LETTER TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.[55]
Paterdale, Nov. 7. 1803.MY DEAR SCOTT,
I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden: not that he is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine. I admire his talents and genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius. The only qualities I can find in Dryden that areessentiallypoetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear. It may seem strange that I do not add to this, great command of language.Thathe certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather, that he should not be without. But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions. I do not mean to say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think, as is possible, considering how much he has written. You will easily understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of 'Palamon and Arcite,' as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men, or of individuals. That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this,—that there is not a single image from Nature in the whole body of his works; and in his translation from Virgil, whenever Virgil can be fairly said to have hiseyeupon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.
But too much of this; I am glad that you are to be his editor. His political and satirical pieces may be greatly benefited by illustration, and even absolutely require it. A correct text is the first object of an editor; then such notes as explain difficult or obscure passages; and lastly, which is much less important, notes pointing out authors to whom the Poet has been indebted, not in the fiddling way of phrase here and phrasethere (which is detestable as a general practice), but where he has had essential obligations either as to matter or manner.
If I can be of any use to you, do not fail to apply to me. One thing I may take the liberty to suggest, which is, when you come to the fables, might it not be advisable to print the whole of the Tales of Boccace in a smaller type in the original language? If this should look too much like swelling a book, I should certainly make such extracts as would show where Dryden has most strikingly improved upon, or fallen below, his original. I think his translations from Boccace are the best, at least the most poetical, of his poems. It is many years since I saw Boccace, but I remember that Sigismunda is not married by him to Guiscard (the names are different in Boccace in both tales, I believe, certainly in Theodore, &c.). I think Dryden has much injured the story by the marriage, and degraded Sigismunda's character by it. He has also, to the best of my remembrance, degraded her still more, by making her love absolute sensuality and appetite; Dryden had no other notion of the passion. With all these defects, and they are very gross ones, it is a noble poem. Guiscard's answer, when first reproached by Tancred, is noble in Boccace, nothing but this:Amor puà molto più che ne roi ne io possiamo. This, Dryden has spoiled. He says first very well, 'The faults of love by love are justified,' and then come four lines of miserable rant, quiteà la Maximin. Farewell, and believe me ever,
Your affectionate friend,WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
EXTRACT OF LETTER TO SIR WALTER SCOTT (1808).
Thank you for 'Marmion.' I think your end has been attained. That it is not the end which I should wish you to propose to yourself, you will be well aware, from what you know of my notions of composition, both as to matter and manner. In the circle of my acquaintance it seems as well liked as the 'Lay,' though I have heard that in the world it is not so. Had the Poem been much better than the Lay, it could scarcely have satisfied the public, which has too much of the monster, the moral monster, in its composition. The Spring has burst outupon us all at once, and the vale is now in exquisite beauty; a gentle shower has fallen this morning, and I hear the thrush, who has built in my orchard, singing amain. How happy we should be to see you here again! Ever, my dear Scott, your sincere friend,
W. W.[56]
LETTER TO REV. FRANCIS WRANGHAM, HUNMANBY, NEAR BRIDLINGTON, YORKSHIRE.
Grasmere, Oct. 2. 1808.MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
In what are you employed—I mean by way of amusement and relaxation from your professional duties? Is there any topographical history of your neighbourhood? I remember reading White'sNatural History and Antiquities of Selbournewith great pleasure, when a boy at school, and I have lately read Dr. Whitaker'sHistory of Craven and Whalley, both with profit and pleasure. Would it not be worth your while to give some of your leisure hours to a work of this kind, making those works partly your model, and adding thereto from the originality of your own mind?
With your activity you might produce something of this kind of general interest, taking for your limit any division in your neighbourhood, natural, ecclesiastical, or civil: suppose, for example, the coast from the borders of Cleveland, or from Scarborough, to Spurnhead; and inward into the country to any boundary that you might approve of. Pray think of this. I am induced to mention it from belief that you are admirably qualified for such a work; that it would pleasantly employ your leisure hours; and from a regret in seeing works of this kind, which might be made so very interesting, utterly marred by falling into the hands of wretched bunglers,e.g.theHistory of Cleveland, which I have just read, by a Clergyman of ——, the most heavy performance I ever encountered; and what an interesting district! Pray let me hear from you soon.
Affectionately and sincerely yours,W. WORDSWORTH.[57]
TO THE SAME.
Grasmere, Dec. 3. 1808.MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
On the other side you have the prospectus of a weekly essay intended to be published by your friend Coleridge.
Your Sermon did not reach me till the night before last; we have all read it, and are much pleased with it. Upon the whole, I like it better than the last: it must have been heard with great interest. I differ, however, from you in a few particulars. 1st. The Spaniards 'devoting themselves for an imprisoned Bourbon, or the crumbling relics of the Inquisition.' This is very fair for pointing a sentence, but it is not the truth. They have told us over and over again, that they arefighting against a foreign tyrant, who has dealt with them most perfidiously and inhumanly, who must hate them for their worth, and on account of the injuries they have received from him, and whom they must hate accordingly;againsta ruler over whom they could have no control, andforone whom they have told us they will establish as a sovereign of afreepeople, and therefore must he himself be a limited monarch. You will permit me to make to you this representation for its truth's sake, and because it gives me an opportunity of letting out a secret, viz. that I myself am very deep in this subject, and about to publish upon it, first, I believe, in a newspaper, for the sake of immediate and wide circulation; and next, the same matter in a separate pamphlet, under the title of 'The Convention of Cintra brought to the test of principles, and the people of Great Britain vindicated from the charge of having prejudged it.' You will wonder to hear me talk of principles when I have told you that I also do not go along with you in your sentiments respecting the Roman Catholic question. I confess I am not prepared to see the Roman Catholic religion as the Established Church of Ireland; and how that can be consistently refused to them, if other things are granted on the plea of their being the majority, I do not see. Certainly this demand will follow, and how would it be answered?
There is yet another circumstance in which I differ fromyou. If Dr. Bell's plan of education be of that importance which it appears to be of, it cannot be a matter of indifference whether he or Lancaster have a rightful claim to the invention. For Heaven's sake let all benefactors of their species have the honour due to them. Virgil gives a high place in Elysium to the improvers of life, and it is neither the least philosophical or least poetical passage of theAeneid.[58]These points of difference being stated, I may say that in other things I greatly approve both of the matter and manner of your Sermon.
Do not fail to return my best thanks to the lady to whom I am obliged for the elegant and accurate drawing of Broughton Church. I should have written to thank her and you for it immediately, but I foresaw that I should have occasion to write to you on this or other business.
All here desire their best remembrances; and believe me (in great haste, for I have several other letters to write on the same subject), affectionately yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.[59]
TO THE SAME.
Workington, April 8. 1809.MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
You will think I am afraid that I have used you ill in not replying sooner to your last letter; particularly as you were desirous to be informed in what newspaper my Pamphlet was printing. I should not have failed to give you immediately any information upon this subject which could be of use; but in fact, though I began to publish in a newspaper, viz. the 'Courier, an accidental loss of two or three sheets of the manuscript prevented me from going on in that mode of publication after two sections had appeared. The Pamphlet will be out in less than a fortnight, entitled, at full length, 'Concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal, to each other, and to the common enemy at this crisis, and specifically as affected by the Convention of Cintra; the whole brought to the test of those principles by which alone the independence and freedom of nations can be preserved or recovered.' This is lessa Title than a Table of Contents. I give it you at full length in order that you may set your fancy at work (if you have no better employment for it) upon what the Pamphlet may contain. I sent off the last sheets only a day or two since, else I should have written to you sooner; it having been my intention to pay my debt to you the moment I had discharged this debt to my country. What I have written has been done according to the best light of my conscience: it is indeed very imperfect, and will, I fear, be little read; but if it is read, cannot, I hope, fail of doing some good; though I am aware it will create me a world of enemies, and call forth the old yell of Jacobinism. I have not sent it to any personal friends as such, therefore I have made no exception in your case. I have ordered it to be sent to two, the Spanish and Portuguese Ambassadors, and three or four other public men and Members of Parliament, but to nobody of my friends and relations. It is printed with my name, and, I believe, will be published by Longman.... I am very happy that you have not been inattentive to my suggestion on the subject of Topography. When I ventured to recommend the pursuit to you, I did not for a moment suppose that it was to interfere with your appropriate duties as a parish priest; far otherwise: but I know you are of an active mind, and I am sure that a portion of your time might be thus employed without any deduction from that which was due to your professional engagements. It would be a recreation to you; and also it does appear to me that records of this kind ought to be executed by somebody or other, both for the instruction of those now living and for the sake of posterity; and if so, the duty devolves more naturally upon clergymen than upon other persons, as their opportunities and qualifications are both likely to be better than those of other men. If you have not seen White's and Whitaker's books do procure a sight of them.
I was aware that you would think me fair game upon the Roman Catholic question; but really I should be greatly obliged to any man who would help me over the difficulty I stated. If the Roman Catholics, upon the plea of their being the majority merely (which implies an admission on our part that their profession of faith is in itself as good as ours, as consistent with civil liberty), if they are to have their requests accorded, how can they be refused (consistently) the further prayer of beingconstituted, upon the same plea, the Established Church? I confess I am not prepared for this. With the Methodists on one side and the Catholics on the other, what is to become of the poor church and the people of England? to both of which I am most tenderly attached, and to the former not the less so, on account of the pretty little spire of Broughton Parish Church, under which you and I were made happy men by the gift from Providence of two excellent wives. To Mrs. Wrangham, present my cordial regards, and believe me, dear Wrangham, your very
Sincere and affectionate friend,W. WORDSWORTH.[60]
LETTER TO LORD LONSDALE.
Grasmere, May 25 [1809].MY LORD,
I had also another reason for deferring this acknowledgment to your Lordship, viz. that at the same time I wished to present to you a Tract which I have lately written, and which I hope you have now received. It was finished, and ought to have appeared, two months ago, but has been delayed by circumstances (connected with my distance from the press) over which I had no control. If this Tract should so far interest your Lordship as to induce you to peruse it, I do not doubt that it will be thoughtfully and candidly judged by you; in which case I fear no censure, but that which every man is liable to who, with good intentions, may have occasionally fallen into error; while at the same time I have an entire confidence that the principles which I have endeavoured to uphold must have the sanction of a mind distinguished, like that of your Lordship, for regard to morality and religion, and the true dignity and honour of your country.
May I beg of your Lordship to present my respectful compliments to Lady Lonsdale.
I have the honour to be, my Lord,Your Lordship's most obedient servant,W. WORDSWORTH.[61]
LETTER TO SOUTHEY.
MY DEAR SOUTHEY,[62]
Col. Campbell, our neighbour at G., has sent for your book; he served during the whole of the Peninsular war, and you shall hear what he says of it indue course. We are out of the way of all literary communication, so I can report nothing. I have read the whole with great pleasure; the work will do you everlasting honour. I have saidthe whole, forgetting, in that contemplation, my feelings upon one part, where you have tickled with a feather when you should have branded with a red-hot iron. You will guess I mean the Convention of Cintra. My detestation, I may say abhorrence, of that event is not at all diminished by your account of it. Buonaparte had committed a capital blunder in supposing that when he hadintimidatedtheSovereignsof Europe he hadconqueredthe severalNations. Yet it was natural for a wiser than he was to have fallen into this mistake; for the old despotisms had deprived the body of the people of all practical knowledge in the management, and, of necessity, of all interest, in the course of affairs. The French themselves were astonished at the apathy and ignorance of the people whom they had supposed they had utterly subdued, when they had taken their fortresses, scattered their armies, entered their capital cities, and struck their cabinets with dismay. There was no hope for the deliverance of Europe till the nations had suffered enough to be driven to a passionate recollection of all that was honourable in their past history, and to make appeal to the principles of universal and everlasting justice. These sentiments, the authors of that Convention most unfeelingly violated; and as to the principles, they seemed to be as little aware even of the existence of such powers, for powers emphatically may they be called, as the tyrant himself. As far, therefore, as these men could, they put an extinguisher upon the star which was then rising. It is in vain to say that after the first burst of indignation was over, the Portuguese themselves were reconciled to the event, andrejoiced in their deliverance. We may infer from that the horror which they must have felt in the presence of their oppressors; and we may see in it to what a state of helplessness their bad government had reduced them. Our duty was to have treated them with respect as the representatives of suffering humanity beyond what they were likely to look for themselves, and as deserving greatly, in common with their Spanish brethren, for having been the first to rise against the tremendous oppression, and to show how, and how only, it could be put an end to.
WM. WORDSWORTH.[63]
'The house which I have for some time occupied is the Parsonage of Grasmere. It stands close by the churchyard [where his two children were buried], and I have found it absolutely necessary that we should quit a place which, by recalling to our minds at every moment the losses we have sustained in the course of the last year [1811-12] would grievously retard our progress toward that tranquillity which it is our duty to aim at.'[64]
LETTER TO PROFESSOR HAMILTON, OBSERVATORY, DUBLIN.
Lowther Castle, Sunday Mor[ning] [Sept. 26, 1830].
MY DEAR MR. HAMILTON,
I profit by the frank in which the letter for your sister will be enclosed, to thank you for yours of the 11th, and the accompanying spirited and elegant verses. You ask many questions, kindly testifying thereby the interest you take in us and our neighbourhood. Most probably some of them are answered in my daughter's letter to Miss E.H. I will, however, myself reply to one or two at the risk of repeating what she may have said. 1st. Mrs. Hemans has not sent us any tidings of her movements and intentions since she left us; so I am unable to tell you whether she mean to settle in Edinburgh or London.
She said she would write as soon as she could procure a frank. That accommodation is, I suppose, more rare in Scotland than at this season in our neighbourhood. I assure you the weather has been so unfavourable to out-door amusements since you left us (not but that we have had a sprinkling of fine and bright days), that little or no progress has been made in the game of the Graces; and I fear that amusement must be deferred till next summer, if we or anybody else are to see another. Mr. Barber has dined with us once, and my sister and Mrs. Marshall, of Halsteads, have seen his palace and grounds; but I cannot report upon the general state of his temper. I believe he continues to be enchanted, as far as decayed health will allow, with a Mr. Cooper, a clergyman who has just come to the living of Hawkshend (about five miles from Ambleside). Did I tell you that Professor Wilson, with his two sons and daughter, have been, and probably still are, at Elleray? He heads the gaieties of the neighbourhood, and has presided as steward at two regattas. Do these employments come under your notions of action opposed to contemplation? Why should they not? Whatever the high moralists may say, the political economists will, I conclude, approve them as setting capital afloat, and giving an impulse to manufacture and handicrafts; but I speak of the improvement which may come thence to navigation and nautical science. I have dined twice along with my brother (who left us some time ago) in the Professor's company—at Mrs. Watson's, widow of the Bp., at Calgarth, and at Mr. Bolton's. Poor Mr. B.! he must have been greatly shocked at the fatal accident that put an end to his friend Huskisson's earthly career. There is another acquaintance of mine also recently gone—a person for whom I never had any love, but with whom I had for a short time a good deal of intimacy. I mean Hazlitt, whose death you may have seen announced in the papers. He was a man of extraordinary acuteness, but perverse as Lord Byron himself; whose life by Galt I have been skimming since I came here. Galt affects to be very profound, though [he] is in fact a very shallow fellow,—and perhaps the most illogical writer that these illogical days have produced. His 'buts' and his 'therefores' are singularly misapplied, singularly even for this unthinking age. He accuses Mr. Southey of pursuing Lord B—— withrancour. I should like a reference to what Mr. S—— has written of Lord B——,to ascertain whether this charge be well founded. I trust it is not, both from what I know of my friend, and for the aversion which Mr. G—— has expressed towards the Lakers, whom in the plenitude of his ignorance he is pleased to speak of as aclassorschoolof Poets.
Now for a word on the serious part of your letter. Your views of action and contemplation are, I think, just. If you can lay your hands upon Mr. Coleridge's 'Friend,' you will find some remarks of mine upon a letter signed, if I recollect right, 'Mathetes,' which was written by Professor Wilson, in which, if I am not mistaken, sentiments like yours are expressed. At all events, I am sure that I have long retained those opinions, and have frequently expressed them either by letter or otherwise. One thing, however, is not to be forgotten concerning active life—that a personal independence must be provided for; and in some cases more is required—ability to assist our friends, relations, and natural dependents. The party are at breakfast, and I must close this wretched scrawl, which pray excuse.
Ever faithfully yours,WM. WORDSWORTH.[65]
Pray continue to write at your leisure. How could I have forgot so long to thank you for your obliging present, which I shall value on every account?
LETTER TO ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM.
Grasmere, March 27 [1811].MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
Your last letter, which I have left so long unanswered, found me in a distressed state of mind, with one of my children lying nearly, as I thought, at the point of death. This put me off answering your letter....
You return to the R. Catholic Question. I am decidedly of opinion that no further concessions should be made. The R. Catholic Emancipation is a mere pretext of ambitious and discontented men. Are you prepared for the next step—a R. Catholic Established Church? I confess I dread the thought.
As to the Bible Society, my view of the subject is asfollows:—1st. Distributing Bibles is a good thing. 2ndly. More Bibles will be distributed in consequence of the existence of the Bible Society; therefore, so far as that goes, the existence of the Bible Society is good. But, 3rdly, as to theindirectbenefits expected from it, as producing a golden age of unanimity among Christians, all that I think fume and emptiness; nay, far worse. So deeply am I persuaded that discord and artifice, and pride and ambition, would be fostered by such an approximation and unnatural alliance of sects, that I am inclined to think the evil thus produced would more than outweigh the good done by dispersing the Bibles. I think the last fifty or sixty pages of my brother's pamphlet[66]merit the serious consideration of all persons of the Established Church who have connected themselves with the sectaries for this purpose....
Entreating your pardon for my long delay in answering your letter, let me conclude with assuring you that I remain, with great truth, your affectionate friend,
W. WORDSWORTH.[67]
Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, Aug. 28, 1813.MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
Your letter arrived when I was on the point of going from home on business. I took it with me, intending to answer it upon the road, but I had not courage to undertake the office on account of the inquiries it contains concerning my family. I will be brief on this melancholy subject. In the course of the last year I have lost two sweet children, a girl and a boy, at the ages of four and six and a half. These innocents were the delight of our hearts, and beloved by everybody that knew them. They were cut off in a few hours—one by the measles, and the other by convulsions; dying, one half a year after the other. I quit this sorrowful subject, secure of your sympathy as a father and as my friend.
My employment I find salutary to me, and of consequence ina pecuniary point of view, as my literary employments bring me no remuneration, nor promise any. As to what you say about the Ministry, I very much prefer the course of their policy to that of the Opposition; especially on two points most near my heart: resistance of Buonaparte by force of arms, and their adherence to the principles of the British Constitution in withholding political power from the Roman Catholics. My most determined hostility shall always be directed against those statesmen who, like Whitbread, Grenville, and others, would crouch to a sanguinary tyrant; and I cannot act with those who see no danger to the Constitution in introducing papists into Parliament. There are other points of policy in which I deem the Opposition grievously mistaken, and therefore I am at present, and long have been, by principle, a supporter of ministers, as far as my little influence extends. With affectionate wishes for your welfare and that of your family, and with best regards to Mrs. Wrangham, I am, my dear friend,
Faithfully yours,W. WORDSWORTH.[68]
TO ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM.
Rydal Mount, near Kendal, April 26. 1814.MY DEAR WRANGHAM,
I trouble you with this in behalf of a very deserving young clergyman of the name of Jameson, who is just gone from this neighbourhood to a curacy at Sherbourne, in the neighbourhood of Ferry Bridge. He has a mother and a younger brother dependent upon his exertions, and it is his wish to take pupils in order to increase his income, which, as he is a curate, you know, cannot but be small. He is an excellent young man, a good scholar, and likely to become much better, for he is extremely industrious. Among his talents I must mention that for drawing, in which he is a proficient.... Now my wish is that, if it fall in your way, you would vouchsafe him your patronage....
Of course, you cannot speak for him directly till you have seen him; but, might he be permitted to refer to you, you could have no objection to say that you were as yet ignorant of hismerits as to your own knowledge, but that 'youresteemedfriend Mr. Wordsworth, thatpopularpoet, stamp-collector for Westmoreland, &c., had recommended him strenuously to you as in all things deserving.'
A portion of a long poem[69]from me will see the light ere long; I hope it will give you pleasure. It is serious, and has been written with great labour....
I mean to make a tour in Scotland with Mrs. W—— and her sister, Miss Hutchinson. I congratulate you on the overthrow of the execrable despot, and the complete triumph of thewar faction, of which noble body I have the honour to be as active a member as my abilities and industry would allow. Best remembrances to yourself and Mrs. Wrangham,
And believe me affectionately yours,W. WORDSWORTH.[70]
LETTER TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ.
——, 1827.MY DEAR SIR,
Edith thanked you, in my name, for your valuable present of the 'Peninsular War.' I have read it with great delight: it is beautifully written, and a most interesting story. I did not notice a single sentiment or opinion that I could have wished away but one—where you support the notion that, if the Duke of Wellington had not lived and commanded, Buonaparte must have continued the master of Europe. I do not object to this from any dislike I have to the Duke, but from a conviction—I trust, a philosophic one—that Providence would not allow the upsetting of so diabolical a system as Buonaparte's to depend upon the existence of any individual. Justly was it observed by Lord Wellesley, that Buonaparte was of an order of minds that created for themselves great reverses. He might have gone further, and said that it is of the nature of tyranny to work to its own destruction.[71]
The sentence of yours which occasioned these loose remarks is, as I said, the only one I objected to, while I met with athousand things to admire. Your sympathy with the great cause is every where energetically and feelingly expressed. What fine fellows were Alvarez and Albuquerque; and how deeply interesting the siege of Gerona!
I have not yet mentioned dear Sir George Beaumont.[72]His illness was not long; and he was prepared by habitually thinking on his latter end. But it is impossible not to grieve for ourselves, for his loss cannot be supplied. Let dear Edith stay as long as you can; and when she must go, pray come for her, and stay a few days with us. Farewell.
Ever most affectionately yours,W. W——.[73]
LETTER TO G. HUNTLY GORDON, ESQ.
Rydal Mount, May 14. 1829.
Mr. Southey means to present me (as usual) his 'Colloquies,' &c. There is, perhaps, not a page of them that he did not read me in MS.; and several of the Dialogues are upon subjects which we have often discussed. I am greatly interested with much of the book; but upon its effect as a whole I can yet form no opinion, as it was read to me as it happened to be written. I need scarcely say that Mr. Southey ranks very highly, in my opinion, as a prose writer. His style is eminently clear, lively, and unencumbered, and his information unbounded; and there is a moral ardour about his compositions which nobly distinguishes them from the trading and factious authorship of the present day. He may not improbably be our companion in Wales next year. At the end of this month he goes, with his family, to the Isle of Man for sea-air; and said, if I would accompany him, and put off the Welsh tour for another year, he would join our party. Notwithstanding the inducement, I could not bring myself to consent; but as things now are, I shall remind him of the hope he held out.
Believe me, very faithfully, yours,WM. WORDSWORTH.
There is no probability of my being in town this season. Ihave a horror of smoking; and nothing but a necessity for health's sake could reconcile me to it in William.[74]
LETTER TO A FRIEND, 1821.
In the year 1821 (October 7) an old friend of Wordsworth thus writes to him: 'They tell me you have changed your opinions upon many subjects respecting which we used to think alike; but I am persuaded we shall neither of us change those great principles which ought to guide us in our conduct, and lead us to do all the good we can to others. And I am much mistaken if we should not find many things to talk about without disturbing ourselves with political or party disputes.'
To this Wordsworth answered as follows:
Rydal Mount, Dec. 4. 1821.MY DEAR L——,
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,youhave been deluded byplacesandpersons, while I have stuck toprinciples.Iabandoned France and her rulers whentheyabandoned 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 theonlysafeguard 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 amthereforefor vigorousrestrictions; 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 title 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 itactually teaches to the great mass, 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 constitution, 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 onlocal politics, but I have not space; 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]