has beautifully represented in his poetry; but that
higher mediation of the Divine Man between man and the Father, does not
lie fully or conspicuously on his page. A believer in the mystery of
godliness he unquestionably was; but he seldom preached it. Christopher
North, many years ago, in "Blackwood," doubted if there were so much as a
Bible in poor Margaret's cottage (Excursion). We doubt so, too, and have
not found much of the "true cross" among all his trees. The theologians
divide prayer into four parts--adoration, thanksgiving, confession, and
petition. Wordsworth stops at the second. No where do we find more solemn,
sustained, habitual, and worthy adoration, than in his writings. The tone,
too, of all his poems, is a calm thanksgiving, like that of a long blue,
cloudless sky, coloring, at evening, into the hues of more fiery praise.
But he does not weep like a penitent, nor supplicate like a child. Such
feelings seem suppressed and folded up as far-off storms, and the traces
of past tempests are succinctly inclosed in the algebra of the silent
evening air. And hence, like Milton's, his poetry has rather tended to
foster the glow of devotion in the loftier spirits of the race--previously
taught to adore--than like that of Cowper and Montgomery, to send prodigals
back to their forsaken homes; Davids, to cry, "Against thee only have I
sinned;" and Peters, to shriek in agony, "Lord, save us, we perish."

To pass from the essential poetic element in a writer of genius, to his
artistic skill, is a felt, yet necessary descent--like the painter
compelled, after sketching the man's countenance, to draw his dress. And
yet, as of some men and women, the very dress, by its simplicity,
elegance, and unity, seems fitted rather to garb the soul than the
body--seems the soul made visible--so is it with the style and manner of
many great poets. Their speech and music without are as inevitable as
their genius, or as the song forever sounding within their souls. And why?
The whole ever tends to beget a whole--the large substance to cast its
deep, yet delicate shadow--the divine to be like itself in the human, on
which its seal is set. So it is with Wordsworth. That profound
simplicity--that clear obscurity--that night-like noon--that noon-like
night--that one atmosphere of overhanging Deity, seen weighing upon ocean
and pool, mountain and mole-hill, forest and flower--that pellucid
depth--that entireness of purpose and fullness of p