the deep unfathomable secrecies of human thought-would to Heaven it were allowed to others to do likewise! And he hath been rewarded with many new cogitations of nature and of nature's God; and he hath heard, in the stillness of his retreat, many new voices of his conscious spirit-all which he hath sung in harmonious numbers. But mark the Epicurean soul of this degraded age! They have frowned on him; they have spit on him; they have grossly abused him. The masters of this critical generation (like generation, like masters) have raised the hue and cry against him; the literary and sentimental world, which is their sounding-board, hath reverberated it; and every reptile, who can retail an opinion in print, hath spread it, and given his reputation a shock, from which it is slowly but surely recovering. All for what? For making nature and his own bosom his home, and daring to sing of the simple but sublime truths which were revealed to him-for daring to be free in his manner of uttering genuine feeling, and depicting natural beauty, and grafting thereon devout and solemn contemplations of God. Had he sent his Cottage Wanderer forth upon an Excursion' amongst courts and palaces, battle-fields, and scenes of faithless gallantry, his musings would have been more welcome, being far deeper and more tender than those of the heartless Childe;' but because the man hath valued virtue, and retiring modesty, and common household truth, over these the ephemeral decorations or excessive depravities of our condition, therefore he is hated and abused." 6 Now all this, which was intended to be very fine, appears to us be the merest puerile declamation; and it is, besides, (what is quite out of all rule in a Christian teacher) an attempt to domineer over the free expression of public opinion, in matters purely temporal, by spiritual threats and denunciations. If Mr. Wordsworth had been an extraordinarily gifted being, who had brought tidings of immortal truths in morals or science, and had been scurvily used by his age, it might have been pardonable, if not appropriate, in one of his friends to slide ⚫ him into a theological treatise in the character of a dishonoured prophet. But the plain matter of fact is, that this gentleman's career has not been peculiarly sacred or supernatural; neither has it, as far as we can discover, been visited with that precise degree of martyrdom that could warrant so vehement an episode in his behalf. As to worldly matters, Mr. W. has long held a lucrative appointment under the Crown. We glance at this, not surely for the purpose of casting any imputation upon him or his patrons, but simply to shew that so far he has not been a neglected man. He has, on the contrary, been a fortunate and a favoured man. Mr. Irving should have recollected this, and have given the age of Wordsworth a little credit for so material an item in its dealings with him. But Mr. Wordsworth has been a poet, and the wrongs his genius has encountered from this "reptile" age, have been, it would appear, of so transcendant a cast, as to be made a fit subject of ghostly sympathy and indignation in a discourse upon doomsday and the doctrine of final retribution. Now these mighty and unprecedented indignities, which Mr. Irving would thus preposterously exalt into an affair of the skies, consist of two or three, not unfrequent, and with deference we say it, altogether earthy circumstances. Mr. Wordsworth is a clever man, and has the pardonable ambition of being thought so. Living at his ease-happily for himself, undistracted by the cares and bustle of active life, he has indulged a good deal in imaginative reveries, and has submitted numerous specimens of his musings to the decision of the public. The public, not a very unusual proceeding, have differed upon their merits. They suited the taste of some, and these persons have been as ardent in their eulogies, as Mr. Irving or Mr. Wordsworth himself could desire. Others, however, took the "reptile" side of the question, and explained their reasons. They admitted, and warmly commended his occasional tenderness and sublimity, but they also saw much to condemn and deplore. They denied that they could understand him, where in point of fact he was unintelligible. They reprobated his propensity to form fantastic conjunctions between what was elevated in sentiment and mean and repulsive in real life. Adopting the principle, that verisimilitude was a prime essential in every work of art, they did not expect to be rated from the pulpit for suggesting that a pedlar, with a poetical pair of wings, was an innovation upon good taste-that a sentimental leechcatcher was not at all adapted to catch the public-that a metaphysical vagrant could never be rendered an appropriate expounder of the mysterious movements of the soul of man. Mr. Irving may like all this, and we shall never make any unmannerly attack upon him for differing from us, but in the name of fair-dealing, let him not overwhelm us with his holy vituperation for presuming in matters of criticism to judge for ourselves. To conclude our remarks upon Mr. Irving and his oratory, we do not hesitate to assert, that he has altogether mistaken the extent of his powers, and the taste and spirit of the age before which it has been his lot to display them. He might have done in the days of Knox-proffers of martyrdom and flaming invectives were in those times provoked, and were therefore natural and laudable-now, they are unnecessary, and for that reason ridiculous. But it is Mr. Irving's fate, when he gets upon a favourite topic, to throw aside the important fact that he is living and exhorting in the year 1823, and in the metropolis of England. He is far fitter to be a missionary among semibarbarous tribes, than an enforcer of doctrines that are already familiar to his hearers; or he would do excellently well as a reclaimer of a horde of banditti in some alpine scene. There, amidst the waving of pines, and rustling of foliage, with rocks and hills and cataracts, and a wilder audience around him, his towering stature, vehement action, and clanging tones, would be in perfect keeping. His terrific descriptions of a sinner's doom would touch the stubborn consciences of his lawless flock. His copious tautology and gaudy imagery would be welcomed by their rude fancies as the most captivating eloquence. To them, his exagge ration would be energy-his fury, the majesty of an inspired intellectbut in these countries his coming has been a couple of centuries too late. We understand that he has been called "an eloquent barbarian :" it would have been more correct to say that his was barbarous oratory. THE TRANCE OF LOVE. FROM THE ITALIAN. LOVE in a drowsy mood one day And faded where the flowers that crown'd him; At length a stranger sought the grove, When lo! th' invader cried, "Farewell, M. A. THE LADIES versus THE GENTLEMEN. MR. EDITOR, I hope I shall not be accused of an "ignorant impatience," if at the end of seven years from the battle of Waterloo, I complain that matrimony is not yet reduced in these kingdoms to a peaceestablishment. Our ears have been dinned with the outcries of starving manufacturers; and the men in our family have been for ever occupied in getting up and attending meetings on agricultural distress; but not one word have you heard of complaint from the fair sex, not one remonstrance, not one petition lies on the table of the House from the "distressed spinsters;" though our bachelors continue to "caper nimbly in a lady's chamber" without a notion of wedlock, and, when our mothers hint an inquiring innuendo, as to their "intentions," coolly parry the attack by quoting a chapter from Malthus. During the continuance of a war, by which the female world was threatened with the fulfilment of Mother Shipton's ill-omened prophecy of but one husband among six wives, it was nothing very extraordinary that mothers should encounter some little difficulty in getting off "a set" of daughters; and as I am one of a rather numerous family, my expectations, notwithstanding my being "brought out" by a very marrying chaperon, were not exalted. But now, when "Grim-visaged war has smooth'd his wrinkled front;" and all the professions are overstocked,-when men are "as plenty as blackberries," and Captains and Colonels have nothing better to do with themselves than to "marry and settle in the country," "I lose my patience, and I own it too," at finding our difficulties rather increase than diminish; and at observing the Lady Aucherleys as much embarrassed as ever with their "nine Miss Simmon's." Individually, Sir, I have as yet no reason for despair: my charms are not yet faded; nor do I receive any broad hints from the men that I am singled out for singleness. On the contrary, I have no lack of "cututton majors" and sauntering cornets, to spoil our sofas with their boots, and to waste precious time in a gossipry that like the passages in Gray's Long Story, "lead to nothing." Our house, indeed, is con stantly beset with these idlers, ever ready to "bestow their tediousness on whoever will listen to them," and always in marching order, to "breakfast, dine, or sup, with Nong-tong-paw," to ride away mornings and flirt away nights. But they have no more idea of marrying than of settling their debts; and should a girl be weak enough to listen to them, would as soon think of repaying the father's dinners as returning the daughter's passion. No, Sir, the young men of the present day may "court an amorous looking-glass," but if they court any thing else, it is with no settled purpose: for the only “tie” which does not fill them with horror, is the tie of their cravat. It was not, then, without considerable indignation that I perused your animadversions upon female speculations in matrimony, in a recent article on "Select Society;" which accuses our mothers of their mercenary attentions to young men, and of going out of their way to marry their daughters; and which treats us as little better than common swindlers and takers of husbands upon false pretences. Really, Mr. Editor, this is most unreasonable! for, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, surely Mahomet must go to the mountain. Besides, the statement is altogether exparte, and “like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side." For if the attack of an experienced matron is often closely calculated and well-combined, the beaux are on their side perfect Vaubans, and conduct the defence with a skill and pertinacity at least equal to that of the besiegers. There is nothing on earth so impenetrable as a genuine dangler, nothing so rusé as a trading lady's man. If he finds himself left out of a party, and neglected, as one from whom nothing is to be expected, he immediately takes the alarm, grows warm in his manner, constant in his attentions, and does "l'impossible," to induce an inference that he is about "to pop the question." Nothing, however, is farther from his intention; and no sooner does he perceive that he has excited an interest, and that mamma begins to have her eye on him, than he draws in his horns like a snail, entrenches himself in generalities, avoids all openings to an éclaircissement, and “backs out” (to use a phrase of his own) with a dexterity, which leaves neither the consolation of being affronted, nor the advantage of disengagement. In this way he alternately blows hot and cold, as the occasion may require, tantalizing mother and daughter with an endless succession of hopes, which he never means to realize, and of fears which he takes good care shall never be reduced to certainty. Years pass, seasons succeed to seasons, "whole summer suns roll unperceived away," and we are "surprised to hear that we grow old," without, at the same time, hearing any thing of a ring and a licence. Sketches of Character." Upon creatures such as these "cupboard lovers," feeling and affection would be flung away. The cold, the heartless, and the speculating, are alone safe in their society; and if in a game of "diamond cut diamond," a rich young egoist is now and then " brought down at a long shot," or enticed by a scientific combination of female wit, matronly cunning, and fraternal surveillance, into committing matrimony, where is the mighty harm? According to all codes, murder in self-defence is justifiable. Then, in the name of mercy, leave us poor girls to be "killing" in our own way, and do not insist upon a candour and sensibility, which, meeting no return, is at least as idiotical as it is innocent. It is scarcely possible to conceive a situation more pitiable, than that of an amiable, frank, and warm-hearted girl, who listens unsuspectingly to the blandishments of one of these mock sentimentalists, believing a man merely because he tells a lie with a grave face, and suffering herself to be entrapped into a real passion, for a wretch fit only to associate with St. Augustine's snow lady. "Once and but once, my heedless youth was bit;" when, finding a good deal of apparent good-nature, and some really good conversation, with a more than usual warmth and sincerity of manner, I really thought that at last I had met "my match." Abandoning myself to all those sentiments which are natural to our sex on the presumption of a solid engagement, and indulging in all those illusions "Che gusta un cor amato riamando," I cherished during an entire winter the flattering error. I mistook assiduity for affection, and an air empressé, for a genuine attachment. Mais hélas! "airs empressés, vous n'êtes pas l'amour!" At the proper season for leaving town we went to a fashionable watering-place, in order to avoid the inconvenience of a direct invitation of the swain, on a visit to our own house in the country; and he did not follow us, but set off to Paris, in search, as we were informed, of fresh game, leaving me to drink the spa-water, and experience Quel che puo sdegno in cor di donna amante." I cannot express to you how deeply I was (not mortified, no, that feeling was quite absorbed in a more painful sentiment, but) wounded. Shame at being so egregiously duped, and humiliation at the advantage I had afforded to a heartless puppy, in suffering him to read and play upon my affections, remained dormant for months, while I was absorbed by the more tender emotions I had so imprudently allowed to grow up in my bosom. But as I have some firmness of mind and natural spirit, indignation at length took the lead, and I was no longer unhappy. In the good old times, we women had only to be on our guard against the men who had designs on our persons. A reasonable portion of prudence and propriety sufficed to ensure a girl a triumph over her would-be seducer, and seldom failed to conduct the wincing, reluctant Lovelace unto the bands of holy matrimony-a striking example of the superiority of virtue over vice, and of the force of beauty armed by modesty and discretion. But now these dangers exist only in novels. A girl of real flesh and blood has nothing to encounter half so formidable as the Adonises who have no designs at all. Actions |