persists in choosing his examples of intellectual dignity and tenderness exclusively from the lowest ranks of society, will be sufficiently apparent, from the circumstance of his having thought fit to make his chief prolocutor in this poetical dialogue, and chief advocate of Providence and Virtue, an old Scotch Pedlar—­retired indeed from business—­but still rambling about in his former haunts, and gossiping among his old customers, without his pack on his shoulders.  The other persons of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has grown half an atheist and half a misanthrope—­the wife of an unprosperous weaver—­a servant girl with her infant—­a parish pauper, and one or two other personages of equal rank and dignity.

The character of the work is decidedly didactic; and more than nine-tenths of it are occupied with a species of dialogue, or rather a series of long sermons or harangues which pass between the pedlar, the author, the old chaplain, and a worthy vicar, who entertains the whole party at dinner on the last day of their excursion.  The incidents which occur in the course of it are as few and trifling as can be imagined;—­and those which the different speakers narrate in the course of their discourses, are introduced rather to illustrate their arguments or opinions, than for any interest they are supposed to possess of their own.—­The doctrine which the work is intended to enforce, we are by no means certain that we have discovered.  In so far as we can collect, however, it seems to be neither more nor less than the old familiar one, that a firm belief in the providence of a wise and beneficent Being must be our great stay and support under all afflictions and perplexities upon earth—­and that there are indications of his power and goodness in all the aspects of the visible universe, whether living or inanimate—­every part of which should therefore be regarded with love and reverence, as exponents of those great attributes.  We can testify, at least, that these salutary and important truths are inculcated at far greater length, and with more repetitions, than in any ten volumes of sermons that we ever perused.  It is also maintained, with equal conciseness and originality, that there is frequently much good sense, as well as much enjoyment, in the humbler conditions of life; and that, in spite of great vices and abuses, there is a reasonable allowance both of happiness and goodness in society at large.  If there be any deeper or more recondite doctrines in Mr. Wordsworth’s book, we must confess that they have escaped us;—­and, convinced as we are of the truth and soundness of those to which we have alluded, we cannot help thinking that they might have been better enforced with less parade and prolixity.  His effusions on what may be called the physiognomy of external nature, or its moral and theological expression, are eminently fantastic, obscure, and affected.—­It is quite time, however, that we should give the reader a more particular account of this singular performance.