The Fourth book is also filled with dialogues ethical and theological; and, with the exception of some brilliant and forcible expressions here and there, consists of an exposition of truisms, more cloudy, wordy, and inconceivably prolix, than any thing we ever met with.

In the beginning of the Fifth book, they leave the solitary valley, taking its pensive inhabitant along with them, and stray on to where the landscape sinks down into milder features, till they arrive at a church, which stands on a moderate elevation in the centre of a wide and fertile vale.  Here they meditate for a while among the monuments, till the vicar comes out and joins them;—­and recognizing the pedlar for an old acquaintance, mixes graciously in the conversation, which proceeds in a very edifying manner till the close of the book.

The Sixth contains a choice obituary, or characteristic account of several of the persons who lie buried before this groupe of moralizers; —­an unsuccessful lover, who finds consolation in natural history—­a miner, who worked on for twenty years, in despite of universal ridicule, and at last found the vein he had expected—­two political enemies reconciled in old age to each other—­an old female miser—­a seduced damsel—­and two widowers, one who devoted himself to the education of his daughters, and one who married a prudent middle-aged woman to take care of them.

In the beginning of the Eighth Book, the worthy vicar expresses, in the words of Mr. Wordsworth’s own epitome, “his apprehensions that he had detained his auditors too long—­invites them to his house—­Solitary, disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a knight-errant—­which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes in the country, from the manufacturing spirit—­Its favourable effects—­ The other side of the picture,” etc., etc.  After these very poetical themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are introduced to the Vicar’s wife and daughter; and while they sit chatting in the parlour over a family dinner, his son and one of his companions come in with a fine dish of trouts piled on a blue slate; and, after being caressed by the company, are sent to dinner in the nursery.—­This ends the eighth book.

The Ninth and last is chiefly occupied with the mystical discourses of the Pedlar; who maintains, that the whole universe is animated by an active principle, the noblest seat of which is in the human soul; and moreover, that the final end of old age is to train and enable us

  To hear the mighty stream of Tendency
  Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
  A clear sonorous voice, inaudible
  To the vast multitude whose doom it is
  To run the giddy round of vain delight—­