loose stones, with the intention of building a sheepfold there. Thither he took his son on the eve of his departure, and desired him to lay the first stone of the sheepfold, that it might be a covenant between them :-

"This was a work for us; and now, my son,
It is a work for me. But lay one stone-
Here, lay it for me, Luke, with thine own hands.
Nay, boy, be of good hope; we both may live
To see a better day. At eighty-four

I still am strong and hale; do thou thy part;
I will do mine. I will begin again

With many tasks that were resigned to thee:
Up to the heights and in among the storms
Will I without thee go again, and do
All works which I was wont to do alone,
Before I knew thy face.'

Accordingly, when his son was gone, the old shepherd resumed his duties manfully, and from time to time worked at the building of the sheepfold; and he was cheered for some time by loving letters from the boy, and by satisfactory tidings of his conduct. But at length came the accounts of an opposite tenor, that he had given himself up to dissolute courses, that ignominy and shame had

fallen upon him, and, finally, that he had been driven to seek a hiding-place beyond the

seas:

'There is a comfort in the strength of love;
"Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would overset the brain or break the heart.
I have conversed with more than one who well
Remember the old man, and what he was
Years after he had heard these heavy news.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks
He went, and still looked up towards the sun,
And listened to the wind; and, as before,
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep,
And for the land his small inheritance.
And to that hollow dell from time to time
Did he repair, to build the fold of which
His flock had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet
The pity which was then in every heart
For the old man; and 'tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went,
And never lifted up a single stone.'

It will be perceived that the poem of 'Michael,' being in blank verse, affords scope for more detail than could well be introduced into a poem in rhyme. The Female Vagrant' is in rhymed stanzas, and if we had room we should wish to quote it at length, as a specimen

of Mr. Wordsworth's narrative poems, written

in a different manner from that of Michael,'

with equal force and effect. The symmetry of this narrative is so perfect, and must constitute, especially to those who look at it in its wholeness with the eyes of an artist, so peculiar a charm, that we have hesitated to take it to pieces. But the hands of criticism are proverbially irreverent, and briefly sketching the story of the poem as we proceed, we shall break it up for illustrations without further scruple.

The Female Vagrant tells her own tale, and begins with her childhood. To men (like ourselves) whose benevolence is not so readily awakened as might be wished in behalf of those of their fellow-creatures who wear a coarse outside, the aspect of adult rustic life may be uninteresting, except, indeed, in some occasional instances, when an inherent refinement of nature has triumphed over external circumstances, or (which is perhaps equally unfrequent in the class) when inborn beauty is so predominant as to make up for

all deficiencies. But childhood has its charms in every sphere of life; and also, though with a marked difference of degree and prevalence as we descend to the laborious classes, its beauty and its grace. The effects of toil, exposure to the weather, and narrow cares, have not, at that age, had time to tell upon the countenance, and give it that unliving and unmeaning barrenness of expression which physical hardship has a tendency to induce, but which still more surely results when the lines of advancing life have been traced by care and not by thought-when the loss of animal beauty and animal spirits has been uncompensated. The child of rustic life not having suffered the loss, and having no need of the compensation, has all the attractiveness of appearance which it may have pleased nature to bestow; and its manners and social feelings have hardly yet felt the influence of artificial distinctions, and of the distrust which they too often engender. To us the child of the peasant has often been the link through which we have reached a feeling of human

fellowship with the parent. It is true that no such intermediary ought to be needed; but such are the insensibilities of many minds, and such are the approaches by which they are to be overcome; and skilfully is it therefore that the poet has made the subject of his story first present herself at the period of her childhood.

'My father was a good and pious man,
An honest man by honest parents bred;
And I believe that soon as I began
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

'Can I forget what charms did once adorn

My garden, stored with peas, and mint, and thyme,
And rose, and lily, for the sabbath morn?
The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;
The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;
My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy prime;

The swans that when I sought the water-side,

From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride?

'The staff I yet remember which upbore

The bending body of my active sire;