A GOOD WORD Foil WINTKR. 37 



per is still the best of our descriptive poets for cver3'-(lay 

 wear. And wiiat unobtrusive skill ho lias ! How ho 

 heii^htcns, foi' oxauiple, your sense of wiutcr-evening se- 

 elusion, by the twanying horn of the postnuui on the 

 bridge ! That horn has rung in my ears ever since I 

 first heard it, during the consulate of the second Adams. 

 Wordsworth strikes a deeper note ; but does it not some- 

 times come over one (just the least in the world) that 

 one wouKl give anything for a bit of nature pure and 

 simple, without (piite so strong a flavor of W. \V. 1 W. W. 

 is, of course, sublime and all that — but ! For my part, 

 I will make a clean breast of it, and confess that I can't 

 look at a mountain without fancying the late laureate's 

 gigantic Koman nose thrust between mo and it, and think- 

 ing of Dean Swift's profane version of liomanus rcnim 

 (loDihiDs into Roman nose/ a rare tin! dom your nose! 

 But do I judge verses, then, by the impression made on 

 me by the man who wrote them 1 Not so fast, my gooil 

 friend, but, for gooil or evil, the character and its intel- 

 lectual product are inextricably interfused. 



if 1 remember aright, Wordsworth himself (except in 

 his magnificent skating-scene in the " Prelude") has not 

 much ti) say for winter out of doors. I cannot recall 

 any jiicture by him of a sn<nv-storm. The reason may 

 possil)ly be that in the Lake Country even the winter 

 storms bring rain rather than snow. He was thankful 

 for the Christmas visits of Crabb Robinson, because they 

 "helped him tlu-ough the winter." His only hearty 

 praise of winter is when, as General Feviier, he defeats 

 the French : — 



" llumnnity. (Icliplitinn; to behold 

 A loud rcllcftimi of lior own decny. 

 Hath imiiited Winter like si travelier old, 

 Pmiipod on a stalV, and, tliruii,u;li the sullen day. 

 In hooded mantle, liinphig o'er the plain 

 As thougli his weakness were disturbed by pain: 



