XIII. "" TO A PAINTER. "All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed; Who, yielding not to changes Time has made, Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade, Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears, XIV. "" ON THE SAME SUBJECT. Though I beheld at first with blank surprise O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong, To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast If we here close our account of the present volume, it is not without feeling how differently we should have looked at it coming from any one else. A drama, exhibiting such deep knowledge of human nature, abounding in such evidences of high poetical power, couched throughout in such pure and noble language; a body of miscellaneous poems exhibiting such various metrical and rhythmical skill, so free and vigorous a fancy, such noble and tender affections, wisdom so deep, piety so sincere-who but Mr. Wordsworth himself could have cast such works as these into even a comparative shade? But we relinquish the last opportunity perhaps which Mr. Wordsworth may afford us, without giving vent to the general reflections which a publication from him at his age suggests. The love of universality is one of the most obvious characteristics of the present day. Cecil-not the statesman nor the clergyman, but the coxcomb-tells us, in one of those flashes of thought which so brilliantly illuninate his Autobiography, that it is all a mistake to suppose those to be the great men of the world whom we have always been admiring: such men, according to him, are those who either possessed powers only capable of one direction, or subjected by force of will a more universal capacity to a single object. The real great men are not, he considers, the Homers, Miltons, Shakspeares, etc., but persons like himself, who are never heard of except by some such fortunate circumstances as have secured to the world his own history; their merit and their misfortune being, that being able to do all things equally well, no sufficiently salient point is left for Fame to take hold of. This doctrine is found much beyond the range of the novels: who has forgotten that brightest sally of the Bar, when on Lord Brougham's becoming chancellor it was said, "Well, if Lord Brougham knew only a little law, he would know a little of everything"? Now it is well to have universalists, but in an age of universalism it is of the utmost importance to have specialists. This is a general truth and would at any time make the example of a man who, with a consistency and success like Mr. Wordsworth's, has devoted himself to one object, a most important benefit. But in a time when the doctrine in question has produced a very decided and evil influence on the generation which has grown up under its reign, when our liberality has so often become indifference, our cosmopolitism destroyed our patriotism, our generalization injured our investigation and analysis, then almost our only hope lies in the eminence of the exceptions. Such an exception to the prevalent character is Mr. Wordsworth. Whatever his faults may be, they are the opposite ones to those of his age; and whatever his excellences, they spring from an individuality least to be expected in the circumstances of his time. He has always been in opposition-in his early life to the Toryism then manacling men's minds, in latter days to the Liberalism dissolving ours. Yet he is not to be confounded with those who are in opposition to the present because they can only see behind them. He is a true man, he has ever looked before and after-ever trusted and watched the life and disregarded the form: he has written sonnets in favour of railroads and steamboats in the same spirit in which he has written against the abolition of the punishment of death. We are not among those who look with contempt or terror on the present aspect of our time and country, yet there is unquestionably much ground for anxiety, as there is more we trust for hope. But with abounding evidences of a low and shallow spirit about us in every day's newspaper, in every day's new novel, in every day's new speech, and perhaps we may say, in every Sunday's new sermon, we have to look to men who stand in opposition like Mr. Wordsworth, and to that large body of sounder feeling shown to exist by the respect in which such men are held, for our hope and encouragement. But as long as we have such to look to we need not fear. Examples make the life of a nation, for the strength of the social body lies in the individual energies by which it is vivified. "La France, c'est moi," was an arrogant boast in the lips of Louis; it would have been a profound truth in those of Napoleon. ARTICLE II. 1. A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions. By Captain MARRYAT, C.B., in 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1839. 2. Travels in North America during the years 1834, 1835 and 1836, including a Summer Residence with the Pawnee Tribe of Indians in the remote Prairies of the Missouri. By the Hon. CHARLES AUGUSTUS MURRAY, in 2 vols. 8vo. London. Henry Bentley. 1839. 3. New Zealand in 1839, or four Letters to the Right Hon. Earl Durham, Governor of the New Zealand Company, &c., on the Colonization of that Island. By JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., &c., &c. Smith, Elder, and Co. 1839. 4. New Zealand, South Australia, and New South Wales; a Record of recent Travels in these Countries, with especial Reference to Emigration and the advantageous Employment of Capital. By R. G. JAMESON, Esq. London. Smith, Elder, and Co. 1842. EVERY recent traveller in the United States of America has thought it incumbent on his character for accuracy of observation or of relation, to devote a portion of his work to the subject of Lynch-law; and as the English newspapers have discovered a magic in the very phrase, the most ordinary outrage in America-if it but embody incidents sufficiently striking to make a telling paragraph-is introduced to English readers as a case under that denomination. About Lynch-law indeed nearly every one has something to say, and yet it may be doubted whether anything appertaining to the United States is more thoroughly misunderstood, and therefore at times more completely misrepresented. We therefore propose, in the following pages, to explain to our readers what Lynch-law really is, to distinguish its several species, and finally to give what appears to us a rational explanation of the principle upon which it is based. In some sort our paper may be deemed an apology for Lynch-law, and we ourselves should have been disposed to clothe it with that character, were it not that in practice Lynch-law has occasionally degenerated into something distinct from its theoretic purity, and assumed features for which no apology can be made. Most of our readers are doubtless aware that the older states of America, and especially the eastern states, are by no means sparingly peopled. Consistently with our notions of populousness, it would perhaps be going too far to call them thickly peopled, but if we compare them with the newer states of the west, they really assume that character. Viewing population and capital taken together, in relation to land, the east and the west exhibit very opposite features. In the former, land is becoming scarce and people abundant; whilst in the latter, land is still for all practical purposes boundless and people exceedingly scarce. The effect of this is, that capital and labour taken together are much more productive in the west than in the east, and as a necessary consequence, the eastern states are continually pouring out a stream of population which empties itself upon the newer states and territories. In this view America is perhaps the largest colonizing country in the world. The older states indeed may be said to breed people for the waste territories, and the facility which the extensive water communications afford for these emigrations is an important item in the list of the causes of the rapid increase of population which America exhibits. Of this migratory population considerable numbers overstep the boundaries of existing jurisdictions and establish themselves on lands not only not surveyed by the authorized surveyors of the government, but also not within the limits of any established state or territory. This unauthorized occupation of land is called squatting, and is favoured rather than discouraged by the land-regulations of the United States. By these regulations the squatter is endowed with certain positive rights, the principal of which is a right of pre-emption of the lands upon which he has previously established himself. This positive law is moreover favoured by backwood morality, and it would be deemed in the highest degree disgraceful were any new-comer to attempt to dispute the squatter's title. Thus encouraged by the law even before they are brought within its jurisdiction, these squatters often become considerable communities. Living out of the reach of the ordinary tribunals, and therefore without the pale of civilization, they are wholly dependent on their own prudence for mutual protection. If under these circumstances they were not to make some sort of law for themselves, their social condition -if such it could be called-would become intolerable. Though the term Lynch-law be of comparatively modern growth, it must be obvious that the institution, as we must take leave to call it, is of ancient date in America. Among a nation of pioneers, necessity alone must early have given birth to a species of quasi-law, by whatsoever name it may have been designated; and as men are prone to adhere to the |