21 
of union between the things enjoyed and the enjoyer—a sense of 
kinship between the seer and the great exactive Spirit which has 
fashioned these things in the universe. In the Poet’s description 
of the hero in ‘‘ The Excursion,” we get the well-known passage 
which describes the beginning of true religion of Nature. The 
lines are in Book I. of ‘‘ The Excursion,’ and commence :— 
‘¢ Among the hills of Athol he was born,’’ 
And tell how, 
‘‘ While yet a child, and long before his time 
Had he perceived the presence and the power 
Of greatness ; and deep feelings had impress’d 
Great objects on his mind. . 
His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power 
That made him ; it was blessedness and love! ”’ 
He thus reaches to worship and religion in his enjoyment of 
Nature, but not yet to the religion of humanity, though in some 
sense it be a true religion: it is the feeling of God in Nature, not 
God in Man. It was at Cambridge that Wordsworth got the 
conception that life was not made up of little disjointed pieces, 
but that all essences were together, and it was impossible to grasp 
an essence of one part of life witnout understanding the whole of 
life. He learnt more of the unity of life during his sojourn in 
London, and more particularly when he went abroad and associ- 
ated with the officers in the French Army. The French Revolu- 
tion stirred his very soul, and he returned to England “a bigot 
to a new idolatory.’’ His love of Nature returns in a true sense 
and with it the love of Man. Nature becomes to him a religion. 
‘*T have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; ; 
- Well pleased to recognise 
In Nature and the language of the sense 
The Anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
Of all my Moral being. . . 
Knowing that Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her.’’—(Tintern Abbey.) 
On the completion of his poetic apprenticeship he embarks on 
a work of greater ambition. He writes to his friend Coleridge 
about his life and poetical developments, and then begins his 
great work, which unfortunately like many other things, was 
never finished. Had he been able to do so, he would have been 
the greatest poet that ever lived. At all events the greatest next 
to Shakespere. 
