of the Asarna, and to the people's voluntary homage to their superior wisdom. The sentiment is wonderfully strengthened by that of domestic life and of home. This feeling which has always been strong there, has of late extended itself, by the exchange of literature, throughout all Scandinavia. The different peoples find and feel themselves of one race; having the same common ancestry, the same sacred traditions, the same tastes and feelings. The kindred peoples of the North seem to be called upon by character and history, as well as by the development of the nations, to set an example to other people, by a noble, powerful, and independent life. This feeling has been immensely strengthened by the recent attack on Denmark by the German revolutionary Parliament. The effect of this has been to arouse the spirit of Denmark in a wonderful degree, and to quicken the sense of Scandinavian unity. As this war has excited a strong feeling in England, the account given by Miss Bremer of the effect there on the public mind, as it went on, will be read with interest. We give it exactly as it stands; and with that close our notice of these papers, which offer us more knowledge of the actual state and progress of Denmark than anything we have had for a long time: 'June 1st-Spring is now in full bloom, and advances towards mid'summer. The islands of Denmark have put on their glorious attire. The beech woods murmur by the blue rocks. The groves are become Vocal. The stork is arrived; the meadows are in bloom; the laburnam streams in the wind. But there arises no joyful song of human voices from the friendly islands. Tears, bitter tears, mothers' tears, brides', sisters' tears, fall upon the beautiful, flower-clad earth. Ah! war has broke out anew, and many sons of the country have fallen, and still fall, in the hopeless combat against a conquering, superior force. A little band of men stands fighting against a host composed of their own number many times multiplied; one million against thirty millions. How can there be any hope? And yet-wonderful, but true there is, no doubt, no despondency, in that little band. Such firm faith have they in their own righteous cause, and in the righteous arbitration of the people's fate. 'Nothing can more truly characterise the temper and disposition of the Danish people, than the effect which has been produced by that unfortunate affair at Eckernförde. The tidings of this reached Copenhagen on Easter Eve. What a murmur of sorrowful disquiet there was that evening in the city, especially in the neighbourhood of the posthouse. Sorrow and amazement were upon every countenance. People talked to each other without the ceremony of introduction; high and low communicated to each other what they thought, and wept together. It was as if every family had lost a child. On Easter Sunday people streamed into the churches. The preachers spoke publicly from the pulpits of the great misfortune which had occurred, lamenting, comforting, and encouraging. The immortal theme of death and the resurrection had a new and an irresistible significance. The people listened and wept. It was like a day of humiliation in Israel. The misfortune of the fatherland was the misfortune of every individual. The blow which had struck the maritime power of Denmark, struck the silent pride and hope of every heart. I saw young girls shed tears, not for the dead, but for our banner-for Dannebrog!" That was Easter Sunday. On Easter Monday it was silent in the gay Copenhagen. The theatres were closed; the dejected attendants spoke in whispers ; nothing was to be heard but sighs, and talking about broken hearts of wives and brides! That was the second day. On the third, life again raised itself with strength. Volunteer sailors came by hundreds; came, singing, to offer themselves in the place of those who at Eckernförde had fallen, either by death or into the hands of the enemy. Contributions of money flowed in from all sides, for a new preparation for war; for the families of the killed and wounded. The rich gave abundantly of their wealth; the poor widow gave her mite; and the mothers-beautiful to say-encouraged their sons to go and fight for the fatherland. A few days later, and the public mind was again calm and collected, and the theatres were again full of people. But all hearts, all noble feelings, seemed to have opened their fountains for a more abundant flow. The Danish people were now only one great family, who, in the day of sorrow, drew nearer together, to comfort and to support each other. We will here permit ourselves to introduce a little trait which will show the feeling of these days. Amongst the many who were named in the newspapers as having fallen at Eckernförde, was a young man who had really not fallen, but had saved himself, in an almost miraculous manner, and now returned to Copenhagen, and to his home there. His mother and sisters sate in their mourning, which they had just prepared, when all at once the lost son and brother stood amongst them! The mother must have died for joy at this moment, had not a strong, secret persuasion possessed her mind that her son lived, and thus she was prepared for this surprise. The news of this circumstance went like wild-fire through Copenhagen. People rushed from house to house, into the coffee-houses, and to the news-rooms, to announce it. All were glad; all rejoiced, as if they had recovered a beloved brother. Tears of joy and sympathy fell from all eyes. People began to hope that other fallen ones might likewise arise and return. Strangers to the happy family hastened to them to express their joy and their sympathy, and to embrace him who had returned. The whole city was one family of love. 'Days, weeks, months, have passed since this, and the war continues. Countenances grow dark, and the foe goes on conquering. But quiet and firm stands the little nation, determined to dare the utmost, and to fight to the last drop of blood. There is now no song of rejoicing upon the beautiful islands, neither is there any lamentation. They make themselves ready for new efforts, for new sacrifices. There is a strong will, a good courage, and a great patience, in the Danish people at this time. No one can see it without emotion, or without admiration. And therefore-friendly islands, enchanting islands!-whether tears shall still longer fall upon your soil, whether the enemy shall suck your marrow, and the trial become severer― friendly islands, beloved are you still! There is an honour, a victory, an immortality, which every people, as well as every man, can acquire for himself, even when apparently it is subject to an outward, superior power. And therefore, tears of Denmark's daughters! fall-fall still, if it must be so! The soil which you water is the soil of the hero, and that noble sorrow the mother of a noble joy. You shall live to see that which was sown in bitterness bearing the sheaves of a noble harvest, and your beloved Dannebrog waving in joy over the waters of Denmark, over the blue billows. When the life of a people is what it is here at this time, then it awakes its genius, then it is near with saving power. The genius of Denmark has said : "When life blooms forth in the heart of the Dane, Then, bright as the sun do I live again, -Pp. 209, 210. Ingeman's Holger the Dane.' Scarcely had Miss Bremer written this when the news of the victory of Fredericia arrived, and inspired universal confidence. Still, the troubles of Denmark are not completely over in Holstein. She has much of the sympathies of Europe, and we think no one reads the extracts we have given, without feeling that she deserves it; and at the same time that Denmark (the smallest kingdom in Europe) has stood boldly for her rights against the assumptions of Germany, and will stand firm and undaunted to the last. It is the interest of Europe that she should do so, and that every possible strength should be preserved to Scandivania as a bulwark against the encroaching spirit of Russia. 56 ART. V. Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. London: Edward Moxon. In a late article on Southey, we alluded to the solitary position of Wordsworth in that lake country where he once shone the brightest star in a large galaxy. Since then, the star of Jove, so beautiful and large, has gone out in darkness-the greatest laureate of England has expired-the intensest, most unique, and most pure-minded of our poets, with the single exceptions of Milton and Cowper, is departed. And it were lesemajesty against his mighty shade not to pay it our tribute, while yet his memory, and the grass of his grave, are green. It is singular that only a few months have elapsed since the great antagonist of his literary fame-Lord Jeffrey (who, we understand, persisted to the last in his ungenerous and unjust estimate), left the bench of human, to appear at the bar of Divine justice. Seldom has the death of a celebrated man produced a more powerful impression in his own city and circle, and a less powerful impression on the wide horizon of the world. In truth, he had outlived himself. It had been very different had he passed away thirty years ago, when the Edinburgh Review' was in the plenitude of its influence. As it was, he disappeared like a star at midnight, whose descent is almost unnoticed while the whole heavens are white with glory, not like a sun going down, that night may come over the earth. One of the acutest, most accomplished, most warm-hearted and generous of men, Jeffrey wanted that stamp of universality, that highest order of genius, that depth of insight and that simple directness of purpose, not to speak of that moral and religious consecration, which give the world assurance of a man.' He was the idol of Edinburgh, and the pride of Scotland, because he condensed in himself those qualities which the modern Athens has long been accustomed to covet and admire-taste and talent rather than genius-subtlety of appreciation rather than power of origination the logical understanding rather than the inventive insight and because his name had sounded out to the ends of the earth. But nature and man, not Edinburgh Castle, or the Grampian Hills merely, might be summoned to mourn in Wordsworth's departure the loss of one of their truest highpriests, who had gazed into some of the deepest secrets of the one, and echoed some of the loftiest aspirations of the other. To soften such grief, however, there comes in the reflection, that the task of this great poet had been nobly discharged. He T had given the world assurance, full, and heaped, and running over, of what he meant, and of what was meant by him. While the premature departure of a Schiller, a Byron, or a Keats, gives us emotions similar to those wherewith we would behold the crescent moon, snatched away as by some insatiate archer,' up into the Infinite, ere it grew into its full glory-Wordsworth, like Scott, Goethe, and Southey, was permitted to fill his full and broad sphere. What Wordsworth's mission was, may be, perhaps, understood through some previous remarks upon his great mistress-Nature, as a poetical personage. There are three methods of contemplating nature. These are, the material, the shadowy, and the mediatorial. The materialist looks upon it as the great and only reality. It is a vast solid fact, for ever burning and rolling around, below and above him. The idealist, on the contrary, regards it as a shadow-a mode of mind-the infinite projection of his own thought. The man who stands between the two extremes, looks on nature as a great, but not ultimate or everlasting scheme of mediation, or compromise, between pure and absolute spirit and humanity— adumbrating God to man, and bringing man near to God. To the materialist, there is an altar, star-lighted heaven-high, but no God. To the idealist, there is a God, but no altar. He who holds the theory of mediation, has the Great Spirit as his God, and the universe as the altar on which he presents the gift of his poetical (we do not speak at present so much of his theological) adoration. It must be obvious, at once, which of those three views of nature is the most poetical. It is surely that which keeps the two principles of spirit and matter distinct and unconfoundedpreserves in their proper relations-the soul and the body of things-God within, and without the garment by which, in Goethe's grand thought, we see him by. While one party. deify, and another destroy matter, the third impregnate, without identifying, it with the Divine presence. The notions suggested by this view, which is that of scripture, are exceedingly comprehensive and magnificent. Nature becomes to the poet's eye a great sheet let down from God out of heaven," and in which there is no object 'common or unclean.' The purpose and the Being above cast such a grandeur over the pettiest or barest objects as did the fiery pillar upon the sand or the shrubs of the howling desert of its march. Everything becomes valuable when looked upon as a communication from God, imperfect only from the nature of the material used. What otherwise might have been concluded discords, now appear only stammerings or whisperings in the Divine voice; thorns and |