permission, from an unpublished Poem on the growth and revolutions of an individual mind, by WORDSWORTH.

-an Orphic Tale indeed,

A Tale divine of high and passionate thoughts

To their own music chaunted!

S. T. C.

GROWTH OF GENIUS FROM THE INFLUENCES OF NATURAL OBJECTS, ON THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD,

AND EARLY YOUTH.

Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe!
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of Thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of Childhood didst Thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human Soul,
Nor with the mean and vulgar works of Man
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With Life and Nature: purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsaf'd to me
With stinted kindness. In November days
When vapours rolling down the vallies made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
At noon, and mid the calm of summer nights,
When by the margin of the trembling Lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills I homeward went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night
And by the waters all the summer long.

And in the frosty season when the sun

Was set, and, visible for many a mile

The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons :-happy time

It was indeed for all of us, to me

It was a time of rapture! clear and loud

The village clock toll'd six, I wheel'd about,

Proud and exulting, like an untir'd horse
That car'd not for its home -All shod with steel
We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the Chace

And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired

Into a silent bay or sportively

Glanc'd sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng
To cut across the image of a Star

That gleam'd upon the ice and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side

Came sweeping through the darkness spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I reclining back upon my heels
Stopp'd short, yet still the solitary Cliffs

Wheel'd by me even as if the earth had roll'd

With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

Errata.

No. 18. p. 274, 1. 13, for Wanderers, read Beggars.

p. 275, 1. 6 and 7, read “that the words "Time" and "pass" are each used in three different senses"—instead of “ that twoTime &c."

p. 277, 1. 3, for slips, read Slip.

p. 281, 1. 20, after great men-insert in general.

p. 286, l. 39, 40, substitute" literally" for " as applying to the final terminations," and omit the word “ final” in the last line.

PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON,

THE FRIEND.

No. 20. THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1810.

THE remarks, which were called forth by the letter of Mathetes, given in the 17th Number, concluded with a comparison of the progress of the human race to that of a river. We will now resume the subject, carrying on the same illustration. It suffices to content the mind, though there may be an apparent stagnation, or a retrograde movement in the Species, that something is doing which is necessary to be done, and the effects of which, will in due time appear;-that something is unremittingly gaining, either in secret preparation or in open and triumphant progress. But in fact here, as every where, we are deceived by creations which the mind is compelled to make for itself: we speak of the Species not as an aggregate, but as endued with the form and separate life of an Individual. But human kind, what is it else than myriads of rational beings in various degrees obedient to their Reason; some torpid, some aspiring; some in eager chace to the right hand, some to the left; these wasting down their moral nature, and these feeding it for immortality? A whole generation may appear even to sleep, or may be exasperated with rage-they that compose it, tearing each other to pieces with more than brutal fury. It is enough for complacency and hope, that scattered and solitary minds are always labouring somewhere in the service of truth and virtue; and that by the sleep of the multitude, the energy of the multitude may be prepared; and that by the fury of the people, the chains of the people may be broken. Happy moment was it for England when her Chaucer, who has rightly been called the morning star of her literature, appeared above the horizon-when her Wickliff, like the Sun," shot orient beams" through the night of Romish superstition!-Yet may the darkness and the desolating hurricane which immediately followed in the wars of York and Lancaster, be deemed in their turn a blessing, with which the Land has been visited.

May I return to the thought of progress, of accumulation, of increasing light, or of any other image by which it may please us to represent the improvement of the Species? The hundred years that followed the Usurpation of Henry the fourth, were a hurling-back of the mind of the Country, a delapidation, an extinction; yet institutions, laws, customs, and habits, were then broken down, which would not have been so readily, nor perhaps so thoroughly destroyed by the gradual influence of increasing knowledge; and under the oppression of which, if they had continued to exist, the virtue and intellectual Prowess of the succeeding Century could not have appeared at all, much less could they have displayed themselves with that eager haste, and with those beneficent triumphs which will to the end of time be looked back upon with admiration and gratitude.

If the foregoing obvious distinctions be once clearly perceived, and steadily kept in view,-I do not see why a belief in the progress of human Nature towards perfection, should dispose a youthful mind, however enthusiastic, to an undue admiration of his own Age, and thus tend to degrade that mind.

But let me strike at once at the root of the evil complained of in my Correspondent's Letter.-Protection from any fatal effect of seductions, and hindrances which opinion may throw in the way of pure and high-minded Youth, can only be obtained with certainty at the same price by which every thing great and good is obtained, namely, steady dependence upon voluntary and self-origi nating effort, and upon the practice of self-examination, sincerely aimed at and rigorously enforced. But how is this to be expected from Youth? Is it not to demand the fruit when the blossom is barely put forth, and is hourly at the mercy of frosts and winds? To expect from Youth these virtues and habits, in that degree of excellence to which in mature years they may be carried, would indeed be preposterous. Yet has youth many helps and aptitudes, for the discharge of these difficult duties, which are withdrawn for the most part from the more advanced stages of Life. For Youth has its own wealth and independence; it is rich in health of Body and animal Spirits, in its sensibility to the impressions of the natural universe, in the conscious growth of knowledge, in lively sympathy and familiar communion with the generous actions re

corded in History, and with the high passions of Poetry; and, above all, Youth is rich in the possession of Time, and the accompanying consciousness of Freedom and Power. The Young Man feels that he stands at a distance from the Season when his harvest is to be reaped,-that he has leisure and may look around-may defer both the choice and the execution of his purposes. If he makes an attempt and shall fail, new hopes immediately rush in, and new promises. Hence, in the happy confidence of his feelings, and in the elasticity of his spirit, neither worldly ambition, nor the love of praise, nor dread of censure, nor the necessity of worldly maintenance, nor any of those causes which tempt or compel the mind habitually to look out of itself for support; neither these, nor the passions of envy, fear, hatred, despondency, and the rankling of disappointed hopes (ali which in after life, give birth to, and regulate the efforts of Men, and determine their opinions), have power to preside over the choice of the Young, if the disposition be not naturally bad, or the circumstances have not been in an uncommon degree unfavourable.

In contemplation, then, of this disinterested and free condition of the youthful mind, I deem it in many points peculiarly capable of searching into itself, and of profiting by a few simple questions-such as these that follow. Am I chiefly gratified by the exertion of my power from the pure pleasure of intellectual activity, and from the knowledge thereby acquired? In other words, to what degree do I value my faculties and my attainments for their own sakes? or are they chiefly prized by me on account of the distinction which they confer, or the superiority which they give me over others? Am I aware that immediate influence and a general acknowledgment of merit, are no necessary adjuncts of a successful adherence to study and meditation, in those departments of knowledge which are of most value to mankind? that a recompence of honours and emoluments is far less to be expected-in fact, that there is little natural connection between them? Have I perceived this truth? and, perceiving it, does the countenance of philosophy continue to appear as bright and beautiful in my eyes?-has no haze bedimmed it? has no cloud passed over and hidden from me that look which was before so encouraging? Knowing that it is my duty, and feeling that it is my inclination, to mingle as a social Being with my fellow Men; prepared also to submit cheerfully to