de of composition that depends entirely on expression, and this the French and artificial style gladly dispenses with, as it lays no particular stress on anything—except vague, general common-places. Warton’s Sonnets are undoubtedly exquisite, both in style and matter; they are poetical and philosophical effusions of very delightful sentiment; but the thoughts, though fine and deeply felt, are not, like Milton’s subjects, identified completely with the writer, and so far want a more individual interest. Mr. Wordsworth’s are also finely conceived and high-sounding Sonnets. They mouth it well, and are said to be sacred to Liberty. Brutus’s exclamation, “Oh Virtue, I thought thee a substance, but I find thee a shadow,” was not considered as a compliment, but as a bitter sarcasm. The beauty of Milton’s Sonnets is their sincerity, the spirit of poetical patriotism which they breathe. Either Milton’s or the living bard’s are defective in this respect. There is no Sonnet of Milton’s on the Restoration of Charles II. There is no Sonnet of Mr. Wordsworth’s corresponding to that of “the poet blind and bold,” On the late Massacre in Piedmont. It would be no niggard praise to Mr. Wordsworth to grant that he was either half the man or half the poet that Milton was. He has not his high and various imagination, nor
