commenced the review of Wordsworth's Excursion with the ludicrous words,--"This will never do!" and declared that there was not a line of poetry, or scarcely of common sense, in it, "from the hour that the driveler squatted himself down in the sun, to the end of his preaching." Let every youthful aspirant remember this history; and that if criticism could prevail over genius, we should not at this moment have one great established poet on our list of fame. Wordsworth's poetical philosophy is now thought to be too well known to need much explanation. He has indeed expounded it himself in almost every page. Yet, after all the brilliant and profound criticism which has been expended upon it, by almost every review in these kingdoms, and by every writer on poetry and poets, the simple truth remains to be told. The fact lay too much on the surface for very deep and metaphysical divers to perceive. It was too obvious to be seen by those who profess to see farther into a millstone than any body else. And what, then, is the fundamental philosophy of Wordsworth? It is, what he, perhaps, would himself start to hear, simply a poetic Quakerism. The Quaker's religious faith is in immediate inspiration. He believes that if he "centers down," as he calls it, into his own mind, and puts to rest all his natural faculties and thoughts, he will receive the impulses and intimations of the Divine Spirit. He is not to seek, to strive, to inquire, but to be passive, and receive. This is precisely the great doctrine of Wordsworth, as it regards poetry. He believes the Divine Spirit which fills the universe, to have so molded all the forms of visible nature, as to make them to us perpetual monitors and instructors:-- "To inform The mind that is within us; to impress With quietness and beauty, and to feed With lofty thoughts." Thus, in Expostulation and Reply, this doctrine is most distinctly pronounced:-- "'Why, William, on that old gray stone Thus for the length of half-a-day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away? "'Where are your books? that light bequeathed To beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed From dead men to their kind. "'You look round on your mother earth, As if she for no purpose bore you; As if you were her first-born birth, And none had lived before you!' "One morning thus by Esthwaite Lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why, To me my good friend Mathew spake, And thus I made reply:-- "'The eye it can not choose but see; We can not bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will. "'Nor less I deem that there are powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feel, this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.