take possession-and secondly, because | and it has therefore made her rich. But
it spends so little of the national fortune she must be more than rich, or powerful,
on either army or navy, because it refuses or even free, before America can hope to
to maintain order in any Asiatic depen- change the half-awestruck admiration of
dency, because it looks on the struggles the world at her material prosperity, into
of the Old World with the half-amused cordial liking for herself without her rich
glance of an indifferent spectator. It surroundings.
has the strongest, the freest, and the most
prosperous of peoples within its borders;
but no nation in bonds looks upward to
the great republic for aid, no struggling
people turns to her fleet with longing, no
perishing race so much as hopes that the
Western rifle will drive away the oppress-

or.

From The Spectator.

WORDSWORTH THE MAN.

IN the exquisite little sketch which Mr. One American shell would liberate Myers has given of Wordsworth, in Mr. the Armenians, but it will not be fired. John Morley's series of "Men of LetThe world may die of despair, for Wash- ters,' -as a piece of English at least, ington. The most generous individually the gem, we venture to say, of the whole of races will collectively strike no blow series, the only thing which, in the

for foreign freedom, send no fleet, issue perfect candor and singularly chastened
even no command. There is a legend truthfulness of the essay, we are disposed
current, which we have never been able to think has been a little inadequately
to trace fully, that America once inter- rendered, is the effect of personal force
vened in the most decided way to save which Wordsworth produced upon all
Switzerland from an invasion; but unless who were competent to understand him
that be true, we know of no great service at all. Mr. Myers has told us what De
she has done to mankind, except in offer- Quincey had preconceived Wordsworth,
ing the distressed a home and that from a knowledge of his poetry; namely,
repays her.
Yet, with her necessary that he "prefigured the image of Words-
disinterestedness, and her magnificent re- worth," to what he called his own "plan-
sources, and her detached policy, the et-struck eyes," as one before which his
Union might often be the best of arbiters, faculties would quail, as before "Elijah
might arrest a war, and hurry on a work or St. Paul." But in his explanation how
of mercy to mankind like the erasure of this profound homage to Wordsworth
the Sultanet. She, however, does noth- was possible on the part of such a master
ing, even on her own continent, where of the secrets of literature as De Quin-
State after State is rotting down or falling cey, Mr. Myers, though he dwells very
back from civilization, unaided, unguided, justly and appropriately on Wordsworth's
and uncontrolled by the mighty people claim to be in a sense the poet of a new
who claim to be, and are, distinctively revelation, hardly attaches enough impor-
"the Americans," and who endlessly ac-tance, we think, to the general intensity
cumulate the strength they use politically and rugged power of the man. He has
only for themselves. The Union does not not quoted the impression formed of
even insist on order in Mexico, will not Wordsworth by a much harder and less
keep forces sufficient to secure full free-impressionable man than De Quincey,
dom to her own black citizens, and allows
wars to go on in the southern continent
which she could stop with a word. It
will not, we believe, always be so. We
do not conceive it possible for so great a
State always to remain isolated, as if in
another planet, or to refuse to bear its
share in the burden imposed by nine hun-
dred millions upon less than two hundred;
but up to to-day, America has sought and
gained her own happiness by indifference
to that of the inhabitants of the remain
der of the world. That policy has ena-
bled her to dispense with fleets and
armies, to avoid the costly burden of a
foreign policy, and to maintain her organ.
ization without administrative services,

and one not at all disposed to receive humbly Wordsworth's "revelation." Hazlitt, perhaps the most cynical critic who ever had an omnivorous appetite for what was good in literature however unique its kind, early formed a very strong impres sion of Wordsworth's power and has left a sketch of him as he was in his earliest poetic epoch; that is, about the age of twenty-five years, for Wordsworth ripened late, and was hardly a poet at all till he was a mature man. "He answered in some degree," says Hazlilt, "to his friend's [Coleridge's] description of him, but was more gaunt and Don Quixote

Macmillan and Co.

ance, so that he had to return home to find the means of living. Even after his return, his mind long dwelt with the most brooding melancholy on the future of the Revolution, of which he had formed such passionate hopes. For months and even

haunted him so that his nights were full of horrible dreams. He dreamed of dungeons, massacres, and guillotines. He dreamed long speeches which he was pleading before unjust tribunals on behalf of accused patriots. He dreamed of treachery, desertion, and that last sense of utter desolation, when the last strength ebbs even from the soul of the dreamer. After this he fell into the state in which nothing is credited without the most ample and formal demonstration, nothing held true unless it is warranted by the senses. But even at this time, moody and fitful as Wordsworth's life had been,

Mr. Myers says that even at a later period he might not unfairly have been taken for "a rough and somewhat stub.

like. He was quaintly dressed (accord-ously thought of offering himself as a ing to the costume of that unconstrained Girondist leader, and was only prevented period), in a brown fustian jacket and by his English friends stopping his allowstriped pantaloons. There was something of a roll or lounge in his gait, not unlike his own Peter Bell. There was a severe, worn pressure of thought about his temples, a fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects more than the outward appearance), an intense, high, nar-years he says that the French collapse row forehead, a Roman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong purpose and feeling, a convulsive inclination to laughter about the mouth a good deal at variance with the solemn, stately expression of the rest of the face. Chantrey's bust wants the marking traits, but he was teased into making it regular and heavy. Haydon's head of him, introduced into the Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem,' is the most like the drooping weight of thought and expression. He sat down and talked very naturally and freely, with a mixture of clear, gushing accents in his voice, a deep, guttural intonation, and a strong mixture of the northern burr, like the crust on wine." That, coming from Hazlitt, describes a man of no ordinary power; for it must be remembered that Haz-born young man, who in nearly thirty litt was by no means a disciple of Wordsworth's, though he was a great admirer of his. He hated Wordsworth for having given up his first Radicalism. He referred all Wordsworth's finest poetry to his egotism, and asserted that Wordsworth's strength was virtually due to excess of weakness." Nevertheless, when he was describing him as he had first seen him, Hazlitt was far too intelligent a critic to describe a man in whom weakness was the key to strength. On the contrary, he described the "severe, worn pressure of thought about his temples," and the fire in his eye as of one who saw something in objects beyond their outward appearance. And everything we know of Wordsworth confirms this. His mother, who died when he was but eight years old, said that the only one of her children about whose future life she was anxious was William, and that he would be remarkable either for good or for evil. And Wordsworth himself explains this by saying that he was of a "stiff, moody, and violent temper," and once as a child had gone into one of his grandfather's rooms to find a foil with which to destroy himself, because he thought he had been unjustly punished. When abroad at the time of the French Revolution, though not at all a perfect master of the French language, he seri

แ

years of life had seemed alternately to idle without grace, and to study without advantage," he was in no sense the mere egoist Hazlitt wanted to make of him. His sister compared her two brothers thus: " Christopher is steady and sincere in his attachments. William has both these virtues in an eminent degree, and a sort of violence of affection, if I may so term it, which demonstrates itself every moment of the day, when the objects of his affection are present with him, in a thousand almost imperceptible attentions to their wishes, in a sort of restless watchfulness which I know not how to describe, a tenderness that never sleeps, and at the same time such a delicacy of manner as I have observed in few men." And this passionate tenderness he showed in many relations of life. When his brother, the captain of the East Indiaman, went down with his ship off the Bill of Portland, Wordsworth's grief and suffering were far beyond the measure of ordinary men. Mr. De Vere says that nearly forty years. after Wordsworth had lost two of his children, "he described the details of their illnesses with an exactness and an impetuosity of troubled excitement such as might have been expected if the bereavement had taken place but a few weeks before."

This is not the picture of an egotist.

a totally alien

Nor do we suppose that any complaint | ing medium in the world,
would ever have been made of Words- method of regarding things, from that of
worth's egotism if it had been limited to the wondering and observing world.
that fitfulness, occasional gustiness, or Other great poets have generally had a
even moodiness of mind to which, in much higher command than the rest of
some form or other, almost every great mankind of those same feelings and
poet has been subject, and which, in many thoughts and fancies, of which all of us
cases at least, has contributed rather to have some command. But it was hardly
enhance than to diminish a poet's fame. so with Wordsworth. That he had the
Wordsworth's picture of himself, quoted deepest human sympathies and affections,
by Mr. Myers, in the lines written in we have seen, and that he had the keenest
Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," is not and most hungry eye for all that was
a picture which would ever have made beautiful in nature, we know too; but his
him unpopular:-
poetic mode of treating his own feelings,
whether those due to human beings or
those due to nature, was altogether alien

Full many a time, upon a stormy night,
His voice came to us from the neighboring

height:

Oft did we see him driving full in view
At midday when the sun was shining bright;
What ill was on him, what he had to do,
A mighty wonder bred among our quiet crew.
Ah! piteous sight it was to see this man
When he came back to us a withered flower,
Or like a sinful creature, pale and wan.
Down would he sit; and without strength or

power

Look at the common grass from hour to hour:
And oftentimes, how long I fear to say,
Where apple-trees in blossom made a bower,
Retired in that sunshiny shade he lay;
And, like a naked Indian, slept himself away.

Great wonder to our gentle tribe it was
Whenever from our valley he withdrew;
For happier soul no living creature has
Than he had, being here the long day through.
Some thought he was a lover, and did woo;
Some thought far worse of him, and judged
him wrong;

But Verse was what he had been wedded to;
And his own mind did like a tempest strong

Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight

along.

to the method of the mass of mankind. Instead of finding direct expression for the feeling, whatever it was, his inward genius led him to resist its inmediate drift, to put it at a distance from him, to muse upon it, to see whether, if it were painful, more profit could not be made of it by enduring, submitting to, and reflecting upon the pain, than by expressing it; and if it were joyful, whether more could not be made of it by husbanding and deferring the joy, than by exhausting it. He was warned by some inward instinct always to restrain emotion, however strong and stormy, till he could find a peaceful and lucid reflection of it in the mirror of a quiet mind. His mind, like Michael's, was "keen, intense, and frugal," but his temperament was far, indeed, from cool. He told a friend that he had never written love poetry because he dared not, it would have been too passionate. The truth is that his nature and They made him wait till he could gain a genius were averse to direct expression. reflex image of feeling in the deep, cool wells of thought. And this habit of his was so strange to the world that it set the world against him; and when the world was set against him, he set himself, of course, against the world; and being well aware of his own genius, became a little too much absorbed in its ideas, and a little too deaf to other ideas which were outside the interests of his life. Mr. Myers accounts for a good part of Wordsworth's stiffness by his unpopularity. "The sense of humor is apt to be the first grace which is lost under persecution; and much of Wordsworth's heaviness and stiff exposition of commonplaces is to be traced to a feeling which he could scarcely avoid, that all day long he had lifted up his voice to a perverse and gainsaying generation." But we doubt the explanation. If Wordsworth had had humor, persecu

That is a perfectly true picture no doubt,
and gives us a better conception of the
hidden fire in Wordsworth than anything
else which his poems contain. But it is
not moodiness, still less is it fire, which
ever gains for a poet the reputation of
egotism, and Wordsworth certainly has
gained that reputation more than any
great English poet who ever lived.
What has given Wordsworth the repu-
tation of an egotist, and made that part
of the world which does not care for his
poetry depreciate him as a man, is the
peculiarly inward turn which his mind
took, so that, instead of multiplying his
points of relation with the world at large,
as a poetic temperament usually does
multiply them, Wordsworth's genius ap-
peared rather to shut him up in himself,
and to separate him by the most separat-

cannot be seen. Throughout its entire length a chain of sloping, gently-curved hills rises, from North Barrule (1,842 ft.) to Snaefell (2,024 ft.), and from Snaefell to Cronk ny-Jay-Llaa (1,145 ft.), "the hill of the rising day," from which the sun may be seen ascending from the sea and setting to the west, beyond the dimly-defined outlines of the Mourne Mountains. The sea views are, in fact, perhaps more striking than in any part of the United Kingdom, except the north-west coast of Scotland. But in the Isle of Man they are broader and almost as bold; the rugged masses of Spanish Head, the mellow coloring of the Calf, and the wide expanse of waters on every side, dotted by scores of herring-boats, is a scene which in its breadth is unequalled on any of our

tion would hardly have robbed him of the | less it be some narrow inland glen, from humor. We doubt much if he ever had which the ocean in its various moods any. He was a "prophet of nature," and as a prophet of nature he had, like the prophets of God, a certain rapture of his own which rendered him insensible to humor. As the country-side said of him, he went "booing about," that is, half chanting to himself the thoughts which nature and God put into his heart, and had little or no room for that fine elasticity in passing from one mood to another which is of the essence of all humor. He was a man of high passion, though he never let the world see it except in the reflex form of rapturous meditation. He was a man of deep affections, though he forbade to joy and sorrow their most natural outlets. For he was, above all, a man of deep reserves, a man of "keen, intense, and frugal " nature, who had little part in the ordinary excitements and en-coasts. The absence of trees renders the joyments of the world, and was therefore also one in whose excitements and enjoy. ments the world could find little beyond food for amazement.

From The Spectator. THE ISLE OF MAN. THE Isle of Man is but little known to the higher classes of holiday- makers, though it is annually visited by many thousands of strangers. Those who flock thither are almost all persons of the lower middle class, and operatives from the thickly populated towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. They make but a short stay, they ramble over the island, and their loud, provincial tones are heard in boisterous merriment. In themselves, these people are a study. You see the best of the working class of the north away from their factories and workshops, and though your taste may be oftentimes offended at rude jokes and noisy merriment, yet they are essentially an independent and hard-working class, even in their

amusements.

But the Isle of Man may fairly claim a visit from persons of higher culture than these. Regarded simply as a health-resort, there can be no question that it is the most thorough sea residence in the kingdom. On every side is the sea, and from whatever quarter of the compass the wind chooses to blow it comes from the sea, and there is scarcely a spot in the thirty-three miles from the Point of Ayre to the bold cliffs of the Calf of Man, un

land views cold and harsh, but it is the
general coast views, the glens and coves
which open to the sea, which are the char-
acteristic and charming portion of Manx
scenery; whilst the genial winters and
cool summers produce some vegetation
quite abnormal in this latitude. There
are dozens of cottages protected by high
hedges of fuchsias one mass of bright,
hanging flowers whilst the delicate ve-
ronica flourishes in shrubs six feet in
height. But whilst the sea may be en-
joyed in the Isle of Man in a genuine
fashion, the place is interesting as a social
study. It is immaterial to go back through
the centuries during which it has been a
semi-independent island; it is enough for
present observation to find a place within
five hours' sail of Liverpool ruling itself,
and enjoying home-rule in the most com-
plete sense of the word. The Tynwald
Court, or Insular Legislature, is formed
of what may be called two Chambers,
the Lower, or House of Keys, which is
elected by the owners and occupiers of
property in the island; and the Upper, or
Council, composed of the bishop, the
clerk of the rolls, and other permanent
officials. But, as a matter of fact, whilst
the island is thus nominally self-governed,
many of the most important statutes which
pass the Legislature of Great Britain are
soon after introduced into the Legislature
of the Isle of Man. The Education Act
of 1870 was passed in almost identical
form, and the Burials Act has just been
introduced into the Manx statute-book.
So that, adopting great Imperial measures,
the Insular Legislature becomes, in fact,
little more than a local body dealing with

local wants. Thus both town and rural | Manx fisherman seems to be to buy a districts in the Isle of Man are governed plot of ground, and to erect on it a subby representatives of their own, whereas stantial, two-storied, stone cottage. In a in England local representative government is confined to the towns. An instance of the effectual way in which this local representation acts may be seen in the question of Sunday-closing, which, in regard to Wales, at any rate, is likely to give active employment next session to the Imperial Legislature. Sunday-closing was adopted in the Isle of Man some twenty years ago, though a person who has travelled four miles can be supplied with drink. But Sunday-closing in principle has been successfully introduced and fairly received, and has continued for a considerable period of time, during which drunkenness has undoubtedly decreased and been apparently reduced to a trifling evil, so that this is certainly an example which is not without value to those who would introduce this system into England. Again, it is distinctly of interest to find a place where a poor-law does not exist. The object of the reformers of the poorlaw in England may, in brief, be said to be the working of it with as little harm to the population as possible. Here, however, we have a place which in 1871 had a population of more than fifty-three thousand, without the machinery of the poorlaw. Paupers, of course, there are, but they are obliged to seek private relief, or to obtain assistance from the clergy and wardens of the Established Church in the rural districts, or from the committees which in the towns give out the relief voluntarily bestowed by the more prosperous inhabitants of the island. And the successful working of the voluntary system may perhaps be regarded as showing that a system of State relief is vicious in principle and a failure in practice. Much of the prosperity of the island and the absence of pauperism is, no doubt, owing to the active and enterprising spirit of the people. The surplus population leaves the island, and only sufficient remains for fishing, for agricultural, and other employment. Of course, large numbers seek work in England, but very many will without hesitation try their fortunes in America and the colonies, and the Manxman, like the inhabitant of the Grisons, does not hesitate to find the employment in other countries which his own does not supply. When, too, we look into the condition of the people a little more minutely, we find them to be undoubtedly flourishing. Take the fishermen, for example. The object of the

fairly good season, the Kinsale mackerelfishing and the Manx herring-fishing in the summer and autumn will together bring in about £40 a man; and as a boat and nets cost about £600, the average of seven who man and own a boat will often in three years pay the preliminary cost, and a fisherman can then begin to lay by money, or to take shares in other boats. Therefore, when we hear the complaints of Irish politicians, that the Irish fishermen cannot succeed because they get no help from the Imperial funds, they may fairly be asked to look at the Manx fishermen, who, solely by their own efforts, have created a prosperous trade, and are as fine and independent a body of men as exist in the United Kingdom, and, unlike most seamen, are not only unusually temperate, but in an increasing proportion, total abstainers from intoxicating drinks. But this Utopia of local option, county boards - for the principles which underlie these systems are present in the Isle of Man -and absence of poor-laws, has a reverse side, when we notice the legal procedure which exists in this island. The judicial work is chiefly performed by two judges, or deemsters, but the procedure of the courts is many years behind that of England. Both in the civil and criminal courts, the procedure is of the most cumbrous kind, and litigation becomes protracted to a most unfortunate degree, and the time of the court is often occupied by formal questions as to plead ing and procedure which should never come into open court. The introduction of the machinery of the County Court Acts, and of a Probate and Divorce Court, is a legal reform which would be easy and beneficial to the people. With Sir Henry Loch as constitutional sovereign, prime minister, and Cabinet, in one, a small community such as that which exists in the Isle of Man presents an admirable field for the introduction of an expeditious and cheap legal procedure.

When once we begin to study the social habits of a people who have for centuries been an isolated community, various quaint customs are sure to be noticed. Such is the mheillea, or cutting of the last handful of corn, which used to be bound with ribbons and wild-flowers, and carried by the queen of the mheillea, a favorite of the harvest-field, to the farm. Here a supper and dance would take place, so that it became a kind of harvest