. (From Dickens's Household Words.)
The Tea-Plant. (From Hogg's Instructor.)
Anecdotes Of Dr. Chalmers.
The Pleasures Of Illness. (From the People's Journal.)
Obstructions To The Use Of The Telescope.
Monthly Record Of Current Events.
Literary Notices.
Autumn Fashions.
Footnotes

WORDSWORTH--HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS.

[Illustration: Wordsworth.]

In a late article on Southey, we alluded to the solitary position of
Wordsworth in that lake country where he once shone the brightest star in
a large galaxy. Since then, the star of Jove, so beautiful and large, has
gone out in darkness--the greatest laureate of England has expired--the
intensest, most unique, and most pure-minded of our poets, with the single
exceptions of Milton and Cowper, is departed. And it were lesemajesty
against his mighty shade not to pay it our tribute while yet his memory,
and the grass of his grave, are green.

It is singular, that only a few months have elapsed since the great
antagonist of his literary fame--Lord Jeffrey (who, we understand,
persisted to the last in his ungenerous and unjust estimate), left the
bench of human, to appear at the bar of Divine justice. Seldom has the
death of a celebrated man produced a more powerful impression in his own
city and circle, and a less powerful impression on the wide horizon of the
world. In truth, he had outlived himself. It had been very different had
he passed away thirty years ago, when the "Edinburgh Review" was in the
plenitude of its influence. As it was, he disappeared like a star at
midnight, whose descent is almost unnoticed while the whole heavens are
white with glory, not like a sun going down, that night may come over the
earth. One of the acutest, most accomplished, most warm-hearted, and
generous of men, Jeffrey wanted that stamp of universality, that highest
order of genius, that depth of insight, and that simple directness of
purpose, not to speak of that moral and religious consecration, which
"give the world assurance of a man." He was the idol of Edinburgh, and the
pride of Scotland, because he condensed in himself those qualities which
the modern Athens has long been accustomed to covet and admire--taste and
talent rather than genius--subtlety of appreciation rather than power of
origination--the logical understanding rather than the inventive
insight--and because his name _had_ sounded out to the ends of the earth.
But nature and man, not