A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved All over this still ocean, and beyond Far, far beyond the solid vapours stretched In headlands, hills, and promontory shapes, Into the main Atlantic, that appeared To dwindle, and give up his majesty Usurped upon, far as the sight could reach. Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light In the clear presence of the full-orbed moon, Who, from her sovereign elevation gazed Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay All meek and silent, save that thro’ a rift-- Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing place-- Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams Innumerable, roaring with one voice! Heard over earth and sea, and in that hour, For so it seemed, felt by the starry heaven.” This is poetry; and with the exception of the Arab and Dromedary passage, is certainly the finest in the “Prelude.” After the completion of this tour, Wordsworth was urged by his friends to take holy orders; but he was not of age for ordination, nor was his mind sufficiently imbued with love for the clerical functions at this time, even had he been of age, to have induced him to have assumed them. A Mr. Robinson offered him the curacy of Harwich, whilst he was in Wales, and the curacy was the high way to the Living. But from the above circumstances, and other motives of an active and political nature, the offer was declined, and his non-age was the apology. The truth is, that Wordsworth, like all the young, enthusiastic, and highly-gifted men of that time, was filled with the grand idea of liberty, and the hope of further enfranchisement from old forms of error and superstition, which France had raised upon the theatre of her soil. And accordingly, in November, 1791, he determined to cross the channel, and winter in Orleans, that he might watch the progress of events. He had at this time a very imperfect acquaintance with the French language, and set out on his journey alone. In that same month, France was in the convulsions of her first agony--her first birth-pangs of Revolution. “The National Assembly met; the party of Madame Roland and the Brissotins were in the ascendant; the war of La Vendee was raging; the army was in favour of a constitutional monarchy; Dumourier was Minister of the Exterior; a German army was hovering on the French frontier; popular sedition was fomented by the Girondists, in order to intimidate the government, and overawe the Crown. In the following year, 1792, the sanguinary epoch of the Revolution commenced; committees of public safety struck terror into the hearts of thousands; the king was thrown into the prison of the Temple; the massacres of September, perpetrated by Danton and his associates, to daunt the invading army and its adherents, deluged Paris