N reading Wordsworth the sensation is as the sensation of the pure water-drinker,

whose palate is so refined that he can

distinguish between rill and rill, river and river, as compared with the obtuser sensation of him who has destroyed the delicacy of his palate by grosser libations, and who can discover no difference between water and water, because to him all pure things are equally insipid.

J. W. ROBERTSON.

With all his pathos, and all his clearness of vision, there were sorrows of humanity he never touched, recesses of dark moral experience he could not pierce or irradiate. He does not move us to the depths of our being, he only affects us gently. The ink of Wordsworth is never his own blood. D. MASSON.

True bard and holy! thou art e'en as one
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye,
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,
Sees where the springs of living waters lie:
Unseen, awhile they sleep-till, touch'd by thee,
Bright, healthful waves flow forth, to each

Glad wanderer free.

FELICIA HEMANS.

He has brightened the earth we inherit to our eyes; he has made it more musical to our ears; he has rendered it more creative to our imaginations. JOHN WILSON.

CHAUCER.

LY from the press, and dwell with slothfastness1;

Suffice unto thy good, though it be
small;

For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;
Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.
Savour3 no more than thee behové shall.
Rede1 well thyself that other folk shall rede;
And truth thee shall deliver-it is no drede.5

Painé thee not each crooked to redress,
In trust of her that turneth as a ball:
Great rest standeth in little business.
Beware also to spurn against a nall;
Strive not as doth a crocké with a wall.
Demé thyself that demest others' deed;
And truth thee shall deliver-it is no drede.

That thee is sent receive in buxomness :7
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall.8
Here is no home-here is but wilderness:
Forth, pilgrim, forth !—beast, out of thy stall !
Look up on high, and thanké God of all.
Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And truth thee shall deliver-it is no drede.

HUS Chaucer, quaintly clad in antique

guise,

With unfamiliar mien scares modern

eyes.

No doubt he well invented-nobly felt-
But, O ye powers! how monstrously he spelt.
His syllables confound our critic men,
Who strive in vain to find exactly ten;
And waste much learning to reduce his songs
To modish measurement of shorts and longs.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse, Well moralised, shines through the golden cloud Of time and language. THOMSON.

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects; as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is practised by few writers and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. DRYDEN.

He no doubt saw in religion as much as even we do now, and uttereth it in his works no lesse, and seemeth to be a right Wiclevian, or else was never any. JOHN FOXE.

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,

On fame's eternal beadroll worthie to be fyled.

SPENSER.

TE

SCHILLER.

EART be still!

In the darkness of thy woe,
Bow thou silently and low;
Come to thee whate'er God will,-
Be thou still!

Be thou still!

Vainly all thy words are spoken,
Till the word of God hath broken
Life's dark mysteries-good or ill-
Be thou still!

Rest thou still!

'Tis thy Father's work of grace,Wait thou yet before his face; He thy sure deliverance will

Keep thou still!

Lord my God!

By thy grace, oh may I be

All submissive, silently,

To the chastenings of thy rod,

Lord my God!

Shepherd King!

From thy fulness grant to me

Still, yet fearless faith in thee,

Till from night the day shall spring!—
Shepherd King!

--

H Bard tremendous in sublimity,

Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood
Wandering at eve with finely frenzied

eye,

Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!
Awhile with mute awe gazing I should brood;
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstacy!

S. T. COLERIDGE.

In the land of his birth, by those who undervalue him the most, he is ranked as the second name in German literature; everywhere else he is ranked as the first. But he was something more than a great author, he was also in an eminent sense a great man, and his works are not more worthy of being studied for their force and originality, than his moral character is for its nobility and aspiring grandeur.

DE QUINCEY.

I went to see Schiller, from whom as from a precipice all strangers spring back. He is full of sharp cutting power, but without love.-RICHTER.

See Schiller with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon't,
Too large for wreath of modern wont.
E. B. BROWNING.

Noble men and noble deeds were the good which

nourished his great soul.

G. H. LEWIS.