a portion of his image. When, therefore, we commune with nature as the work of Deity, and constantly recognise the perfections of his character which are there shadowed forth, we in fact walk with Deity itself, and receive, through the medium of his works, a portion, small though it be, of his own infinite excellencies. Nor do we thus give to the objects of sense a glory to which they are not entitled. It is the embodied principle and not the material object itself which affects the mind. And remember, that the youth had been privileged with pious parents and with free access to the library at the manse, and thus, while the capacities of his mind were unfolding themselves under the influence of those scenes with which he was daily familiar, he would not be left ignorant of that Being whose wisdom, and power and goodness were manifested in every object. Hence the poet represents these seasons of ecstatic joy which were spent in communing with nature, as seasons of direct intercourse with Deity :

:

"In such access of mind, in such high hour
of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired."

The scenes he witnessed were too vast, and their effect upon his mind of too overpowering a nature to admit of thought. The powers of his mind were oppressed by the very weight of enjoyment to which the scenes gave rise. Reader! can you not sympathise with the noble youth? Have you never stood in mute enjoyment upon some lofty eminence from which you looked down upon a scene of surpassing grandeur, and felt as it were entranced, and though you had by your side a friend equally enthusiastic with yourself in his admiration of the works of nature, found yourself utterly unable to give expression to the feelings which oppressed your mind? If you have, you will easily understand how it was that

"No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request;

Rapt in still communion that transcends

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,

His mind was a thanksgiving to the power

That made him; it was blessedness and love!"

Was not such a youth an exalted being? He lacked, it is true, exalted station in the ranks of artificial society; he might have been looked down upon by some as low and vulgar, because born of poor parents and unaccustomed to the refinements of life, but his nature was of the highest order, and the sources of his pleasure of the purest character. Valuable as are the distinctions of rank which have obtained amongst us, and senseless as is the cry which has been raised against the aristocracy of our country, (an aristocracy which has proved itself the safeguard of our Constitution, and stands, at the present day, as one of Britain's greatest glories), we ought never to forget that men in general, whatever be their station in worldly rank, are endowed with the same immaterial spirit, whose powers admit of almost unlimited cultivation, and furnish them with capacities for attaining the highest pitch of moral grandeur, while they open up to them sources of the purest and most enduring delight. But let us return from this digression to the poet's exquisite description

"A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops,
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed."

What a depth of meaning is there in that single word, possessed! Why," some blockhead may be ready to ask, "does not every on