To pass from the essential poetic element in a writer of genius, to his artistic skill, is a felt, yet necessary descent—like the painter compelled, after sketching the man’s countenance, to draw his dress. And yet, as of some men and women, the very dress, by its simplicity, elegance, and unity, seems fitted rather to garb the soul than the body—seems the soul made visible—so is it with the style and manner of many great poets. Their speech and music without are as inevitable as their genius, or as the song forever sounding within their souls. And why? The whole ever tends to beget a whole—the large substance to cast its deep, yet delicate shadow—the divine to be like itself in the human, on which its seal is set. So it is with Wordsworth. That profound simplicity—that clear obscurity—that night-like noon—that noon-like night—that one atmosphere of overhanging Deity, seen weighing upon ocean and pool, mountain and mole-hill, forest and flower—that pellucid depth—that entireness of purpose and fullness of power, connected with fragmentary, willful, or even weak execution—that humble, yet proud, precipitation of himself, Antæus-like, upon the bosom of simple scenes and simple sentiments, to regain primeval vigor—that obscure, yet lofty isolation, like a tarn, little in size, but elevated in site, with few visitors, but with many stars—that Tory-Radicalism, Popish-Protestantism, philosophical Christianity, which have rendered him a glorious riddle, and made Shelley, in despair of finding it out, exclaim, “No Deist, and no Christian he, No Whig, no Tory. He got so subtle, that to be _Nothing_ was all his glory,”— all such apparent contradictions, but real unities, in his poetical and moral creed and character, are fully expressed in his lowly but aspiring language, and the simple, elaborate architecture of his verse—every stone of which is lifted up by the strain of strong logic, and yet laid to music; and, above all, in the choice of his subjects, which range, with a free and easy motion, up from a garden spade and a village drum, to the “celestial visages” which darkened at the tidings of man’s fall, and to the “organ of eternity,” which sung pæans over his recovery. We sum up what we have further to say of Wordsworth, under the items of his works, his life and character, his death; and shall close by inquiring, Who is worthy to be his successor?