219 



Remoter charm 

 Unborrowed from the eye 



or ear. Nature's face was full of expression; and this expression 

 revealed character, as truly as a human face reveals the workings of 

 emotion in a human soul. Other poets were content simply to chron- 

 icle natural phenomena, asbeautiful, or grand, picturesque, or sublime. 

 Wordsworth always asked. What is the meaning of Nature, in those 

 places where she has concentrated her expressiveness, and in those 

 moods in which she seems to be unburdening herself to man ? 

 What is the secret of the glory of the sky, at sunrise or sunset ] 

 and their difference ? What is the meaning of the motions and 

 balancings of the clouds? of the alternate wail and sigh of either 

 wind or ocean ? Or, if he did not ask these questions, he answered 

 them without asking. All that is distinctive in his poetry, grows 

 out of the belief that Nature's soul has a definite expression, 

 whether in rock or flower, m tree or stream, and can be recognized. 

 It can appeal to us, and mould us. In each natural object, some 

 ' invisible thing ' is 'clearly seen.' Wordsworth, in short, had a 

 strong, intuitive grasp of that subtle spirit of the Beautiful, which 

 breathes throughout the whole framework of nature, emanating 

 from, and expressing itself in, the life of every material thing. 



But it is important to go,if possible, a little deeper down, and 

 see to what this distinctive feature amounted ; because we hear it 

 constantly reiterated — and with vague inaccuracy affirmed — that 

 AVordsworth was a subjective poet, that he thrust himself into the 

 scene he described, and saw his own individuality (nay his own 

 idiosyncrasies) mirrored in Nature. Nothing could be more erro- 

 neous; nothing less exact. It is both an utterly irrelevant, and a 

 totally ignorant criticism. It is irrelevant, because I suppose it is 

 not possible for a poet, any more than for a critic, to escape from 

 his own shadow. It is ignorant, because Wordsworth's subjectivity 

 is not greater than, it is not nearly as great as, that of his contem- 

 poraries, — Scott only excepted. Byron's heroes, for example, are 

 more Byronic, than Wordsworth's are Wordsworthian. It is one 

 of the most foolish and futile of charges, either that he was im- 

 prisoned within the circle of his own subjective broodings about 



