has gnawed too much on the bridle; and has often thrown out crusts to the critics, in mere defiance or as a point of honour when he was challenged, which otherwise his own good sense would have withheld.  We suspect that Mr. Wordsworth’s feelings are a little morbid in this respect, or that he resents censure more than he is gratified by praise.  Otherwise, the tide has turned much in his favour of late years—­he has a large body of determined partisans—­and is at present sufficiently in request with the public to save or relieve him from the last necessity to which a man of genius can be reduced—­that of becoming the God of his own idolatry!

* * * * *

MR. MALTHUS.

Mr. Malthus may be considered as one of those rare and fortunate writers who have attained a scientific reputation in questions of moral and political philosophy.  His name undoubtedly stands very high in the present age, and will in all probability go down to posterity with more or less of renown or obloquy.  It was said by a person well qualified to judge both from strength and candour of mind, that “it would take a thousand years at least to answer his work on Population.”  He has certainly thrown a new light on that question, and changed the aspect of political economy in a decided and material point of view—­whether he has not also endeavoured to spread a gloom over the hopes and more sanguine speculations of man, and to cast a slur upon the face of nature, is another question.  There is this to be said for Mr. Malthus, that in speaking of him, one knows what one is talking about.  He is something beyond a mere name—­one has not to beat the bush about his talents, his attainments, his vast reputation, and leave off without knowing what it all amounts to—­he is not one of those great men, who set themselves off and strut and fret an hour upon the stage, during a day-dream of popularity, with the ornaments and jewels borrowed from the common stock, to which nothing but their vanity and presumption gives them the least individual claim—­he has dug into the mine of truth, and brought up ore mixed with dross!  In weighing his merits we come at once to the question of what he has done or failed to do.  It is a specific claim that he sets up.  When we speak of Mr. Malthus, we mean the Essay on Population; and when we mention the Essay on Population, we mean a distinct leading proposition, that stands out intelligibly from all trashy pretence, and is a ground on which to fix the levers that may move the world, backwards or forwards.  He has not left opinion where he found it; he has advanced or given it a wrong bias, or thrown a stumbling-block in its way.  In a word, his name is not stuck, like so many others, in the firmament of reputation, nobody knows why, inscribed in great letters, and with a transparency of TALENTS, GENIUS, LEARNING blazing round it—­it is tantamount to an idea, it