Track leading into track, how mark'd, how worn
Into bright verdure, between fern and gorse
Winding away its never-ending line

On their smooth surface, evidence was none:
But, there, lay open to our daily haunt,
A range of unappropriated earth,

Where youth's ambitious feet might move at large;
Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld
The shining giver of the day diffuse
His brightness o'er a tract of sea and land
Gay as our spirits, free as our desires,

As our enjoyments, boundless. From those heights
We dropp'd, at pleasure, into sylvan combs;
Where arbours of impenetrable shade,
And mossy seats, detain'd us side by side,
With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our hearts
That all the grove and all the day was ours.'
"But nature call'd my partner to resign
Her share in the pure freedom of that life,
Enjoy'd by us in common. To my hope,
To my heart's wish, my tender mate became
The thankful captive of maternal bonds;
And those wild paths were left to me alone.
There could I meditate on follies past;
And, like a weary voyager escaped
From risk and hardship, inwardly retrace
A course of vain delights and thoughtless guilt,
And self-indulgence-without shame pursued.
There, undisturb'd, could think of, and could thank
Her-whose submissive spirit was to me
Rule and restraint-my guardian-shall I say
That earthly providence, whose guiding love
Within a port of rest had lodged me safe;
Safe from temptation, and from danger far?
Strains follow'd of acknowledgment address'd
To an Authority enthroned above

On these two pillars rested as in air
Our solitude.

"It soothes me to perceive,

Your courtesy withholds not from my words
Attentive audience. But, O! gentle friends,
As times of quiet and unbroken peace,
Though, for a nation, times of blessedness,
Give back faint echoes from the historian's page!
So, in th' imperfect sounds of this discourse,
Depress'd I hear, how faithless is the voice
Which those most blissful days reverberate.
What special record can, or need, be given
To rules and habits, whereby much was done,
But all within the sphere of little things,
Of humble, though, to us, important cares,
And precious interests? Smoothly did our life
Advance, not swerving from the path prescribed:
Her annual, her diurnal round alike
Maintain'd with faithful care. And you divine
The worst effects that our condition saw
If you imagine changes slowly wrought,
And in their progress imperceptible;
Not wish'd for, sometimes noticed with a sigh,
(Whate'er of good or lovely they might bring,)
Sighs of regret, for the familiar good,
And loveliness endear'd-which they removed.
"Seven years of occupation undisturb'd
Establish'd seemingly a right to hold
That happiness: and use and habit gave
To what an alien spirit had acquired
A patrimonial sanctity. And thus,

With thoughts and wishes bounded to this world,
I lived and breathed; most grateful, if t' enjoy
Without repining or desire for more,

For different lot, or change to higher sphere (Only except some impulses of pride

source,

Proceed all visible ministers of good

That walk the earth-Father of heaven and earth,
Father, and King, and Judge, adored and fear'd!
These acts of mind, and memory, and heart,
And spirit-interrupted and relieved
By observations transient as the glance
Of flying sunbeams, or to the outward form
Cleaving with power inherent and intense,
As the mute insect fix'd upon the plant

By theories with suitable support)
Most grateful, if in such wise to enjoy
Be proof of gratitude for what we have;
Else, I allow, most thankless. But, at once,
From some dark seat of fatal power was urged
A claim that shatter'd all. Our blooming girl,
Caught in the gripe of death, with such grief time
To struggle in as scarcely would allow
Her cheek to change its colour, was convey'd
From us to regions inaccessible;

cup

Draws imperceptibly its nourishment

Endear'd my wanderings; and the mother's kiss
And infant's smile awaited my return.

"In privacy we dwelt-a wedded pair-
Companions daily, often all day long:
Not placed by fortune within easy reach
Of various intercourse, nor wishing aught
Beyond the allowance of our own fireside,
The twain within our happy cottage born,
Inmates, and heirs of our united love;
Graced mutually by difference of sex,
By the endearing names of nature bound,
And with no wider interval of time

Between their several births than served for one
To establish something of a leader's sway;
Yet left them join'd by sympathy in age;
Equals in pleasure, fellows in pursuit.

Of living man, though longing to pursue.
With e'en as brief a warning-and how soon,
With what short interval of time between,

I tremble yet to think of our last prop,
Our happy life's only remaining stay-
The brother follow'd; and was seen no more!
"Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds
Blow fiercely, agitating earth and sky,
The mother now remain'd; as if in her,
Who to the lowest region of the soul,
Had been erewhile unsettled and disturb'd,
This second visitation had no power
To shake; but only to bind up and seal;
And to establish thankfulness of heart
In Heaven's determinations, ever just.
The eminence on which her spirit stood,
Mine was unable to attain. Immense
The space that sever'd us! But, as the sight

And be in part compensated. For rights,
Widely-inveterately usurp'd upon,

I spake with vehemence; and promptly seized
Whate'er abstraction furnish'd for my needs
Of purposes; nor scrupled to proclaim,
And propagate, by liberty of life,

Those new persuasions. Not that I rejoiced,
Or e'en found pleasure, in such vagrant course,
For its own sake; but farthest from the walk
Which I had trod in happiness and peace,
Was most inviting to a troubled mind;
That, in a struggling and distemper'd world,
Saw a seductive image of herself.

Yet, mark the contradictions of which man
Is still the sport! Here nature was my guide,
The nature of the dissolute; but thee,
O fostering nature! I rejected-smiled
At others' tears in pity: and in scorn

At those, which thy soft influence sometimes drew
From my unguarded heart. The tranquil shores
Of Britain circumscribed me; else, perhaps,
might have been entangled among deeds,
Which, now, as infamous, I should abhor-
Despise, as senseless: for my spirit relish'd
Strangely the exasperation of that land,
Which turn'd an angry beak against the down
Of her own breast; confounded into hope
Of disencumbering thus her fretful wings.
But all was quieted by iron bonds
Of military sway. The shifting aims,
The moral interests, the creative might,
The varied functions and high attributes
Of civil action, yielded to a power
Formal, and odious, and contemptible.
In Britain, ruled a panic dread of change;
The weak were praised, rewarded, and advanced;
And, from the impulse of a just disdain,
Once more did I retire into myself.
There feeling no contentment, I resolved
To fly, for safeguard, to some foreign shore,
Remote from Europe; from her blasted hopes;
Her fields of carnage, and polluted air.

Known and familiar, which the vaulted sky
Did, in the placid clearness of the night,
Disclose, had accusations to prefer
Against my peace. Within the cabin stood
That volume-as a compass for the soul-
Revered among the nations. I implored
Its guidance; but the infallible support
Of faith was wanting. Tell me, why refused
To one by storms annoy'd and adverse winds;
Perplex'd with currents; of his weakness sick;
Of vain endeavours tired; and by his own,
And by his nature's, ignorance, dismay'd!
"Long-wish'd for sight, the western world ap-
pear'd;

And, when the ship was moor'd, I leapt ashore
Indignantly-resolved to be a man,

Who, having o'er the past no power, would live
No longer in subjection to the past,
With abject mind-from a tyrannic lord
Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured.
So, like a fugitive, whose feet have clear'd
Some boundary, which his followers may not cross
In prosecution of their deadly chase,
Respiring I look'd round. How bright the sun,
How promising the breeze! Can aught produced
In the old world compare, thought I, for power
And majesty with this gigantic stream,
Sprung from the desert? And behold a city
Fresh, youthful, and aspiring! What are these
To me, or I to them? As much at least

As he desires that they should be, whom winds
And waves have wafted to this distant shore,
In the condition of a damaged seed,

Whose fibres cannot, if they would, take root.
Here may I roam at large; my business is,
Roaming at large, to observe, and not to feel;
And, therefore, not to act-convinced that all
Which bears the name of action, howsoe'er
Beginning, ends in servitude-still painful,
And mostly profitless. And, sooth to say,
On nearer view, a motley spectacle
Appear'd, of high pretensions-unreproved

main

The ship went gliding with her thoughtless crew;
And who among them but an exile, freed
From discontent, indifferent, pleased to sit
Among the busily employ'd, not more
With obligation charged, with service tax'd,
Than the loose pendant-to the idle wind
Upon the tall mast streaming: but, ye powers
Of soul and sense-mysteriously allied,
O, never let the wretched, if a choice
Be left him, trust the freight of his distress
To a long voyage on the silent deep!
For, like a plague, will memory break out;
And, in the blank and solitude of things,
Upon his spirit, with a fever's strength,
Will conscience prey. Feebly must they have felt
Who, in old time, attired with snakes and whips
The vengeful furies. Beautiful regards
Were turn'd on me-the face of her I loved;
The wife and mother, pitifully fixing
Tender reproaches, insupportable!
Where now that boasted liberty? No welcome
From unknown objects I received; and those,

Big passions strutting on a petty stage;
Which a detach'd spectator may regard
Not unamused. But ridicule demands
Quick change of objects; and, to laugh alone,
At a composing distance from the haunts
Of strife and folly, though it be a treat
As choice as musing leisure can bestow;
Yet, in the very centre of the crowd,
To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,
Howe'er to airy demon's suitable,
Of all unsocial courses, is least fit
For the gross spirit of mankind,-the one
That soonest fails to please, and quickliest turns
Into vexation. Let us, then, I said,
Leave this unknit republic to the scourge
Of her own passions; and to regions haste,
Whose shades have never felt th' encroaching axe,
Or soil endured a transfer in the mart
Of dire rapacity. There, man abides,
Primeval nature's child. A creature weak
In combination, (wherefore else driven back
So far, and of his old inheritance
So easily deprived ?) but, for that cause,

More dignified, and stronger in himself;
Whether to act, judge, suffer, or enjoy.
True, the intelligence of social art
Hath overpower'd his forefathers, and soon
Will sweep the remnant of his line away;
But contemplations, worthier, nobler far
Than her destructive energies, attend
His independence, when along the side
Of Mississippi, or that northern stream*
That spreads into successive seas, he walks ;
Pleased to perceive his own unshackled life,
And his innate capacities of soul,

There imaged: or, when having gain'd the top
Of some commanding eminence, which yet
Intruder ne'er beheld, he thence surveys
Regions of wood and wide Savannah, vast
Expanse of unappropriated earth,

With mind that sheds a light on what he sees;
Free as the sun, and lonely as the sun,
Pouring above his head its radiance down
Upon a living, and rejoicing world!

"So, westward, toward th' unviolated woods
I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide,
Fail'd not to greet the merry mocking-bird;
And, while the melancholy muccawiss
(The sportive bird's companion in the grove)
Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry,
I sympathized at leisure with the sound;
But that pure archetype of human greatness,
I found him not. There, in his stead, appear'd
A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure;
Remorseless, and submissive to no law
But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.
Enough is told! Here am I. Ye have heard
What evidence I seek, and vainly seck;
What from my fellow beings I require,
And cannot find; what I myself have lost,
Nor can regain. How languidly I look

*“A man is supposed to improve by going out into the world, by visiting London. Artificial man does; he extends with his sphere; but, alas! that sphere is microscopic: it is formed of minutia, and he surrenders his genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his ken. His bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and inhuman pruriency; while his mental become proportionally obtuse. The reverse is the man of mind: He who is placed in the sphere of nature and of God, might be a mock at Tattersall's and Brookes's, and a sneer at St. James's: he would certainly be swallowed alive by the first Pizarro that crossed him:-But when he walks along the river of Amazons; when he rests his eye on the unrivalled Andes; when he measures the long and watered Savannah; or contemplates, from a sudden promontory, the distant, vast Pacific-and feels himself a freeman in this vast theatre, and commanding each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream-His exultation is not less than imperial. He is as gentle, too, as he is great. His emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, 'These were made by a good Being, who, unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them.' He becomes at once a child and a king. His mind is in himself: from hence he argues, and from hence he acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially: His mind in himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars."-From the Notes upon the Hurricane, a poem, by William Gilbert.

The reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.

Upon this visible fabric of the world,
May be divined-perhaps it hath been said
But spare your pity, if there be in me
Aught that deserves respect: for I exist-
Within myself-not comfortless. The tenor
Which my life holds, he readily may conceive
Whoe'er hath stood to watch a mountain brook
In some still passage of its course, and seen,
Within the depths of its capacious breast,
Inverted trees, and rocks, and azure sky;
And, on its glassy surface, specks of foam,
And conglobated bubbles undissolved,
Numerous as stars; that, by their onward lapse,
Betray to sight the motion of the stream,
Else imperceptible; meanwhile, is heard
A soften'd roar, a murmur; and the sound
Though soothing, and the little floating isles
Though beautiful, are both by nature charged
With the same pensive office; and make known
Through what perplexing labyrinths, abrupt
Precipitations, and untoward straits,

The earth-born wanderer hath pass'd; and quickly,
That respite o'er, like traverses and toils
Must be again encounter'd. Such a stream
Is human life; and so the spirit fares
In the best quiet to its course allow'd;
And such is mine,-save only for a hope
That my particular current soon will reach
The unfathomable gulf, where all is still!

BOOK IV.

DESPONDENCY CORRECTED.

ARGUMENT.

State of feeling produced by the foregoing narrative. A belief in a superintending Providence the only adequate support under affliction. Wanderer's ejaculation. Account of his own devotional feelings in youth involved. Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faith. Hence immoderate sorrow. Doubt or despondence not therefore to be inferred. Consolation to the solitary. Exhortations. How received. Wanderer applies his discourse to that other cause of dejection in the solitary's mind. Disappointment from the French revolution. States grounds of hope. Insists on the necessity of patience and fortitude with respect to the course of great revolutions. Knowledge the source of tranquillity. Rural solitude favourable to knowledge of the inferior creatures Study of their habits and ways recommended. Exhortation to bodily exertion and communion with nature. Morbid solitude pitiable. Superstition better than apathy. Apathy and destitution unknown in the infancy of society. The various modes of religion prevented it. Illustrated in the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldean, and Grecian modes of belief. Solitary interposes. Wanderer points out the influence of religious and imaginative feeling in the humble ranks of society. Illustrated from present and past times. These principles tend to recall exploded superstitions and popery. Wanderer rebuts this charge, and contrasts the dignities of the imagination with the presumptive littleness of certain modern philosophers. Recommends other lights and guides. Asserts the power of the soul to regenerate herself. Solitary asks how. Reply. Personal appeal. Happy that the imagination and the affections mitigate the evils of that intellectual slavery which the calculating understanding is apt to produce. Exhortation to activity of body renewed. How to commune with nature Wanderer concludes with a legitimate union

of the imagination, affections, understanding, and reason. Effect of his discourse. Evening. Return to the cottage.

HERE closed the tenant of that lonely vale
His mournful narrative-commenced in pain,
In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
Yet temper'd, not unfrequently, with strains
Of native feeling, grateful to our minds;
And doubtless yielding some relief to his,
While we sate listening with compassion due.
Such pity yet surviving, with firm voice
That did not falter though the heart was moved,
The wanderer said-

"One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only; an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturb'd, is order'd by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
The darts of anguish fix not where the seat
Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the will supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently; ill-done, or left undone,
To the dishonour of his holy name.

Soul of our souls, and safeguard of the world
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recall
Their lost affections unto thee and thine!"

Then as we issued from that covert nook,
He thus continued, lifting up his eyes
To heaven," How beautiful this dome of sky,
And the vast hills, in fluctuation fix'd
At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,
Human and rational, report of thee

E'en less than these? Be mute who will, who can,
Yet I will praise thee with impassion'd voice
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness!
Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold
Rear'd for thy presence; therefore, am I bound
To worship, here, and everywhere, as one
Not doom'd to ignorance, though forced to tread,
From childhood up, the ways of poverty;
From unreflecting ignorance preserved,
And from debasement rescued. By thy grace
The particle divine remain'd unquench'd;
And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From paradise transplanted; wintry age
Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
And, if they wither, I am worse than dead!
Come, labour, when the worn-out frame requires
Perpetual Sabbath; come, disease and want;
And sad exclusion through decay of sense;
But leave me unabated trust in Thee,
And let thy favour, to the end of life,
nspire me with ability to seek

Repose and hope among eternal thingsFather of heaven and earth! and I am rich, And will possess my portion in content!

"And what are things eternal? Powers depart,"
The gray-hair'd wanderer steadfastly replied,
Answering the question which himself had ask'd,
"Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty exists; immutably survive,

For our support, the measures and the forms,
Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not,
Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart,
Do, with united urgency, require.

What more that may not perish? Thou, dread

source,

Prime, self-existing cause and end of all,

That, in the scale of being fill their place,
Above our human region, or below,

Set and sustain'd; Thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that thyself,

Therein, with our simplicity a while
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturb'd-
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,

Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us daily to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule,-Thou, thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endurest; endure
For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws,
(Submission constituting strength and power,)
E'en to thy being's infinite majesty !
This universe shall pass away-a work
Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these, the unimprison'd mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allow'd me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul
In youth were mine; when, station'd on the top
Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes return'd
Darkness to chase, and sleep, and bring the day
His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended; then, my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude;

The measure of my soul was fill'd with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

"Those fervent raptures are for ever flown;
And, since their date, my soul hath undergone
Change manifold, for better or for worse;
Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire
Heavenward; and chide the part of me that flags,