r arguments or opinions, than
for any interest they are supposed to possess of their own.--The
doctrine which the work is intended to enforce, we are by no means
certain that we have discovered. In so far as we can collect, however,
it seems to be neither more nor less than the old familiar one, that a
firm belief in the providence of a wise and beneficent Being must be our
great stay and support under all afflictions and perplexities upon
earth--and that there are indications of his power and goodness in all
the aspects of the visible universe, whether living or inanimate--every
part of which should therefore be regarded with love and reverence, as
exponents of those great attributes. We can testify, at least, that
these salutary and important truths are inculcated at far greater
length, and with more repetitions, than in any ten volumes of sermons
that we ever perused. It is also maintained, with equal conciseness and
originality, that there is frequently much good sense, as well as much
enjoyment, in the humbler conditions of life; and that, in spite of
great vices and abuses, there is a reasonable allowance both of
happiness and goodness in society at large. If there be any deeper or
more recondite doctrines in Mr. Wordsworth's book, we must confess that
they have escaped us;--and, convinced as we are of the truth and
soundness of those to which we have alluded, we cannot help thinking
that they might have been better enforced with less parade and
prolixity. His effusions on what may be called the physiognomy of
external nature, or its moral and theological expression, are eminently
fantastic, obscure, and affected.--It is quite time, however, that we
should give the reader a more particular account of this singular
performance.

It opens with a picture of the author toiling across a bare common in a
hot summer day, and reaching at last a ruined hut surrounded with tall
trees, where he meets by appointment with a hale old man, with an
iron-pointed staff lying beside him. Then follows a retrospective account
of their first acquaintance--formed, it seems, when the author was at a
village school; and his aged friend occupied "one room,--the fifth part
of a house" in the neighbourhood. After this, we have the history of
this reverend person at no small length. He was born, we are happy to
find, in Scotland--among the hills of Athol; and his mother, after his
father's death, married the parish schoolmaster--so that he wa