student triumphed at last over the pedantry of the learned and coldness of the great and fashionable; and by dint of better education, and a familiarity with good models, the class whom Hazlitt called "the vulgar" do read the poems of the secluded thinker, who made the earnest cultivation of the highest poetry the one business of his life.

Mr Wordsworth was born in 1770. He was educated at Hawkshead Grammar School; and graduated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1791. In 1793 he published a small poem, "The Evening Walk," and in 1798 was associated with Coleridge, in the "Lyrical Ballads." In 1803 he married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson; and for the remainder of his life dwelt in the lake country, occasionally publishing and slowly winning his power over the mind of his age. He died on the 23d of April 1850. In his last years he might have been apostrophised in his own beautiful lines, in companionship with Homer and Milton:

"Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you, nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retain'd;
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye linger'd among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loath to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill-top."]

High in the breathless hall the minstrel Joy! joy to both! but most to her
Who is the flower of Lancaster!

sate, And Emont's murmur mingled with Behold her how she smiles to-day the song. On this great throng, this bright array! The words of ancient time I thus trans- Fair greeting doth she send to all late, From every corner of the hall; A festal strain that hath been silent But chiefly from above the board long:Where sits in state our rightful lord,

"From town to town, from tower A Clifford to his own restored!

to tower,

The red rose is a gladsome flower.
Her thirty years of winter past,
The red rose is revived at last;
She lifts her head for endless spring,
For everlasting blossoming
Both roses flourish, Red and White.
In love and sisterly delight

The two that were at strife are blended,
And all old troubles now are ended.

"They came with banner, spear,
and shield;

And it was proved in Bosworth field.
Not long the Avenger was withstood-
Earth helped him with the cry of blood:
St George was with us, and the might
Of blessed angels crown'd the right.
Loud voice the land has utter'd forth,
We loudest in the faithful north:

Mr Southey, describing the mountain scenery of the lake region, says, "The story of the shepherd Lord Clifford, which was known only to a few antiquaries till it was told so beautifully in verse by Wordsworth, gives a romantic interest to Blencathara." Henry Lord Clifford was the son of John Lord Clifford, who was slain at Towton, which battle placed the House of York upon the throne. His family could expect no mercy from the conqueror; for he was the man who slew the younger brother of Edward IV. in the battle of Wakefield a deed of cruelty in a cruel age. The hero of this poem fled from his paternal home, and lived for twenty-four years as a shepherd. He was restored to his rank and estates by Henry VII. The following narrative is from an old MS. quoted by Mr Southey

"So in the condition of a shepherd's boy at Lonsborrow, where his mothei then lived for the most part, did this Lord Clifford spend his youth, till he was about fourteen years of age, about which time his mother's father, Henry Bromflett, Lord Vesey, deceased. But a little after his death it came to be rumoured at the court that his daughter's two sons were alive; about which their mother was examined, but her answer was, that she had given directions to send them both beyond seas, to be bred there, and she did not know whether they were dead or alive.

"And as this Henry Lord Clifford did grow to more years, he was still the more capable of his danger, if he had been discovered. And therefore presently after his grandfather, the Lord Vesey, was dead, the said rumour of his being alive, being more and more whispered at the court, made his said loving mother, by the means of her second husband, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, to send him away with the said shepherds and their wives into Cumberland, to be kept as a shepherd there, sometimes at Threlkeld, and amongst his father-in-law's kindred, and sometimes upon the borders of Scotland, where they took lands purposely for these shepherds that had the custody of him; where many times his father-in-law came purposely to visit him, and sometimes his mother, though very secretly. By which mean kind of breeding this inconvenience befell him, that he could neither write nor read; for they durst not bring him up in any kind of learning, lest by it his birth should be discovered. Yet after he came to his lands and honours, he learnt to write his name only.

"Notwithstanding which disadvantage, after he came to be possessed again and restored to the enjoyment of his father's estate, he came to be a very wise man, and a very good manager of his estate and fortunes.

"This Henry Lord Clifford, after he came to be possessed of his said estate, was a great builder and repairer of all his castles in the north, which had gone to decay when he came to enjoy them; for they had been in strangers' hands about twenty-four or twenty-five years. Skipton Castle and the lands about it had been given to William Stanley by King Edward IV., which William Stanley's head was cut off about the tenth year of King Henry VII.; and Westmoreland was given by Edward IV. to his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was afterwards king of England, and was slain in battle the 22d of August 1485.

"This Henry Lord Clifford did, after he came to his estate, exceedingly delight in astronomy, and the contemplation of the course of the stars, which it was likely he was seasoned in during the course of his shepherd's life. He built a great part of Barden Tower, (which is now much decayed,) and there be lived much; which it is thought he did the rather because in that place he had furnished himself with instruments for that study.

"He was a plain man, and lived for the most part a country life, and came seldom either to the Court or London, but when he was called thither to sit in them as a peer of the realm, in which parliament, it is reported, he behaved himself wisely, and nobly, and like a good Englishman."

Struggling with Adversity.

BASIL HALL.

[THERE is only one book of biography in our language that, in our view, can compare with Boswell's Life of Johnson, and that book is Lockhart's Life of Scott. The life of the great novelist is more artistically put together than the life of the great moralist and critic; but they each, in their several modes, place you in the most intimate companionship with the heroes of their respective stories. There is more of varied incident in the narrative of Scott's career than in that of Johnson. When Scott falls from his splendid position as regards wealth into comparative poverty, with a load of debt upon his shoulders that might have sunk him to the earth, we trace the gradual approach and consummation of his ruin with an interest that no writer of fiction could ever hope to excite and sustain. And when, again, we see the brave man bearing his load gallantly through years of labour, and gradually casting it off, bit by bit, and winning universal love and admiration by his wondrous exertions of talent and industry, that he may work out his emancipation by the strength of his own hand alone--the world can hardly show another such example of the sublime spectacle of will o'ermastering fate. We offer these obvious remarks upon the career of Scott, as an introduction to a most interesting narrative extracted from Captain Basil Hall's Diary, and published in Mr Lockhart's Life of Scott. Captain Hall was a most accomplished naval officer-one of that class now happily so common, who unite a taste for science and literature with their professional knowledge. He has described some of his travels and adventures with remarkable spirit in various popular works. He was born in 1788, and died in 1844.]

A hundred and fifty years hence, when his works have become old classical authorities, it may interest some fervent lover of his writings to know what this great genius was about on Saturday the 10th of June 1826-five months after the total ruin of his