victions with respect to national well-being, and the true spirit in which a war of freedom should be conducted, are uttered in the pamphlet on "The Convention of Cintra." It constitutes by far the most instructive comment in existence upon the political sonnets. His other prose writings on public matters represent his later temper of conservatism, allied with what may be described as the spirit of conservative reform, and they correspond with the mood of mind and the regulative thoughts expressed in many poems of his elder years. From first to last his veneration for man as man and his deep interest in the joys and sorrows of the people were predominant. Their interests never ceased to be dear to his heart; he only changed his beliefs as to the best mode of doing them service. In the Postscript of 1835 to "Yarrow Revisited" he pleads against the laissez faire policy of utilitarian doctrinaires; he maintains that all persons, whether feeble and old or able-bodied, who cannot find employment or procure wages sufficient to support the body in health and strength, are entitled to state support; he even dares to urge a right of nature; he maintains that a Christian government should stand in loco parentis towards all its subjects, and that the claim of the state to allegiance involves the duty of parental protection; and he was among the early advocates of coöperative industries, in which the workers possess a share of the capital. The most spirit-stirring of his political writings is undoubtedly the Convention of Cintra pamphlet. Wordsworth's point of view is identical with that maintained in the sonnets which treat of the affairs of Spain and Portugal; the same thoughts are here expressed in prose, animated by the same enthusiasm and bearing as its burden the same moral wisdom. Removed from petty and conflicting self-interests, and from factions which force men astray against their wills, placed among the enduring, free, and passionate presences of nature, Wordsworth could look into the life of things; could submit himself to the vast impalpable motives of justice, and of the deep fraternity of nations; could pursue those trains of reasoning and meditation which originate from and are addressed to the universal spirit of man. His purpose was not merely, with the energy of a wide-ranging intellect, to use truth as a powerful tool in the hand, but to infuse truth as a vital fluid in the heart." It was not knowledge merely which he wished to convey; but knowledge animated by the breath and life of appropriate feeling; it was not wisdom alone as a possession, but wisdom as a power.1 ee Two or three examples of parallels between the sonnets and the pamphlet may suffice. The majestic sonnet beginning "The power of Armies is a visible thing" asserts that the power of a brave and indignant People is superior to the mechanism of armies, as being untameable and incapable of circumscription; it is like the wind upon the wing or like the wind sleeping "within its awful caves"; it springs indigenous, like the subtle element of waters rising from the soil. In the pamphlet we read: "A military spirit there should be, and a military action, not confined like an ordinary river in one channel, but spreading like the Nile over the whole face of the land. . . . In the moral virtues and qualities of passion which belong to a people must the ultimate salvation of a people be sought for. . . . The Spaniards must now be taught that their strength chiefly lies in moral qualities, more silent in their operation, more permanent in their nature; in the virtues of perseverance, constancy, fortitude, and watchfulness, in a long memory and a quick feeling, to rise upon a favourable summons, a texture of life 1I have here made use of a few sentences from my article on "Wordsworth's Prose Works" in "Studies on Literature, 17891877." which, though cut through (as hath been feigned of the bodies of the Angels), unites again." The sonnet Indignation of a High-minded Spaniard" expresses the wrath and horror caused, not by the injuries of the French, but by the tyrant's specious promises of future benefit. Such "blasphemies" are described by the pamphlet as a "warfare against the conscience and the reason "The Spaniards groan less over the blood which has been shed than over the arrogant assumptions of beneficence made by him from whose order that blood had flowed. . . . Through the terrors of the Supreme Ruler of things, as set forth by works of destruction and ruin, we see but darkly; we may reverence the chastisement, may fear it with awe, but it is not natural to incline towards it in love; moreover, devastation passes away — a perishing power among things that perish; whereas, to found and to build, to create and to institute, to bless through blessing, this has to do with objects where we trust we can see clearly, it reminds us of what we love, - it aims at permanence." The "blasphemies" of the French lay in the assumption of this divine power of "blessing." १९ Say, what is Honour?" asks Wordsworth in the sonnet; and he answers: 'Tis the finest sense Of justice which the human mind can frame, And guard the way of life from all offence And the pamphlet: "For national independence and liberty, and that honour by which these and other blessings are to be preserved, honour which is no other than the most elevated and pure conception of justice which can be formed — these are more precious than life." The subject would admit of much fuller treatment, but enough has been said to indicate the importance of the study of Wordsworth's prose works as subsidiary to what he has written in verse. The reader who desires to study Wordsworth's life in detail may be directed to the Memoirs by Christopher Wordsworth and the Life by Professor Knight. Of short biographies the best is that by Mr. Myers in the English Men of Letters series. Of the earlier criticisms the most important are that of Coleridge in "Biographia Literaria," the articles. of Henry Taylor and those of De Quincey; the most valuable of recent date are those of Principal Shairp (“Studies in Poetry and Philosophy," "Aspects of Poetry," and "Poetic Interpretation of Nature"), Matthew Arnold (Introduction to Golden Treasury Selections), R. H. Hutton ("Essays Theological and Literary "), Aubrey de Vere ("Essays, Chiefly on Poetry "), Leslie Stephen ("Hours in a Library," No. XIII), Walter Pater ("Appreciations"), Dean Church (Ward's English Poets, vol. iv), Edward Caird (Essays on Literature and Philosophy). The Wordsworth Society issued in its Transactions some papers of considerable value. A bibliography of Wordsworth's writings is given in the Aldine edition of his poetical works, vol. vii. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. [For further details see the Aldine edition of Wordsworth, Vol. VII.] 1. An Evening Walk. An Epistle in Verse. 4to. 1793. 2. Descriptive Sketches in Verse. 4to. 1793. 3. Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems. Svo. 1798. 4. Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems, in two volumes. 8vo. 1800. 5. Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and other Poems, in two volumes. 8vo. 1802. 6. Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and other Poems, in two volumes. 8. 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. 8vo. 1809. 9. The Excursion. 4to. 1814. 10. Poems [first collected edition], two volumes. 8vo. 1815. 11. The White Doe of Rylstone; or, the Fate of the Nortons. 1815. 12. A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns. 8vo. 1816. 4to. 13. Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816, with other short pieces. 8vo. 1816. 14. Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland. 8vo. 1818. 15. Peter Bell, a Tale in Verse. 8vo. 1819. 2d ed., 1819. 16. The Waggoner, a Poem, to which are added Sonnets. 8vo. 1819. 17. The River Duddon, a series of Sonnets; Vandracour and Julia; and other Poems, to which is annexed a topographical description of the Country of the Lakes. 8vo. 1820. [The Topographical Description is here enlarged from Wordsworth's anonymous Introduction to Wilkinson's "Select Views," 1810.] 18. The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth, in four volumes. 20. Memorials of a Tour on the Continent. 8vo. 1822. |