The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 102

Your letter ought to have been much earlier acknowledged, and would have been so, had I not been sure you would ascribe my silence to its true cause, viz. procrastination, and not to indifference to your kind attention. There was another feeling which both urged and indisposed me to write to you,--I mean the allusion which, in so friendly a manner, you make to a supposed change in my political opinions. To the scribblers in pamphlets and periodical publications who have heaped so much obloquy upon myself and my friends Coleridge and Southey, I have not condescended to reply, nor ever shall; but to you, my candid and enlightened friend, I will say a few words on this subject, which, if we have the good fortune to meet again, as I hope we may, will probably be further dwelt upon.

I should think that I had lived to little purpose if my notions on the subject of government had undergone no modification: my youth must, in that case, have been without enthusiasm, and my manhood endued with small capability of profiting by reflection. If I were addressing those who have dealt so liberally with the words renegade, apostate, &c., I should retort the charge upon them, and say, _you_ have been deluded by _places_ and _persons_, while I have stuck to _principles_. _I_ abandoned France and her rulers when _they_ abandoned the struggle for liberty, gave themselves up to tyranny, and endeavoured to enslave the world. I disapproved of the war against France at its commencement, thinking, which was, perhaps, an error, that it might have been avoided; but after Buonaparte had violated the independence of Switzerland, my heart turned against him, and against the nation that could submit to be the instrument of such an outrage. Here it was that I parted, in feeling, from the Whigs, and to a certain degree united with their adversaries, who were free from the delusion (such I must ever regard it) of Mr. Fox and his party, that a safe and honourable peace was practicable with the French nation, and that an ambitious conqueror like Buonaparte could be softened down into a commercial rival.

In a determination, therefore, to aim at the overthrow of that inordinate ambition by war, I sided with the ministry, not from general approbation of their conduct, but as men who thought right on this essential point. How deeply this question interested me will be plain to any one who will take the trouble of reading my political sonnets, and the tract occasioned by the 'Convention of Cintra,' in which are sufficient evidences of my dissatisfaction with the mode of conducting the war, and a prophetic display of the course which it would take if carried on upon the principles of justice, and with due respect for the feelings of the oppressed nations.

This is enough for foreign politics, as influencing my attachments.

There are three great domestic questions, viz. the liberty of the press, parliamentary reform, and Roman Catholic concession, which, if I briefly advert to, no more need be said at present.

A free discussion of public measures through the press I deem the _only_ safeguard of liberty: without it I have neither confidence in kings, parliaments, judges, or divines: they have all in their turn betrayed their country. But the press, so potent for good, is scarcely less so for evil; and unfortunately they who are misled and abused by its means are the persons whom it can least benefit. It is the fatal characteristic of their disease to reject all remedies coming from the quarter that has caused or aggravated the malady. I am _therefore_ for vigorous restrictions; but there is scarcely any abuse that I would not endure rather than sacrifice, or even endanger, this freedom.

When I was young (giving myself credit for qualities which I did not possess, and measuring mankind by that standard) I thought it derogatory to human nature to set up property in preference to person as a t.i.tle for legislative power. That notion has vanished. I now perceive many advantages in our present complex system of representation which formerly eluded my observation; this has tempered my ardour for reform: but if any plan could be contrived for throwing the representation fairly into the hands of the property of the country, and not leaving it so much in the hands of the large proprietors as it now is, it should have my best support; though even in that event there would be a sacrifice of personal rights, independent of property, that are now frequently exercised for the benefit of the community.

Be not startled when I say that I am averse to further concessions to the Roman Catholics. My reasons are, that such concessions will not produce harmony among the Roman Catholics themselves; that they among them who are most clamorous for the measure care little about it but as a step, first, to the overthrow of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, as introductory to a separation of the two countries--their ultimate aim; that I cannot consent to take the character of a religion from the declaration of powerful professors of it disclaiming doctrines imputed to that religion; that, taking its character from what it _actually teaches to the great ma.s.s_, I believe the Roman Catholic religion to be unchanged in its doctrines and unsoftened in its spirit,--how can it be otherwise unless the doctrine of Infallibility be given up? that such concessions would set all other dissenters in motion--an issue which has never fairly been met by the friends to concession; and deeming the Church Establishment not only a fundamental part of our const.i.tution, but one of the greatest upholders and propagators of civilization in our own country, and, lastly, the most effectual and main support of religious Toleration, I cannot but look with jealousy upon measures which must reduce her relative influence, unless they be accompanied with arrangements more adequate than any yet adopted for the preservation and increase of that influence, to keep pace with the other powers in the community.

I do not apologise for this long letter, the substance of which you may report to any one worthy of a reply who, in your hearing, may animadvert upon my political conduct. I ought to have added, perhaps, a word on _local politics_, but I have not s.p.a.ce; but what I should have said may in a great measure be deduced from the above.

I am, my dear L----, Yours, &c. &c., W.W.[75]

[75] _Memoirs_, ii. 23-27.

45. _Of his Poems and others_.

LETTER TO BERNARD BARTON.

Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, Jan. 12. 1816.

DEAR SIR,

Though my sister, during my absence, has returned thanks in my name for the verses which you have done me the honour of addressing to me, and for the obliging letter which accompanies them, I feel it inc.u.mbent on me, on my return home, to write a few words to the same purpose, with my own hand.

It is always a satisfaction to me to learn that I have given pleasure upon _rational_ grounds; and I have nothing to object to your poetical panegyric but the occasion which called it forth. An admirer of my works, zealous as you have declared yourself to be, condescends too much when he gives way to an impulse proceeding from the ----, or indeed from any other Review. The writers in these publications, while they prosecute their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind very favourable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so pure as genuine poetry; and as to the instance which has incited you to offer me this tribute of your grat.i.tude, though I have not seen it, I doubt not but that it is a splenetic effusion of the conductor of that Review, who has taken a perpetual retainer from his own incapacity to plead against my claims to public approbation.

I differ from you in thinking that the only poetical lines in your address are 'stolen from myself.' The best verse, perhaps, is the following:

'Awfully mighty in his impotence,'

which, by way of repayment, I may he tempted to steal from you on some future occasion.

It pleases, though it does not surprise me, to learn that, having been affected early in life by my verses, you have returned again to your old loves after some little infidelities, which you were shamed into by commerce with the scribbling and chattering part of the world. I have heard of many who upon their first acquaintance with my poetry have had much to get over before they could thoroughly relish it; but never of one who having once learned to enjoy it, had ceased to value it, or survived his admiration. This is as good an external a.s.surance as I can desire, that my inspiration is from a pure source, and that my principles of composition are trustworthy.

With many thanks for your good wishes, and begging leave to offer mine in return,

I remain, Dear Sir, Respectfully yours, WM. WORDSWORTH.[76]

[76] _Memoirs_, ii. 52-4.

Bernard Barton, Esq., Woodbridge, Suffolk.

46. _Of the Thanksgiving Ode and 'White Doe of Rylston.'_

LETTER TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

1816.

MY DEAR SOUTHEY,

I am much of your mind in respect to my Ode. Had it been a hymn, uttering the sentiments of a _mult.i.tude_, a _stanza_ would have been indispensable. But though I have called it a 'Thanksgiving Ode,'

strictly speaking it is not so, but a poem, composed, or supposed to be composed, on the morning of the thanksgiving, uttering the sentiments of an _individual_ upon that occasion. It is a _dramatised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n_; and this, if any thing can, must excuse the irregular frame of the metre. In respect to a _stanza_ for a grand subject designed to be treated comprehensively, there are great objections. If the stanza be short, it will scarcely allow of fervour and impetuosity, unless so short, as that the sense is run perpetually from one stanza to another, as in Horace's Alcaics; and if it be long, it will be as apt to generate diffuseness as to check it. Of this we have innumerable instances in Spenser and the Italian poets. The sense required cannot he included in one given stanza, so that another whole stanza is added, not unfrequently, for the sake of matter which would naturally include itself in a very few lines.

If Gray's plan be adopted, there is not time to become acquainted with the arrangement, and to recognise with pleasure the recurrence of the movement.

Be so good as to let me know where you found most difficulty in following me. The pa.s.sage which I most suspect of being misunderstood is,

'And thus is missed the sole true glory;'

and the pa.s.sage, where I doubt most about the reasonableness of expecting that the reader should follow me in the luxuriance of the imagery and the language, is the one that describes, under so many metaphors, the spreading of the news of the Waterloo victory over the globe. Tell me if this displeased you.

Do you know who reviewed 'The White Doe,' in the _Quarterly_? After having a.s.serted that Mr. W. uses his words without any regard to their sense, the writer says, that on no other principle can he explain that Emily is _always_ called 'the consecrated Emily.' Now, the name Emily occurs just fifteen times in the poem; and out of these fifteen, the epithet is attached to it _once_, and that for the express purpose of recalling the scene in which she had been consecrated by her brother's solemn adjuration, that she would fulfil her destiny, and become a soul,

'By force of sorrows high Uplifted to the purest sky Of undisturbed mortality.'

The point upon which the whole moral interest of the piece hinges, when that speech is closed, occurs in this line,

'He kissed the consecrated maid;'

and to bring back this to the reader, I repeated the epithet.

The service I have lately rendered to Burns' genius[77] will one day be performed to mine. The quotations, also, are printed with the most culpable neglect of correctness: there are lines turned into nonsense.

Too much of this. Farewell!

Believe me affectionately yours, W. WORDSWORTH.[78]

[77] See his 'Letter to a Friend of Burns.'

[78] _Memoirs_, ii. 60-1.

_47. Of Poems in Stanzas_.

LETTER TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

DEAR SOUTHEY,

My opinion in respect to _epic poetry_ is much the same as the critic whom Lucien Buonaparte has quoted in his preface. _Epic_ poetry, of the highest cla.s.s, requires in the first place an action eminently influential, an action with a grand or sublime train of consequences; it next requires the intervention and guidance of beings superior to man, what the critics I believe call _machinery_; and, lastly, I think with Dennis, that no subject but a religious one can answer the demand of the soul in the highest cla.s.s of this species of poetry. Now Ta.s.so's is a religious subject, and in my opinion, a most happy one; but I am confidently of opinion that the _movement_ of Ta.s.so's poem rarely corresponds with the essential character of the subject; nor do I think it possible that written in _stanzas_ it should. The celestial movement cannot, I think, be kept up, if the sense is to be broken in that despotic manner at the close of every eight lines. Spenser's stanza is infinitely finer than the _ottaca rhima_, but even Spenser's will not allow the epic movement as exhibited by Homer, Virgil, and Milton. How n.o.ble is the first paragraph of the _Aeneid_ in point of sound, compared with the first stanza of the _Jerusalem Delivered_! The one winds with the majesty of the Conscript Fathers entering the Senate House in solemn procession; and the other has the pace of a set of recruits shuffling on the drill-ground, and receiving from the adjutant or drill-serjeant the commands to halt at every ten or twenty steps. Farewell.