the ventilator of the Commons, triumphed equally at Jeddo. It sometimes happened that a single male visiter came attended by six ladies-a circumstance which Mr. Fischer states by no means ́tended to protract the consumption of certain stores of liqueurs and confectionary which such occasions brought into play. Presents were interchanged according to the rank of the parties. A Dutch word or two written on the fan, as a substitute for an album, satisfied many of small pretensions. The secretaries of the government of Sadsuma brought an offering of twelve beautiful birds, fifteen rare plants, two lapdogs, two rabbits, with silks and other articles, conveyed in cages and cases which in value and beauty far exceeded their contents.

On the 6th of April, the great purpose of the mission was accomplished in the formal audience-to which the head of the embassy alone is admitted-of the emperor. The president is, however, attended to the threshold of sovereignty by his two European companions. After entering the palace, and waiting for an hour in a saloon, where they were exposed to the only circumstances savouring of impertinence or insult of which Mr. Fischer has, in his entire narrative, to complain, they entered the hall of audience, which he thus describes :

It is very large, but simple, and without pomp of decoration. They pointed out to us, facing the entrance, an elevated spot destined for the appearance of the emperor; on its left hand, the places for the princes of the blood, and the imperial councillors, according to their rank. Although every part of the palace, seen by us, is remarkable for elaborate and beautiful construction, as well as for a general air of grandeur in comparison with other buildings, this part of it is too particularly set apart for public occasions to allow of much display of pomp and luxury. The proportions of the doors and shutters are colossal, and the Japan work, gilding, and carving, rich, yet simple. When we returned to the ante-chamber a heavy storm arose, which fortunately lasted but for a moment, as otherwise the audience would probably have been postponed, seeing that his imperial majesty has a great dread of thunder. At eleven o'clock the president was summoned to his audience, from which he returned in about half an hour. The whole ceremony consisted in his making his compliment in the Japanese fashion from the spot appointed, and remaining, for a few seconds, with his head bowed to the matted floor, till the words " Capitan Hollanda" were cried aloud. A deep ŝilence reigned, only interrupted by a gentle murmur, with which the Japanese express profound reverence. The governor of Nagasaki, and the chief interpreter, were the only persons who accompanied the president, and gave him the signal of permission to depart, which is effected, like his entrance, in an inclined posture, so that the party is aware indeed of the presence of a number of persons, but, without violating the rules of Japanese politeness, cannot look about him,

or

or indulge his curiosity as to surrounding objects which might deserve it.'

On the whole, though occasionally oppressed with visits, and once exposed to a scientific examination from a whole faculty of royal astrologers (as was the physician of the embassy to a five hours' interrogatory from sixteen of his brother professors), Mr. Fischer speaks in the highest terms of the kindness and hospitality with which he was treated during his stay at Jeddo. Some of his friends put his risible faculties to the test by the compliment of appearing at his quarters in Dutch apparel, of ancient and various date and fashion.

We wish we could afford more of our pages to this remote and remarkable people; but for the present we must stop. We leave them to the complacent enjoyment of the conviction, that they are the first of nations, and the eldest descendants of the Deity. We leave them satisfied of their absolute and universal excellence, wanting no change- least of all, such change as we could give them,'-and tenacious of the maxim, that the commands of their emperor are like the sweat of man's body, which once exuded, returns not again to its source;' and we only further subjoin the well-balanced summary of their character with which Mr. Meylan closes his interesting volume :- Cunning, polite, suspicious, reserved, sensual, impatient, haughty, superstitious, revengeful, cruel in cold blood, on the one side; on the other, just and honest, patriotic, exemplary in the relations of parent and child, firm friends, and probably not deficient in courage.'

ART. II.—1. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. A new Edition. In 4 vols. Longman and Co. 2. Selections from the Poems of William Wordsworth. 12mo. Moxon. 1834.

1 vol.

MR. WORDSWORTH'S prefatory theories have been for

many years sufficiently vexed and controverted; and the time seems to have come when, if we are to pause at all upon this threshold of his works, it should be with a view rather to a statement of results than to a continuance of the disputation. In point of opinion the result has been, we should say, as to the matter of poetic diction, a very general admission that no real elevation can be given to poetry by the use of phrases which are no otherwise poetical than as not being met with in prose. In point of practice, the result might have been equally decided, if certain results of a different character had not been thrown up at

the

the same time from other sources. Some reforms have been effected, however. The poetical vocabulary in use precedently to Mr. Wordsworth's prefaces has been expurgated; Poetry is, in some particulars, more plain-spoken than she was then used to be; and some things are now called by their right names which were then considered to be more favourably presented to the poetical reader under any other denominations than those which belong to them in the language of real life. Thus the bird commonly known by the name of the nightingale is now so called in poetry; whereas before Mr. Wordsworth's time no poet could be content to give it an appellation less poetical than Philomel,' or 'tuneful bird of night;' and the luminary which was formerly graced with some such titular distinction as Bright Phoebus,' or 'Apollo's golden fire,' is now to be met with in a volume of poetry under the same name as that which is given to it in the almanac.

So far the prefaces did their work; but hardly was it accomplished, when there sprang up a new growth of abuses; and whilst some of these bore a very close resemblance to their predecessors, others, though having their root in the same soil, tended more dangerously to the corruption of style, inasmuch as they were of a more covert and surreptitious nature. A bald misnomer like that of Philomel' or ' Bulbul,'' Albion' or 'Erin,' is sure to be shortly weeded out of the language to which it does not belong; but there are ways at the present time of falsifying genuine English words for purposes supposed to be poetical, which are more insidious, inasmuch as they carry with them not merely a confusion of tongues, but a confusion of ideas; and often also, by really conveying a sentiment, give some colour to their pretext of conveying a sense.

If we look through some volume of current poetry for one of those words which seem to be considered eminently poetical at the present day-the adjective 'wild' for example-and consider it closely in the many situations in which it will be found to recur, we shall in general find it to be used, not for the sake of any meaning, definite or indefinite, which it can be supposed legitimately to bear, but-in a manner which Mr. Wordsworth's prefaces will be found to explain-for the sake of conjuring up certain associations somewhat casually connected with it. It has been originally, perhaps, employed with propriety, and with distinguished success, in some passages conceived in the same mood of mind, and pointed to the same effects which are aimed at by its subsequent employers; the word takes, as it were, the colour of these original passages; becomes a stock-word with those who have more of the feeling of poetry than of discrimination in the use of language, and is employed thenceforward with a progressively

diminishing

diminishing concern for its intrinsic significancy, or for the propriety of the applications which are made of it. The adjectives bright, dark, lonely, the nouns light, dream, halo, and fifty other words, might be instanced, which are scattered almost at random through our fugitive poetry, with a sort of feeling senselessness, and convey to the congenial reader the sentiment of which they are understood to be the symbols, without either suggesting to him any meaning, or awakening him to the want of it. In some instances it does not seem to be necessary that the word should be otherwise than misplaced, even in the passage which may have first given the impulse which led to the indiscriminate use of it. The mind, the music breathing from her face,' is suggestive of as much false metaphor as could well be concentrated in a single line; but it conveyed some vague impressions of beauty and fervour, and was associated with the feelings with which Lord Byron's writings were usually read; and to breathe' became thenceforth, amongst the followers of Lord Byron, a verb poetical which meant anything but respiration. Indeed, the abuse scems to have spread to a circle which might be supposed to be remote from Lord Byron's influence; for a book was published two or three years ago with the title of Holy Breathings.'

These errors, when they shall have become old and tiresome, will probably give way, like those which preceded them, on the one hand, to more fresh and fashionable faults, and on the other, to a renewed application of Mr. Wordsworth's principles of poetic diction. Natural good sense and good taste will always conquer at last, though they will never be in want of new worlds. of error to oppugn; and upon the sense and taste of the natural human understanding Mr. Wordsworth's principles will be found to rest, if they be accepted with the modifications which may be considered to have fairly resulted from the discussion that they have undergone. So accepted, they would teach the poet, not to draw his language exclusively from that of common life, nor indeed to reject, from some kinds of poetry, language of a highly scholastic and composite structure; but in general to use the same language which is employed in the writings and conversations of other men, when they write and discourse their best -to avoid any words which are not admissible in good prose or unaffected conversation, whether erudite or ordinary-and especially to avoid the employment of any words in a sense which is not their legitimate prosaic sense. The more these rules are observed, the more benefit will accrue to the writers and readers of poems at least to those writers who can afford to deal in clear ideas, and to those readers who have so far exercised their faculties as to be desirous to understand a meaning in poetry.

If

If the influence of Mr. Wordsworth's works has (as we believe it has) added largely to the number of those who cultivate poetry with this aim, it is saying nothing in derogation of what he has done for his art-more than must be said of the greatest artists that ever existed-to acknowledge that the generation of false tastes and foolish phraseologies proceeds pari passu with their destruction, and that Mr. Wordsworth has not, any more than any poet ever did before, cut off the succession of readers who are capable of receiving, through catch-words appealing to their poetical susceptibilities, a pleasure which would be dissipated if any demand were made upon their understandings.

Ut sylvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos'—

If the true tastes of mankind are permanent, and the false deciduous, there are nevertheless those elements of false taste permanently inherent in human nature, which will perpetuate the kind and quality of bad poetry, however speedy may be the oblivion of the successive products. Let Mr. Wordsworth, or 'Let Hercules himself do what he may,'

poetry always will have, no doubt, as it always has had, its meretricious professors, its vicious admirers, and its bastard language.

Perhaps, however, the progress of Mr. Wordsworth's principles has been more aided by his poems than by his prefaces--by his practice than by his theory; for whilst the consideration of the latter is still we believe confined to disciples and students, the poems have made a rapid advance to popularity-more especially in the last ten years. A marked change may be observed in the tone taken upon the subject by those who float upon the current of society, and make themselves the mouth-piece of its opinions. We recollect the time when the mention of Mr. Wordsworth's name would have been met by any one of these gentlemen with some excellent joke about Peter Bell or the Idiot Boy: but of these pleasantries mankind has by degrees grown weary; and there are few societies in which they would not now be received as denoting that the party from whom they proceeded was somewhat behind the world in these matters.

We cannot but think that it is in a great measure Mr. Wordsworth's own fault that he has been thus late in winning the ear of the public at large. He knowingly and wantonly laid himself open to ridicule at a period when criticism was infected by a spirit of sarcasm-which, ignorant and shallow as it was, was not ill calculated to please the popular appetite, was attended therefore with eminent success, and brought a blight, as of a poisonous insect, upon the growth of every thing that was great and noble. Criticism and poetry, which ought to flourish together, as members

of