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by William Wordsworth

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Title: The Prose Works of William Wordsworth
       For the First Time Collected, With Additions from
       Unpublished Manuscripts. In Three Volumes.

Author: William Wordsworth

Editor: Alexander B. Grosart

Release Date: August 19, 2005 [EBook #16550]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE PROSE WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED,

_WITH ADDITIONS FROM UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS_.

Edited, with Preface, Notes and Illustrations,

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER B. GROSART, ST. GEORGE'S, BLACKBURN, LANCASHIRE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

POLITICAL AND ETHICAL.

LONDON: EDWARD MOXON, SON, AND CO. 1 AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1876.

AMS Press, Inc. New York 10003 1967

Manufactured in the United States of America




TO THE QUEEN.

MADAM,

I have the honour to place in your Majesty's hands the hitherto
uncollected and unpublished Prose Works of

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

--name sufficient in its simpleness to give lustre to any page.

Having been requested thus to collect and edit his Prose Writings by
those who hold his MSS. and are his nearest representatives, one little
discovery or recovery among these MSS. suggested your Majesty as the one
among all others to whom the illustrious Author would have chosen to
dedicate these Works, viz. a rough transcript of a Poem which he had
inscribed on the fly-leaf of a gift-copy of the collective edition of
his Poems sent to the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. This very tender,
beautiful, and pathetic Poem will be found on the other side of this
Dedication. It must 'for all time' take its place beside the living
Laureate's imperishable verse-tribute to your Majesty.

I venture to thank your Majesty for the double permission so
appreciatively given--of this Dedication itself and to print (for the
first time) the Poem. The gracious permission so pleasantly and
discriminatingly signified is only one of abundant proofs that your
Majesty is aware that of the enduring names of the reign of Victoria,
Wordsworth's is supreme as Poet and Thinker.

     Gratefully and loyally, ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

    Deign, Sovereign Mistress! to accept a lay,
      No Laureate offering of elaborate art;
    But salutation taking its glad way
      From deep recesses of a loyal heart.

    Queen, Wife, and Mother! may All-judging Heaven
      Shower with a bounteous hand on Thee and Thine
    Felicity that only can be given
      On earth to goodness blest by grace divine.

    Lady! devoutly honoured and beloved
      Through every realm confided to thy sway;
    Mayst Thou pursue thy course by God approved,
      And He will teach thy people to obey.

    As Thou art wont, thy sovereignty adorn
      With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid;
    So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn
      Be changed for one whose glory cannot fade.

    And now, by duty urged, I lay this Book
      Before thy Majesty, in humble trust
    That on its simplest pages Thou wilt look
      With a benign indulgence more than just.

    Nor wilt Thou blame an aged Poet's prayer,
      That issuing hence may steal into thy mind
    Some solace under weight of royal care,
      Or grief--the inheritance of humankind.

    For know we not that from celestial spheres,
      When Time was young, an inspiration came
    (Oh, were it mine!) to hallow saddest tears,
      And help life onward in its noblest aim?

W.W.

9th January 1846.




PREFACE.


In response to a request put in the most gratifying way possible of the
nearest representatives of WORDSWORTH, the Editor has prepared this
collection of his _Prose Works_. That this should be done _for the first
time_ herein seems somewhat remarkable, especially in the knowledge of
the permanent value which the illustrious Author attached to his Prose,
and that he repeatedly expressed his wish and expectation that it would
be thus brought together and published, _e.g._ in the 'Memoirs,'
speaking of his own prose writings, he said that but for COLERIDGE'S
irregularity of purpose he should probably have left much more in that
kind behind him. When COLERIDGE was proposing to publish his 'Friend,'
he (WORDSWORTH) had offered contributions. COLERIDGE had expressed
himself pleased with the offer, but said, "I must arrange my principles
for the work, and when that is done I shall be glad of your aid." But
this "arrangement of principles" never took place. WORDSWORTH added: "_I
think my nephew, Dr. Wordsworth, will, after my death, collect and
publish all I have written in prose_...." "On another occasion, I
believe, he intimated a desire that his _works in Prose should be edited
by his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan_."[1] Similarly he wrote to Professor
REED in 1840: 'I am much pleased by what you say in your letter of the
18th May last, upon the Tract of the "Convention of Cintra," and _I
think myself with some interest upon its being reprinted hereafter along
with my other writings_ [in prose]. But the respect which, in common
with all the rest of the rational part of the world, I bear for the DUKE
OF WELLINGTON will prevent my reprinting the pamphlet during his
lifetime. It has not been in my power to read the volumes of his
Despatches, which I hear so highly spoken of; but I am convinced that
nothing they contain could alter my opinion of the injurious tendency of
that or any other Convention, conducted upon such principles. _It was, I
repeat, gratifying to me that you should have spoken of that work as you
do, and particularly that you should have considered it in relation to
my Poems, somewhat in the same manner as you had done in respect to my
little volume on the Lakes_.'[2]

[1] 'Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 466.

[2] Ibid. vol. i. p. 420.

It is probable that the _amount_ of the Prose of WORDSWORTH will come as
a surprise--surely a pleasant one--on even his admirers and students.
His own use of 'Tract' to describe a goodly octavo volume, and his
calling his 'Guide' a 'little volume' while it is a somewhat
considerable one, together with the hiding away of some of his most
matterful and weightiest productions in local and fugitive publications,
and in Prefaces and Appendices to Poems, go far to explain the
prevailing unacquaintance with even the _extent_, not to speak of the
importance, of his Prose, and the light contentment with which it has
been permitted so long to remain (comparatively) out of sight. That the
inter-relation of the Poems to the Prose, and of the Prose to the
Poems--of which above he himself wrote--makes the collection and
publication of the Prose a duty to all who regard WILLIAM WORDSWORTH as
one of the supreme intellects of the century--as certainly the glory of
the Georgian and Victorian age as ever SHAKESPEARE and RALEIGH were of
the Elizabethan and Jacobean--will not be questioned to-day.

The present Editor can only express his satisfaction at being called to
execute a task which, from a variety of circumstances, has been too long
delayed; but only delayed, inasmuch as the members of the Poet's family
have always held it as a sacred obligation laid upon them, with the
additional sanction that WORDSWORTH'S old and valued friend, HENRY CRABB
ROBINSON, Esq., had expressed a wish in his last Will (1868) that the
Prose Works of his friend should one day be collected; and which wish
alone, from one so discriminating and generous--were there no other
grounds for doing so--the family of WORDSWORTH could not but regard as
imperative. He rejoices that the delay--otherwise to be regretted--has
enabled the Editor to furnish a much fuller and more complete collection
than earlier had perhaps been possible. He would now briefly notice the
successive portions of these Volumes:




VOL. I.

I. POLITICAL.

(a) _Apology for the French Revolution_, 1793.


This is from the Author's own MS., and is published _for the first
time_. Every reader of 'The Recluse' and 'The Excursion' and the 'Lines
on the French Revolution, as it appeared to Enthusiasts at its
Commencement'--to specify only these--is aware that, in common with
SOUTHEY and the greater COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH was in sympathy with the
uprising of France against its tyrants. But it is only now that we are
admitted to a full discovery of his youthful convictions and emotion by
the publication of this Manuscript, carefully preserved by him, but
never given to the world. The title on the fly-leaf--'Apology,' &c.,
being ours--in the Author's own handwriting, is as follows:

    A
    LETTER
    TO THE
    BISHOP OF LANDAFF
    ON THE EXTRAORDINARY AVOWAL OF HIS
    POLITICAL PRINCIPLES,
    CONTAINED IN THE
    APPENDIX TO HIS LATE SERMON:
    BY A
    REPUBLICAN.

It is nowhere dated, but inasmuch as Bishop WATSON'S Sermon, with the
Appendix, appeared early in 1793, to that year certainly belongs the
composition of the 'Letter.' The title-page of the Sermon and Appendix
may be here given;

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE STEWARDS OF THE WESTMINSTER DISPENSARY, AT
THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING, CHARLOTTE STREET CHAPEL, APRIL 1785.

WITH AN APPENDIX, BY R. WATSON, D.D. LORD BISHOP OF LANDAFF.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL IN THE STRAND; AND T. EVANS IN PATERNOSTER
ROW.

1793 [8vo].

In the same year a 'second edition' was published, and also separately
the Appendix, thus:

STRICTURES ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION, AS
WRITTEN IN 1793 IN AN APPENDIX TO A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE STEWARDS
OF THE WESTMINSTER DISPENSARY, AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING, CHARLOTTE
STREET CHAPEL, APRIL 1785,

BY R. WATSON, D.D. LORD BISHOP OF LANDAFF.

_Reprinted at Loughborough, (With his Lordship's permission) by Adams,
Jun. and Recommended by the Loughborough Association For the Support of
the Constitution to The Serious Attention of the Public_.

Price Twopence, being one third of the original price,

1793 [small 8vo],

The Sermon is a somewhat commonplace dissertation on 'The Wisdom and
Goodness of God in having made both Rich and Poor,' from Proverbs xxii.
2: 'The rich and poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of them all.'
It could not but be most irritating to one such as young
WORDSWORTH--then in his twenty-third year--who passionately felt as well
with as for the poor of his native country, and that from an intimacy of
knowledge and intercourse and sympathy in striking contrast with the
serene optimism of the preacher,--all the more flagrant in that Bishop
Watson himself sprang from the very humblest ranks. But it is on the
Appendix this Letter expends its force, and, except from BURKE on the
opposite side, nothing more forceful, or more effectively argumentative,
or informed with a nobler patriotism, is to be found in the English
language. If it have not the kindling eloquence which is Demosthenic,
and that axiomatic statement of principles which is Baconian, of the
'Convention,' every sentence and epithet pulsates--as its very
life-blood--with a manly scorn of the false, the base, the sordid, the
merely titularly eminent. It may not be assumed that even to old age
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH would have disavowed a syllable of this 'Apology.'
Technically he might not have held to the name 'Republican,' but to the
last his heart was with the oppressed, the suffering, the poor, the
silent. Mr. H. CRABB ROBINSON tells us in his Diary (vol. ii. p. 290, 3d
edition): 'I recollect once hearing Mr. WORDSWORTH say, half in joke,
half in earnest, "I have no respect whatever for Whigs, but I have a
great deal of the Chartist in me;"' and his friend adds: 'To be sure he
has. His earlier poems are full of that intense love of the people, as
such, which becomes Chartism when the attempt is formally made to make
their interests the especial object of legislation, as of deeper
importance than the positive rights hitherto accorded to the privileged
orders.' Elsewhere the same Diarist speaks of 'the brains of the noblest
youths in England' being 'turned' (i. 31, 32), including WORDSWORTH.
There was no such 'turning' of brain with him. He was deliberate,
judicial, while at a red heat of indignation. To measure the quality of
difference, intellectually and morally, between WORDSWORTH and another
noticeable man who entered into controversy with Bishop WATSON, it is
only necessary to compare the present Letter with GILBERT WAKEFIELD'S
'Reply to some Parts of the Bishop of Landaff's Address to the People of
Great Britain' (1798).

The manuscript is wholly in the handwriting of its author, and is done
with uncharacteristic painstaking; for later, writing was painful and
irksome to him, and even his letters are in great part illegible. One
folio is lacking, but probably it contained only an additional sentence
or two, as the examination of the Appendix is complete. Following on our
ending are these words: 'Besides the names which I.'

That the Reader may see how thorough is the Answer of WORDSWORTH to
Bishop WATSON, the 'Appendix' is reprinted _in extenso_. Being
comparatively brief, it was thought expedient not to put the student on
a vain search for the long-forgotten Sermon. On the biographic value of
this Letter, and the inevitableness of its inclusion among his prose
Works, it cannot be needful to say a word. It is noticed--and little
more--in the 'Memoirs' (c. ix. vol. i. pp. 78-80). In his Letters (vol.
iii.) will be found incidental allusions and vindications of the
principles maintained in the 'Apology.'

_(b) Concerning the Relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal, to
each other and 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_. 1809.

As stated in its 'Advertisement,' two portions of this treatise (rather
than 'Tract'), 'extending to p. 25' of the completed volume, were
originally printed in the months of December and January (1808-9), in
the 'Courier' newspaper. In this shape it attracted the notice of no
less a reader than Sir WALTER SCOTT, who thus writes of it: 'I have read
WORDSWORTH'S lucubrations[3] in the 'Courier,' _and much agree with
him_. Alas! we want everything but courage and virtue in this desperate
contest. Skill, knowledge of mankind, ineffable unhesitating villany,
combination of movement and combination of means, are with our
adversary. We can only fight like mastiffs--boldly, blindly, and
faithfully. I am almost driven to the pass of the Covenanters, when they
told the Almighty in their prayers He should no longer be their God; and
I really believe a few Gazettes more will make me turn Turk or
infidel.'[4]

[3] Lucubrations = meditative studies. It has since deteriorated in
meaning.

[4] Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' vol. iii. pp. 260-1 (edition, 1856).

What WORDSWORTH'S own feelings and impulses were in the composition of
the 'Convention of Cintra' are revealed with unwonted as fine passion in
his 'Letters and Conversations' (vol. iii. pp. 256-261, &c.), whither
the Reader will do well to turn, inasmuch as he returns and re-returns
therein to his standing-ground in this very remarkable and imperishable
book. The long Letters to (afterwards) Sir CHARLES W. PASLEY and
another--_never before printed_--which follow the 'Convention of Cintra'
itself, are of special interest. The Appendix of Notes, 'a portion of
the work which WORDSWORTH regarded as executed in a masterly manner, was
drawn up by De Quincey, who revised the proofs of the whole' ('Memoirs,'
i. 384). Of the 'Convention of Cintra' the (now) Bishop of Lincoln
(WORDSWORTH) writes eloquently as follows: 'Much of WORDSWORTH'S life
was spent in comparative retirement, and a great part of his poetry
concerns natural and quiet objects. But it would be a great error to
imagine that he was not an attentive observer of public events. He was
an ardent lover of his country and of mankind. He watched the progress
of civil affairs in England with a vigilant eye, and he brought the
actions of public men to the test of the great and lasting principles of
equity and truth. He extended his range of view to events in foreign
parts, especially on the continent of Europe. Few persons, though
actually engaged in the great struggle of that period, felt more deeply
than WORDSWORTH did in his peaceful retreat for the calamities of
European nations, suffering at that time from the imbecility of their
governments, and from the withering oppression of a prosperous
despotism. His heart burned within him when he looked forth upon the
contest, and impassioned words proceeded from him, both in poetry and
prose. The contemplative calmness of his position, and the depth and
intensity of his feelings, combined together to give a dignity and
clearness, a vigour and splendour, and, consequently, a lasting value,
to his writings on measures of domestic and foreign policy, qualities
that rarely belong to contemporaneous political effusions produced by
those engaged in the heat and din of the battle. This remark is
specially applicable to his tract on the Convention of Cintra....
Whatever difference of opinion may prevail concerning the relevance of
the great principles enunciated in it to the questions at issue, but one
judgment can exist with respect to the importance of those principles,
and the vigorous and fervid eloquence with which they are enforced. If
WORDSWORTH had never written a single verse, this Essay alone would be
sufficient to place him in the highest rank of English poets.... Enough
has been quoted to show that the Essay on the Convention of Cintra was
not an ephemeral production, destined to vanish with the occasion which
gave it birth. If this were the case, the labour bestowed upon it was
almost abortive. The author composed the work in the discharge of what
he regarded a sacred duty, and for the permanent benefit of society,
rather than with a view to any immediate results.'[5] The Bishop adds
further these details: 'He foresaw and predicted that his words would be
to the public ear what midnight storms are to men who sleep:

[5] 'Memoirs,' as before, vol. i. pp. 383, 399.

    "I dropp'd my pen, and listen'd to the wind,
    That sang of trees uptorn and vessels tost--
    A midnight harmony, and wholly lost
    To the general sense of men, by chains confined
    Of business, care, or pleasure, or resign'd
    To timely sleep. Thought I, the impassion'd strain,
    Which without aid of numbers I sustain,
    Like acceptation from the world will find.
    Yet some with apprehensive ear shall drink
    A dirge devoutly breath'd o'er sorrows past;
    And to the attendant promise will give heed--
    The prophecy--like that of this wild blast,
    Which, while it makes the heart with, sadness shrink,
    Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed."[6]

It is true that some few readers it had on its first appearance; and it
is recorded by an ear-witness that Canning said of this pamphlet that he
considered it the most eloquent production since the days of Burke;[7]
but, by some untoward delays in printing, it was not published till the
interest in the question under discussion had almost subsided. Certain
it is, that an edition, consisting only of five hundred copies, was not
sold off; that many copies were disposed of by the publishers as waste
paper, and went to the trunkmakers; and now there is scarcely any volume
published in this country which is so difficult to be met with as the
tract on the Convention of Cintra; and if it were now reprinted, it
would come before the public with almost the unimpaired freshness of a
new work.'[8] In agreement with the closing statement, at the sale of
the library of Sir James Macintosh a copy fetched (it has been reported)
ten guineas. Curiously enough not a single copy was preserved by the
Author himself. The companion sonnet to the above, 'composed while the
author was engaged in writing a tract occasioned by the Convention of
Cintra, 1808,' must also find a place here:

    'Not 'mid the world's vain objects that enslave
    The free-born soul--that world whose vaunted skill
    In selfish interest perverts the will,
    Whose factions lead astray the wise and brave--
    Not there; but in dark wood and rocky cave,
    And hollow vale which foaming torrents fill
    With omnipresent murmur as they rave
    Down their steep beds, that never shall be still,
    Here, mighty Nature, in this school sublime
    I weigh the hopes and fears of suffering Spain;
    For her consult the auguries of time,
    And through the human heart explore my way,
    And look and listen--gathering where I may
    Triumph, and thoughts no bondage can restrain.'[9]


_(c) Letter to Major-General Sir Charles W. Pasley, K.C.B., on his
'Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire,' with
another--now first printed--transmitting it_.

[6] 'Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty,' viii.

[7] Southey's 'Life and Correspondence,' vol. iii. p. 180; 'Gentleman's
Magazine' for June 1850, p. 617.

[8] 'Memoirs,' as before, vol. i, pp. 404-5.

[9] 'Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty,' vii.

The former is derived from the 'Memoirs' (vol. i. pp. 405-20). In
forwarding it to the (now) Bishop of Lincoln, Sir CHARLES thus wrote of
it: 'The letter on my "Military Policy" is particularly interesting....
Though WORDSWORTH agreed that we ought to step forward with all our
military force as principals in the war, he objected to any increase of
our own power and resources by continental conquest, in which I now
think he was quite right. I am not, however, by any means shaken in the
opinion then advanced, that peace with Napoleon would lead to the loss
of our naval superiority and of our national independence, ... and I
fully believe that the Duke of Wellington's campaigns in the Spanish
Peninsula saved the nation, though no less credit is due to the Ministry
of that day for not despairing of eventual success, but supporting him
under all difficulties in spite of temporary reverses, and in opposition
to a powerful party and to influential writers.' The letter
transmitting the other has only recently been discovered on a
reexamination of the Wordsworth MSS. Both letters have a
Shakespearian-patriotic ring concerning 'This England.' It is inspiring
to read in retrospect of the facts such high-couraged writing as in
these letters.

_(d) Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland_, 1818.

The 'Mr. BROUGHAM' of these 'Two Addresses' was, as all the world knows,
the (afterwards) renowned and many-gifted HENRY, Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX.
In his Autobiography he refers very good-humouredly to his three defeats
in contesting the representation of Westmoreland; but there is no
allusion whatever to WORDSWORTH. With reference to his final effort he
thus informs us: 'Parliament was dissolved in 1826, when for the third
time I stood for Westmoreland; and, after a hard-fought contest, was
again defeated. I have no wish to enter into the local politics of that
county, but I cannot resist quoting an extract from a letter of my
esteemed friend Bishop BATHURST to Mr. HOWARD of Corby, by whose
kindness I am enabled to give it: "Mr. BROUGHAM has struggled nobly for
civil and religious liberty; and is fully entitled to the celebrated
eulogy bestowed by Lucan upon Cato--

    'Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.'

How others may feel I know not, but for my own part I would much rather
be in his situation than in that of the two victorious opponents;
notwithstanding the cold discouraging maxim of Epictetus, which is
calculated to check every virtuous effort--[Greek: Aniketos einai
dunasai, ean ouk eis medena agona katabaines, ou ouk estin epinikesai]
[=You may be invincible if you never go down into the arena when you are
not secure of victory: Enchiridion, cxxv.]. He will not, I hope, suffer
from his exertions, extraordinary in every way. I respect exceedingly
his fine abilities, and the purpose to which he applies them" (Norwich,
July 10, 1826). As Cato owed Lucan's panegyric to the firmness he had
shown in adhering to the losing cause, and to his steadfastness to the
principles he had adopted, so I considered the Bishop's application of
the lines to me as highly complimentary' ('Life and Times,' vol. ii. pp.
437-8). It seemed only due to the subject of WORDSWORTH'S invective and
opposition to give _his_ view of the struggle and another's worthy of
all respect. Unless the writer has been misinformed, WORDSWORTH and
BROUGHAM came to know and worthily estimate each other when the
exacerbations and clamours of provincial politics had long passed away,
and when, except the 'old gray head' of WELLINGTON, none received more
reverence from the nation than that of HENRY BROUGHAM. In the
just-issued 'Memoirs of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV.' by
GREVILLE, BROUGHAM and WORDSWORTH are brought together very pleasingly.
(See these works, vol. iii. p. 504.)

The Author's personal relations to the Lowthers semi-unconsciously
coloured his opinions, and intensified his partisanship and glorified
the commonplace. But with all abatements these 'Two Addresses' supply
much material for a right and high estimate of WORDSWORTH as man and
thinker. As invariably, he descends to the roots of things, and almost
ennobles even his prejudices and alarms and ultra-caution. There is the
same terse, compacted, pungent style in these 'Two Addresses' with his
general prose. Bibliographically the 'Two Addresses' are even rarer and
higher-priced than the 'Convention of Cintra.'


_(e) Of the Catholic Relief Bill_, 1829.

To the great names of EDMUND SPENSER and Sir JOHN DAVIES, as Englishmen
who dealt with the problem of the government of Ireland, and found it,
as more recent statesmen have done, to be in infinite ways 'England's
difficulty,' has now to be added one not less great--WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
If at this later day--for even 1829 seems remote now--much of the
present letter to the Bishop of London (BLOMFIELD) is mainly of
historical noticeableness, as revealing how 'Catholic Emancipation'
looked to one of the foremost minds of his age, there are, nevertheless,
expressions of personal opinion--_e.g._ against the Athanasian Creed in
its 'cursing' clauses, and expositions of the Papacy regarded
politically and ecclesiastically in its domination of Ireland, that have
a message for to-day strangely congruous with that of the magnificent
philippic 'Of the Vatican Decrees,' which is thundering across Europe as
these words are written. As a piece of vigorous, masculine, and o'times
eloquent English, this letter may take its place--not an inch
lower--beside a 'View of the State of Ireland,' and the 'Discoverie of
the True Cavses why Ireland was never entirely subdued, nor brought
under obedience of the Crowne of England, untill the beginning of his
Maiestie's happie raigne;' while the conflict with Ultramontanism in
Germany and elsewhere and Mr. Gladstone's tractate give new significance
to its forecastings and portents.

The manuscript, unlike most of his, is largely in WORDSWORTH'S own
handwriting--the earlier portion in (it is believed) partly Miss
WORDSWORTH'S and partly Mrs. WORDSWORTH'S. In the 'Memoirs' this letter
is quoted largely (vol. ii. pp. 136-140). It is now given completely
from the manuscript itself, not without significant advantage. It does
not appear whether this letter were actually sent to the Bishop of
London. There is no mention of it in Bishop Blomfield's 'Life;' and
hence probably it never was sent to him. In his letters there are many
references to the present topics (cf. vol. iii. pp. 258-9, 263-4, &c.).


II. ETHICAL.

I. _Of Legislation for the Poor, the Working Classes, and the Clergy:
Appendix to Poems_, 1835.

This formed one of WORDSWORTH'S most deliberate and powerful Appendices
to his Poems (1835), and has ever since been regarded as of enduring
worth. It has all the Author's characteristics of deep thinking,
imaginative illustration, intense conviction and realness. Again, accept
or dissent, this State Paper (so to say) is specially Wordsworthian.

It seems only due to WORDSWORTH to bear in recollection that, herein and
elsewhere, he led the way in indicating CO-OPERATION as _the_ remedy for
the defects and conflicts in the relations between our capitalists and
their operatives, or capital and labour (see the second section of the
Postscript, and remember its date--1835).


II. _Advice to the Young_.

(_a_) Letter to the Editor of 'The Friend,' signed Mathetes.

(_b_) Answer to the Letter of Mathetes, 1809.

'Mathetes' proved to be Professor JOHN WILSON, 'eminent in the various
departments of poetry, philosophy, and criticism' ('Memoirs,' i. 423),
and here probably was the commencement of the long friendship between
him and WORDSWORTH. As a student of WILSON'S, the Editor remembers
vividly how the 'old man eloquent' used to kindle into enthusiasm the
entire class as he worked into his extraordinary lectures quotations
from the 'Excursion' and 'Sonnets' and 'Poems of the Imagination.' Among
the letters (vol. iii. p. 263) is an interesting one refering to 'Advice
to the Young;' and another to Professor WILSON (vol. ii. pp. 208-14).


III. OF EDUCATION.

(_a_) On the Education of the Young: Letter to a Friend, 1806.

(_b_) Of the People, their Ways and Needs: Letter to Archdeacon
Wrangham, 1808.

(_c_) Education: Two Letters to the Rev. H.J. Rose, 1828.

(_d_) Education of Duty: Letter to Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, 1830.

(_e_) Speech on laying the Foundation-stone of the New School in the
Village of Bowness, Windermere, 1836.

In these Letters and the Speech are contained WORDSWORTH'S earliest and
latest and most ultimate opinions and sentiments on education. Agree or
differ, the student of WORDSWORTH has in these discussions--for in part
they have the elaborateness and thoroughness of such--what were of the
substance of his beliefs. Their biographic importance--intellectually
and spiritually--can scarcely be exaggerated, _(a), (b), (c), (d)_ are
from the 'Memoirs;' (_e_) is from the local newspaper (Kendal), being
for the first time fully reprinted.




VOL. II.


AESTHETICAL AND LITERARY.


I. _Of Literary Biography and Monuments_.

(_a_) A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, 1816.

(_b_) Letter to a Friend on Monuments to Literary Men, 1819.

(_c_) Letter to John Peace, Esq., of Bristol, 1844.

These naturally group themselves together. Of the first (_a_), perhaps
it is hardly worth while, and perhaps it is worth while, recalling that
WILLIAM HAZLITT, in his Lectures upon the English Poets, attacked
WORDSWORTH on this Letter with characteristic insolence and uncritical
shallowness and haste. Under date Feb. 24th, 1818, Mr. H. CRABB ROBINSON
thus refers to the thing: 'Heard part of a lecture by HAZLITT at the
Surrey Institution. He was so contemptuous towards WORDSWORTH, speaking
of his Letter about Burns, that I lost my temper. He imputed to
WORDSWORTH the desire of representing himself as a superior man' (vol.
i. p. 311, 3d ed.). The lecture is included in HAZLITT'S published
Lectures in all its ignorance and wrong-headedness; but it were a pity
to lose one's temper over such trash. His eyes were spectacles, not
'seeing eyes,' and jaundice-yellow, (_b_) and (_c_) are sequels to
(_a_), and as such accompany it.


II. UPON EPITAPHS.

(_a_) From 'The Friend.' (_b_ and _c_) From the Author's MSS., for the
first time.

Of (_a_) CHARLES LAMB wrote: 'Your Essay on Epitaphs is the only
sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to
the bottom' (Talfourd's 'Final Memorials,' vol. i. p. 180). The two
additional Papers--only briefly quoted from in the 'Memoirs' (c. xxx.
vol. i.)--were also intended for 'The Friend,' had COLERIDGE succeeded
in his announced arrangement of principles. These additional papers are
in every respect equal to the first, with Wordsworthian touches and
turns in his cunningest faculty. They are faithfully given from the MSS.


III. ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND NOTES ELUCIDATORY AND CONFIRMATORY OF THE
POEMS, 1798-1835.

(_a_) Of the Principles of Poetry and the 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798-1802.)

(_b_) Of Poetic Diction.

(_c_) Poetry as a Study (1815).

(_d_) Of Poetry as Observation and Description, and Dedication of 1815.

(_e_) Of 'The Excursion:' Preface.

(_f_) Letters to Sir George and Lady Beaumont and others on the Poems
and related Subjects.

(_g_) Letter to Charles Fox with the 'Lyrical Ballads,' and his Answer,
&c.

(_h_) Letter on the Principles of Poetry and his own Poems to
(afterwards) Professor John Wilson.

(_a_) to (_e_) form appendices to the early and later editions of the
Poems, and created an epoch in literary criticism. COLERIDGE put forth
his utmost strength on a critical examination of them, oblivious that he
had himself impelled, not to say compelled, his friend to write these
Prefaces, as WORDSWORTH signifies. It is not meant by this that
COLERIDGE was thereby shut out from criticising the definitions and
statements to which he objected.


IV. DESCRIPTIVE.

(_a_) A Guide through the District of the Lakes, 1835.

(_b_) Kendal and Windermere Railway: two Letters, &c.

These very much explain themselves; but of the former it may be of
bibliographical interest to state that it formed originally the
letterpress and Introduction to 'Select Views in Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Lancashire,' by the Rev. JOSEPH WILKINSON, Rector of
East Wrotham, Norfolk, 1810 (folio). It was reprinted in the volume of
Sonnets on the River Duddon. The fifth edition (1835) has been selected
as the Author's own final text. In Notes and Illustrations in the place,
a strangely overlooked early account of the Lake District is pointed out
and quoted from. The 'Two Letters' need no vindication at this late day.
Ruskin is reiterating their arguments and sentiment eloquently as these
pages pass through the press. Apart from deeper reasons, let the
fault-finder realise to himself the differentia of general approval of
railways, and a railway forced through the 'old churchyard' that holds
his mother's grave or the garden of his young prime. It was a merely
sordid matter on the part of the promoters. Their professions of care
for the poor and interest in the humbler classes getting to the Lakes
had a Judas element in them, nothing higher or purer.


VOL. III.


CRITICAL AND ETHICAL.


I. _Notes and Illustrations of the Poems, incorporating_:

(_a_) The Notes originally added to the first and successive editions.

(_b_) The whole of the I.F. MSS.

This division of the Prose has cost the Editor more labour and thought
than any other, from the scattered and hitherto unclassified
semi-publication of these Notes. Those called 'original' are from the
first and successive editions of the Poems, being found in some and
absent in other collections. An endeavour has been made to include
everything, even the briefest; for judging by himself, the Editor
believes that to the reverent and thoughtful student of WORDSWORTH the
slightest thing is of interest; _e.g._ one turns to the most commonplace
book of topography or contemporary verse in any way noticed by him, just
because it is WORDSWORTH who has noticed it, while an old ballad, a
legend, a bit of rural usage, takes a light of glory from the page in
which it is found. Hence as so much diamond-dust or filings of gold the
published Notes are here brought together. Added, and far exceeding in
quantity and quality alike, it is the privilege of the Editor to print
_completely and in integrity_ the I.F. MSS., as written down to the
dictation of WORDSWORTH by Miss FENWICK. These have been hitherto given
with tantalising and almost provoking fragmentariness in the 'Memoirs'
and in the centenary edition of the Poems--again withdrawn in the recent
Rossetti edition. In these Notes--many of which in both senses are
elaborate and full--are some of the deepest and daintiest-worded things
from WORDSWORTH. The I.F. MSS. are delightfully chatty and informal, and
ages hence will be treasured and studied in relation to the Poems by the
(then) myriad millions of the English-speaking races.

Miss FENWICK, to whom the world is indebted for these MSS., is
immortalised in two Sonnets by WORDSWORTH, which surely long ere this
ought to have been included in the Poetical Works; and they may fitly
reappear here (from the 'Memoirs'):

   '_On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies_.

    We gaze--nor grieve to think that we must die,
    But that the precious love this friend hath sown
    Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
    Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,
    Will pass so soon from human memory;
    And not by strangers to our blood alone,
    But by our best descendants be unknown,
    Unthought of--this may surely claim a sigh.
    Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection;
    Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive:
    Where'er, preserved in this most true reflection,
    An image of her soul is kept alive,
    Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,
    Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.

                                WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

    _Rydal Mount, New Year's Day, 1840_.'

    '_To I.F._

    The star which comes at close of day to shine
    More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn
    Is Friendship's emblem, whether the forlorn
    She visiteth, or shedding light benign
    Through shades that solemnise Life's calm decline,
    Doth make the happy happier. This have we
    Learnt, Isabel, from thy society,
    Which now we too unwillingly resign
    Though for brief absence. But farewell! the page
    Glimmers before my sight through thankful tears,
    Such as start forth, not seldom, to approve
    Our truth, when we, old yet unchill'd by age,
    Call thee, though known but for a few fleet years,
    The heart-affianced sister of our love!

                                   WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

    _Rydal Mount, Feb. 1840_.'

In addition to these Sonnets the beautiful memory of Miss FENWICK has
been reillumined in the 'Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge' (2 vols.
1873); _e.g._ 'I take great delight in Miss Fenwick, and in her
conversation. Well should I like to have her constantly in the
drawing-room, to come down to and from my little study up-stairs--her
mind is such a noble compound of heart and intelligence, of spiritual
feeling and moral strength, and the most perfect feminineness. She is
intellectual, but--what is a great excellence--never talks for effect,
never _keeps possession of the floor_, as clever women are so apt to do.
She converses for the interchange of thought and feeling, no matter
_how_, so she gets at your mind, and lets you into hers. A more generous
and a tenderer heart I never knew. I differ from her on many points of
religious faith, but on the whole prefer her views to those of most
others who differ from her' (ii. 5). Again: 'Miss FENWICK is to me an
angel upon earth. Her being near me now has seemed a special providence.
God bless her, and spare her to us and her many friends. She is a noble
creature, all tenderness and strength. When I first became acquainted
with her, I saw at once that her heart was of the very finest, richest
quality, and her wisdom and insight are, as ever must be in such a case,
exactly correspondent' (ibid. p. 397). Such words from one so
penetrative, so indeceivable, so great in the fullest sense as was the
daughter of _the_ COLERIDGE, makes every one long to have the same
service done for Miss FENWICK as has been done for SARA COLERIDGE and
Miss HARE, and within these weeks for Mrs. FLETCHER. Her Diaries and
Correspondence would be inestimable to lovers of WORDSWORTH; for few or
none got so near to him or entered so magnetically into his thinking.
The headings and numberings of the successive Notes--lesser and
larger--will guide to the respective Poems and places. The numberings
accord with ROSSETTI'S handy one-volume edition of the Poems, but as a
rule will offer no difficulty in any. The I.F. MSS. are marked with an
asterisk [*]: They are _for the first time_ furnished in their entirety,
and accurately.


II. _Letters and Extracts of Letters_.

These are arranged as nearly as possible chronologically from the
'Memoirs,' &c. &c., with the benefit, as before, of collation in many
cases of the original MSS., especially in the Sir W.R. HAMILTON letters,
and a number are _for the first time printed_. The Editor does not at
all like 'Extracts,' and must be permitted to regret that what in his
judgment was an antiquated and mistaken idea of biography led the
excellent as learned Bishop of Lincoln to abridge and mutilate so very
many--the places not always marked. On this and the principle and
_motif_ which approve and vindicate the publication of the Letters of
every really potential intellect such as WORDSWORTH'S, the accomplished
daughter of SARA COLERIDGE has remarked: 'A book composed of epistolary
extracts can never be a wholly satisfactory one, because its contents
are not only relative and fragmentary, but unauthorised and unrevised.
To arrest the passing utterances of the hour, and reveal to the world
that which was spoken either in the innermost circle of home affection,
or in the outer (but still guarded) circle of social or friendly
intercourse, seems almost like a betrayal of confidence, and is a step
which cannot be taken by survivors without some feelings of hesitation
and reluctance. That reluctance is only to be overcome by the sense
that, however natural, it is partly founded on delusion--a delusion
which leads us to personify "the world," to our imagination, as an
obtuse and somewhat hostile individual, who is certain to take things by
the wrong handle, and cannot be trusted to make the needful allowance,
and supply the inevitable omissions. Whereas it is a more reasonable and
a more comfortable belief, that the only part of the world which is in
the least likely to concern itself with such volumes as these is
composed of a number of enlightened and sympathetic persons' (as before,
Preface, vii. viii.). The closing consideration ought to overweigh all
scruples and reserve.[10]

[10] The charming 'Journal' in full of Miss WORDSWORTH has only within
the past year been published. The welcome it has met with--having
bounded into a third edition already--is at once proof of the soundness
of judgment that at long-last issued it, if it be also accusatory that
many have gone who yearned to read it. The Editor ventures to invite
special attention to WORDSWORTH'S own express wish that the foreign
'Journals' of Miss WORDSWORTH and Mrs. WORDSWORTH should be published.
Surely _his_ words ought to be imperative (vol. iii. p. 77)?

There _is_ the select circle of lovers of WORDSWORTH--yearly
widening--and there are the far-off multitudes of the future to whom
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH will be the grand name of the 18th-19th century, and
all that SHAKESPEARE and MILTON are now; and consequently the letters of
one so chary in letter-writing ought to be put beyond the risks of loss,
and given to Literature in entirety and trueness. WORDSWORTH had a
morbid dislike of writing letters, his weak eyes throughout rendering
all penmanship painful; but the present Editor, while conceding that his
letters lack the charm of style of COWPER'S, and the vividness and
passion of BYRON'S, finds in them, even the hastiest, matter of rarest
biographic and interpretative value. He was not a great sentencemaker;
in a way prided himself that his letters were so (intentionally) poor as
sure to be counted unworthy of publication; and altogether had the
prejudices of an earlier day against the giving of letters to the world;
but none the less are his letters informed with his intellect and
meditative thoughtfulness and exquisiteness of feeling. It is earnestly
to be hoped that one of the Family who is admirably qualified for the
task of love will address himself to write adequately and confidingly
the Life of his immortal relative; and toward this every one possessed
of anything in the handwriting or from the mind of WORDSWORTH may be
appealed to for co-operation. The 'Memoirs' of the (now) Bishop of
Lincoln, within its own limits, was a great gift; but it is avowedly not
a 'Life,' and _the world wants a Life_. Collation of the originals of
these letters has restored sentences and words and things of the most
characteristic kind. Very gross mistakes have also been corrected.[11]

[11] It may be well to point out here specially a mistake in heading two
of the WORDSWORTH letters to Sir W.R. HAMILTON: 'Royal Dublin Society,'
instead of 'Royal Irish Academy' (see vol. iii. pp. 350 and 352); also
that at p. 394 'of the' has slipped in from the first 'of the,' and so
now reads 'Of the Heresiarch of the Church of Rome,' for 'The Heresiarch
Church,' as in the body of the letter.

     III. _Conversations and Personal Reminiscences of Wordsworth_.

     From 'Satyrane's Letters;' Klopstock.

     Personal Reminiscences of the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge.

     Recollections of a Tour in Italy with Wordsworth. By H.C. Robinson.

     Reminiscences of Lady Richardson and Mrs. Davy.

     Conversations recorded by the Bishop of Lincoln.

     Reminiscences by the Rev. R.P. Graves, M.A., Dublin; on the Death
     of Coleridge; and further (hitherto unpublished) Reminiscences.

     An American's Reminiscences.

     Recollections of Aubrey de Vere, Esq., now first published.[12]

     From 'Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron,' by E.J.
     Trelawny, Esq.

     From Letters of Professor Tayler (1872).

     Anecdote of Crabbe and Wordsworth.

     Wordsworth's Later Opinion of Lord Brougham.

[12] Will the Reader indulgently correct a most unfortunate oversight of
the printers in vol. iii. p. 497, l. 15, where 'no angel smiled'
(mis)reads 'no angle smiled'?

These are included in the Prose inevitably, inasmuch as they preserve
opinions and sentiments, criticisms and sayings, actually spoken by
WORDSWORTH, of exactly the type of which Lord COLERIDGE, among other
things, wrote the Editor: 'I hope we shall have a transcript from you of
the thoughts and opinions of that very great and noble person, of whom
(as far as I know them) it is most true that "the very dust of his
writings is gold." Any grave and deliberate opinion of his is entitled
to weight; and if we have his opinions at all, we should have them whole
and entire.'

The Editor has studied to give WORDSWORTH'S own conversations and
sayings--not others' concerning him. Hence such eloquent
pseudo-enthusiasm as is found in De Quincey's 'Recollections of the
Lakes' (Works, vol. ii.) is excluded. He dares to call it
pseudo-enthusiasm; for this book of the little, alert, self-conscious
creature, with the marvellous brain and more marvellous tongue--a monkey
with a man's soul somehow transmigrated into it--opens and shuts without
preserving a solitary saying of the man he professes to honour. That is
a measure of _his_ admiration as of his insight or no insight. There are
besides personal impertinencies, declarative of essential
vulgarity.[13] Smaller men have printed their 'Recollections,' or rather
retailed their gossip; but they themselves occupy the foreground, much
as your chimney-sweep introduces himself prominently in front of his
signboard presentment of some many-chimneyed 'noble house.' Even
Emerson's 'English Traits' (a most un-English book) belongs to the same
underbred category. The new 'Recollections' by AUBREY DE VERE, Esq., it
is a privilege to publish--full of reverence and love, and so daintily
and musically worded, as they are.

[13] Possibly indignation roused by the 'Recollections' has provoked too
vehement condemnation. Let it therefore be noted that it is the
'Recollections' that are censured. Elsewhere DE QUINCEY certainly shows
a glimmering recognition of WORDSWORTH'S great qualities, and that
before they had been fully admitted; but everywhere there is an
impertinence of familiarity and a patronising self-consciousness that is
irritating to any one who reverences great genius and high rectitude. It
may be conceded that DE QUINCEY, so far as he was capable, did reverence
WORDSWORTH; but his exaggerations of awe and delays bear on the face of
them unveracity.

Such is an account of the contents of these volumes; and it may be
permitted the Editor to record his hearty thanks to the Sons of the
Poet--WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq., Carlisle, and the just dead Rev. JOHN
WORDSWORTH, M.A., Brigham--and his nephew Professor WORDSWORTH of
Bombay, for their so flattering committal of this trust to him; and
especially to the last, for his sympathetic and gladdening counsel
throughout--augury of larger service ultimately, it is to be hoped. To
the co-executor with WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq.--STRICKLAND COOKSON,
Esq.--like acknowledgment is due. He cannot sufficiently thank AUBREY DE
VERE, Esq., for his brilliant contribution to the 'Personal
Reminiscences.' The Rev. ROBERT PERCEVAL GRAVES, M.A., of Dublin
(formerly of Windermere), has greatly added to the interest of these
volumes by forwarding his further reminiscences of WORDSWORTH and the
Hamilton Letters. Fifteen of these letters of WORDSWORTH, not yet
published, will be given in a Life of the great mathematician of
Ireland, Sir W.R. HAMILTON, towards whom WORDSWORTH felt the warmest
friendship, and of whose many-sided genius he had the most absolute
admiration. Mr. GRAVES, walking in the footsteps of FULKE GREVILLE, Lord
BROOKE, who sought that on his tomb should be graven 'Friend of Sir
Philip Sidney' (albeit he would modestly disclaim the lofty comparison),
regards it as his title to memory that he was called 'my highly esteemed
friend' by WORDSWORTH (vol. iii. p. 27). For the GRAVESES the Poet had
much regard, and it was mutual. A Sonnet addressed to WORDSWORTH by the
(now) Bishop of Limerick was so highly valued by him that it is a
pleasure to be able to read it, as thus:

    '_To Wordsworth_.

      The Sages of old time have pass'd away,
      A throng of mighty names. But little power
      Have ancient names to rule the present hour:
      No Plato to the learners of our day
      In grove of Academe reveals the way,
      The law, the soul of Nature. Yet a light
      Of living wisdom, beaming calm and bright,
      Forbids our youth 'mid error's maze to stray.
      To thee, with gratitude and reverent love,
      O Poet and Philosopher! we turn;
      For in thy truth-inspired song we learn
      Passion and pride to quell--erect to move,
    From doubts and fears deliver'd--and conceiving
    Pure hopes of heaven, live happy in believing.

_August_ 1833.' C.G.

Lady RICHARDSON has similarly added to the value of her former
'Recollections' for this work. Very special gratitude is due to the Miss
QUILLINANS of Loughrigg, Rydal, for the use of the MS. of Miss FENWICK'S
Notes--one half in their father's handwriting, and the other half (or
thereabout) in that of Mrs. QUILLINAN ('DORA'), who at the end has
written:

     'To dearest Miss Fenwick are we obliged for these Notes, every word
     of which was taken down by her kind pen from my father's dictation.
     The former portion was transcribed at Rydal by Mr. Quillinan, the
     latter by me, and finished at the Vicarage, Brigham, this
     twenty-fifth day of August 1843.--D.Q.'

The MS., he it repeated, is now printed _in extenso_, nor will the least
acceptable be 'DORA'S' own slight pencillings intercalated. The Miss
COOKSONS of Grasmere were good enough to present the Editor with a copy
of the 'Two Letters to the Freeholders of Westmoreland', when he had
almost despaired of recovering the pamphlet. Thanks are due to several
literary friends for aid in the Notes and Illustrations. There must be
named Professor DOWDEN and Rev. E.P. GRAVES, M.A.,[14] Dublin; F.W.
COSENS, Esq., and G.A. SIMCOX, Esq., London; W. ALDIS WRIGHT, Esq.,
M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge.

[14] Mr. Graves has published the following on the Wordsworths: (_a_)
'Recollections of Wordsworth and the Lake Country'; a lecture, and a
capital one. (_b_) 'A Good Name and the Day of Death: two Blessings'; a
sermon preached in Ambleside Church, January 30, 1859, on occasion of
the death of Mrs. Wordsworth--tender and consolatory. (_c_) 'The
Ascension of our Lord, and its Lessons for Mourners'; a sermon (1858)
finely commemorative of Arnold, the Wordsworths, Mrs. Fletcher, and
others.

One point only remains to be noticed. Every one who knows our highest
poetical literature knows the 'Lost Leader' of ROBERT BROWNING, Esq.
Many have been the speculations and surmises and assertions and
contradictions as to who the 'Lost Leader' was. The verdict of one of
the immortals on his fellow-immortal concerns us all. Hence it is with
no common thankfulness the Editor of WORDSWORTH'S Prose embraces this
opportunity of settling the controversy beyond appeal, by giving a
letter which Mr. BROWNING has done him the honour to write for
publication. It is as follows:

     '19 Warwick-crescent, W. Feb. 24, '75.

     DEAR MR. GROSART,

     I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly
     answered it, I can't remember how many times: there is no sort of
     objection to one more assurance, or rather confession, on my part,
     that I _did_ in my hasty youth presume to use the great and
     venerated personality of WORDSWORTH as a sort of painter's model;
     one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected
     and turned to account: had I intended more, above all, such a
     boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked
     about "handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon". These never
     influenced the change of politics in the great poet; whose
     defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face
     about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and
     even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the
     tapestry on my wall I can recognise figures which have _struck out_
     a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet
     would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the
     original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it
     considered as the "very effigies" of such a moral and intellectual
     superiority.

     Faithfully yours,

     ROBERT BROWNING.'

The Editor cannot close this Preface without expressing his sense of the
greatness of the trust confided to him, and the personal benefit it has
been to himself to have been brought so near to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH as he
has been in working on this collection of his Prose. He felt almost
awed as he handled the great and good man's MSS., and found himself
behind the screen (as it were), seeing what he had seen, touching what
he had touched, knowing what he had known, feeling what he had felt.
Reverence, even veneration is an empty word to utter the emotion excited
in such communion; these certainly, but something tenderer and more
human were in head and heart. It was a grand, high-thoughted,
pure-lived, unique course that was run in those sequestered vales. The
closer one gets to the man, the greater he proves, the truer, the
simpler; and it is a benediction to the race, amid so many fragmentary
and jagged and imperfect lives, to have one so rounded and completed, so
august and so genuine:

    'Summon Detraction to object the worst
    That may be told, and utter all it can;
    It cannot find a blemish to be enforced
    Against him, other than he was a man,
    And built of flesh and blood, and did live here,
    Within the region of infirmity;
    Where all perfections never did appear
    To meet in any one so really,
    But that his frailty ever did bewray
    Unto the world that he was set in clay.'

(Funeral Panegyric on the Earl of Devonshire, by Samuel Daniel.)

     ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

_Park View, Blackburn, Lancashire_.

NOTE.--It is perhaps right to mention, for Editor and present Printers'
sake, that WORDSWORTH'S own capitals, italics, punctuation, and other
somewhat antique characteristics, have been faithfully reproduced. At
the dates, capitals, italics, and punctuation were more abundant than at
present. _G_.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


*** A star [*] designates publication herein _for the first time_.  G.
                                                         =PAGE=
The Dedication to the Queen                                        v
*Poem addressed to her Majesty with a Gift-copy of the Poems.      vi
The Preface                                               vii-xxxviii


POLITICAL.

*I. Apology for the French Revolution, 1793                   1-23
    Appendix to Bishop Watson's Sermon                        24-30
II. The Convention of Cintra, 1809                            31-174
    Appendix by De Quincey                                    175-194
III. Vindication of Opinions in the Treatise on the 'Convention
              of Cintra:'
         (_a_) Letter to Major-General Sir Charles W. Pasley,
                 K.C.B., on his 'Military Policy and Institutions
                 of the British Empire,' 1811                 195-200
         *(_b_) Letter enclosing the Preceding to a Friend
                 unnamed                                      206-209
iv. Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland, 1818    211-257
*v. Of the Catholic Relief Bill, 1829                         259-270


ETHICAL.

I. Of Legislation for the Poor, the Working Classes, and the
   Clergy: Appendix to Poems, 1835                            271-294
II. Advice to the Young:
       (_a_) Letter to the Editor of 'The Friend,'
          signed 'Mathetes'                                   295-308
       (_b_) Answer to the Letter of 'Mathetes,' 1809    309-326
III. Of Education:
       (_a_) On the Education of the Young: Letter to a Friend,
             1806                                             327-333
         (_b_) Of the People, their Ways and Needs: Letter to
                 Archdeacon Wrangham, 1808                    334-339
         (_c_) Education: two Letters to the Rev. H. J. Rose,
                 1828                                         340-348
         (_d_) Education of Duty: Letter to Rev. Dr. Wordsworth,
                  1830                                          349
        *(_e_) Speech on laying the Foundation-stone of the New
             School in the Village of Bowness, Windermere, 1830
                                                              350-356

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS                                       357-360




I. POLITICAL.




I. APOLOGY FOR THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1793.

NOTE.

For an account of the manuscript of this 'Apology,' and details on other
points, see Preface in the present volume. G.

APOLOGY FOR THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1793.


MY LORD,

Reputation may not improperly be termed the moral life of man. Alluding
to our natural existence, Addison, in a sublime allegory well known to
your Lordship, has represented us as crossing an immense bridge, from
whose surface from a variety of causes we disappear one after another,
and are seen no more. Every one who enters upon public life has such a
bridge to pass. Some slip through at the very commencement of their
career from thoughtlessness, others pursue their course a little longer,
till, misled by the phantoms of avarice and ambition, they fall victims
to their delusion. Your Lordship was either seen, or supposed to be
seen, continuing your way for a long time unseduced and undismayed; but
those who now look for you will look in vain, and it is feared you have
at last fallen, through one of the numerous trap-doors, into the tide of
contempt, to be swept down to the ocean of oblivion.

It is not my intention to be illiberal; these latter expressions have
been forced from me by indignation. Your Lordship has given a proof that
even religious controversy may be conducted without asperity; I hope I
shall profit by your example. At the same time, with a spirit which you
may not approve--for it is a republican spirit--I shall not preclude
myself from any truths, however severe, which I may think beneficial to
the cause which I have undertaken to defend. You will not, then, be
surprised when I inform you that it is only the name of its author which
has induced me to notice an Appendix to a Sermon which you have lately
given to the world, with a hope that it may have some effect in calming
a perturbation which, you say, has been _excited_ in the minds of the
lower orders of the community. While, with a servility which has
prejudiced many people against religion itself, the ministers of the
Church of England have appeared as writers upon public measures only to
be the advocates of slavery civil and religious, your Lordship stood
almost alone as the defender of truth and political charity. The names
of levelling prelate, bishop of the Dissenters, which were intended as a
dishonour to your character, were looked upon by your friends--perhaps
by yourself--as an acknowledgment of your possessing an enlarged and
philosophical mind; and like the generals in a neighbouring country, if
it had been equally becoming your profession, you might have adopted, as
an honourable title, a denomination intended as a stigma.

On opening your Appendix, your admirers will naturally expect to find an
impartial statement of the grievances which harass this Nation, and a
sagacious inquiry into the proper modes of redress. They will be
disappointed. Sensible how large a portion of mankind receive opinions
upon authority, I am apprehensive lest the doctrines which they will
there find should derive a weight from your name to which they are by no
means intrinsically entitled. I will therefore examine what you have
advanced, from a hope of being able to do away any impression left on
the minds of such as may be liable to confound with argument a strong
prepossession for your Lordship's talents, experience, and virtues.

Before I take notice of what you appear to have laid down as principles,
it may not be improper to advert to some incidental opinions found at
the commencement of your political confession of faith.

At a period big with the fate of the human race I am sorry that you
attach so much importance to the personal sufferings of the late royal
martyr, and that an anxiety for the issue of the present convulsions
should not have prevented you from joining in the idle cry of modish
lamentation which has resounded from the Court to the cottage. You wish
it to be supposed you are one of those who are unpersuaded of the guilt
of Louis XVI. If you had attended to the history of the French
Revolution as minutely as its importance demands, so far from stopping
to bewail his death, you would rather have regretted that the blind
fondness of his people had placed a human being in that monstrous
situation which rendered him unaccountable before a human tribunal. A
bishop, a man of philosophy and humanity[15] as distinguished as your
Lordship, declared at the opening of the National Convention--and
twenty-five millions of men were convinced of the truth of the
assertion--that there was not a citizen on the tenth of August who, if
he could have dragged before the eyes of Louis the corpse of one of his
murdered brothers, might not have exclaimed to him: 'Tyran, voila ton
ouvrage.' Think of this, and you will not want consolation under any
depression your spirits may feel at the contrast exhibited by Louis on
the most splendid throne of the universe, and Louis alone in the tower
of the Temple or on the scaffold. But there is a class of men who
received the news of the late execution with much more heartfelt sorrow
than that which you, among such a multitude, so officiously express. The
passion of pity is one of which, above all others, a Christian teacher
should be cautious of cherishing the abuse when, under the influence of
reason, it is regulated by the disproportion of the pain suffered to the
guilt incurred. It is from the passion thus directed that the men of
whom I have just spoken are afflicted by the catastrophe of the fallen
monarch. They are sorry that the prejudice and weakness of mankind have
made it necessary to force an individual into an unnatural situation,
which requires more than human talents and human virtues, and at the
same time precludes him from attaining even a moderate knowledge of
common life, and from feeling a particular share in the interests of
mankind. But, above all, these men lament that any combination of
circumstances should have rendered it necessary or advisable to veil for
a moment the statues of the laws, and that by such emergency the cause
of twenty-five millions of people, I may say of the whole human race,
should have been so materially injured. Any other sorrow for the death
of Louis is irrational and weak.

[15] M. Gregoire.

In France royalty is no more. The person of the last anointed is no more
also; and I flatter myself I am not alone, even in this _kingdom_, when
I wish that it may please the Almighty neither by the hands of His
priests nor His nobles (I allude to a striking passage of Racine) to
raise his posterity to the rank of his ancestors, and reillume the torch
of extinguished David.[16]

[16] See _Athalie_, [act i.] scene 2:

    'Il faut que sur le trone un roi soit eleve,
    Qui _se souvienne un jour_ qu'au rang de ses ancetres.

You say: 'I fly with terror and abhorrence even from the altar of
Liberty, when I see it stained with the blood of the aged, of the
innocent, of the defenceless sex, of the ministers of religion, and of
the faithful adherents of a fallen monarch.' What! have you so little
knowledge of the nature of man as to be ignorant that a time of
revolution is not the season of true Liberty? Alas, the obstinacy and
perversion of man is such that she is too often obliged to borrow the
very arms of Despotism to overthrow him, and, in order to reign in
peace, must establish herself by violence. She deplores such stern
necessity, but the safety of the people, her supreme law, is her
consolation. This apparent contradiction between the principles of
liberty and the march of revolutions; this spirit of jealousy, of
severity, of disquietude, of vexation, indispensable from a state of war
between the oppressors and oppressed, must of necessity confuse the
ideas of morality, and contract the benign exertion of the best
affections of the human heart. Political virtues are developed at the
expense of moral ones; and the sweet emotions of compassion, evidently
dangerous when traitors are to be punished, are too often altogether
smothered. But is this a sufficient reason to reprobate a convulsion
from which is to spring a fairer order of things? It is the province of
education to rectify the erroneous notions which a habit of oppression,
and even of resistance, may have created, and to soften this ferocity of
character, proceeding from a necessary suspension of the mild and social
virtues; it belongs to her to create a race of men who, truly free, will
look upon their fathers as only enfranchised.[17]

[17]

     Dieu l'a fait remonter par la main de ses pretres:
     L'a tire par leurs mains de l'oubli du tombeau,
     Et de David eteint rallume le flambeau.'

The conclusion of the same speech applies so strongly to the present
period that I cannot forbear transcribing it:

     'Daigne, daigne, mon Dieu, sur Mathan, et sur elle
     Repandre _cet esprit d'imprudence et d'erreur,
     De la chute des rois funeste avant-coureur_!'



I proceed to the sorrow you express for the fate of the French
priesthood. The measure by which that body was immediately stripped of
part of its possessions, and a more equal distribution enjoined of the
rest, does not meet with your Lordship's approbation. You do not
question the right of the Nation over ecclesiastical wealth; you have
voluntarily abandoned a ground which you were conscious was altogether
untenable. Having allowed this right, can you question the propriety of
exerting it at that particular period? The urgencies of the State were
such as required the immediate application of a remedy. Even the clergy
were conscious of such necessity; and aware, from the immunities they
had long enjoyed, that the people would insist upon their bearing some
share of the burden, offered of themselves a considerable portion of
their superfluities. The Assembly was true to justice, and refused to
compromise the interests of the Nation by accepting as a satisfaction
the insidious offerings of compulsive charity. They enforced their
right. They took from the clergy a large share of their wealth, and
applied it to the alleviation of the national misery. Experience shows
daily the wise employment of the ample provision which yet remains to
them. While you reflect on the vast diminution which some men's fortunes
must have undergone, your sorrow for these individuals will be
diminished by recollecting the unworthy motives which induced the bulk
of them to undertake the office, and the scandalous arts which enabled
so many to attain the rank and enormous wealth which it has seemed
necessary to annex to the charge of a Christian pastor. You will rather
look upon it as a signal act of justice that they should thus
unexpectedly be stripped of the rewards of their vices and their crimes.
If you should lament the sad reverse by which the hero of the
necklace[18] has been divested of about 1,300,000 livres of annual
revenue, you may find some consolation that a part of this prodigious
mass of riches is gone to preserve from famine some thousands of cures,
who were pining in villages unobserved by Courts.

[18] Prince de Rohan.

I now proceed to principles. Your Lordship very properly asserts that
'the liberty of man in a state of society consists in his being subject
to no law but the law enacted by the general will of the society to
which he belongs.' You approved of the object which the French had in
view when, in the infancy of the Revolution, they were attempting to
destroy arbitrary power, and to erect a temple to Liberty on its
remains. It is with surprise, then, that I find you afterwards presuming
to dictate to the world a servile adoption of the British constitution.
It is with indignation I perceive you 'reprobate' a people for having
imagined happiness and liberty more likely to flourish in the open field
of a Republic than under the shade of Monarchy. You are therefore guilty
of a most glaring contradiction. Twenty-five millions of Frenchmen have
felt that they could have no security for their liberties under any
modification of monarchical power. They have in consequence unanimously
chosen a Republic. You cannot but observe that they have only exercised
that right in which, by your own confession, liberty essentially
resides.

As to your arguments, by which you pretend to justify your anathemas of
a Republic--if arguments they may be called--they are so concise, that I
cannot but transcribe them. 'I dislike a Republic for this reason,
because of all forms of government, scarcely excepting the most
despotic, I think a Republic the most oppressive to the bulk of the
people; they are deceived in it with a show of liberty, but they live in
it under the most odious of all tyrannies--the tyranny of their equals.'

This passage is a singular proof of that fatality by which the advocates
of error furnish weapons for their own destruction: while it is merely
_assertion_ in respect to a justification of your aversion to
Republicanism, a strong _argument_ may be drawn from it in its favour.
Mr. Burke, in a philosophic lamentation over the extinction of chivalry,
told us that in those times vice lost half its evil by losing all its
grossness. Infatuated moralist! Your Lordship excites compassion as
labouring under the same delusion. Slavery is a bitter and a poisonous
draught. We have but one consolation under it, that a Nation may dash
the cup to the ground when she pleases. Do not imagine that by taking
from its bitterness you weaken its deadly quality; no, by rendering it
more palatable you contribute to its power of destruction. We submit
without repining to the chastisements of Providence, aware that we are
creatures, that opposition is vain and remonstrance impossible. But when
redress is in our own power and resistance is rational, we suffer with
the same humility from beings like ourselves, because we are taught from
infancy that we were born in a state of inferiority to our oppressors,
that they were sent into the world to scourge, and we to be scourged.
Accordingly we see the bulk of mankind, actuated by these fatal
prejudices, even more ready to lay themselves under the feet of _the
great_ than the great are to trample upon them. Now taking for granted,
that in Republics men live under the tyranny of what you call their
equals, the circumstance of this being the most odious of all tyrannies
is what a Republican would boast of; as soon as tyranny becomes odious,
the principal step is made towards its destruction. Reflecting on the
degraded state of the mass of mankind, a philosopher will lament that
oppression is not odious to them, that the iron, while it eats the soul,
is not felt to enter into it. 'Tout homme ne dans l'esclavage nait pour
l'esclavage, rien n'est plus certain; les esclaves perdent tout dans
leurs fers, jusqu'au desir d'en sortir; ils aiment leur servitude, comme
les compagnons d'Ulysse aimaient leur abrutissement.'

I return to the quotation in which you reprobate Republicanism. Relying
upon the temper of the times, you have surely thought little argument
necessary to content what few will be hardy enough to support; the
strongest of auxiliaries, imprisonment and the pillory, has left your
arm little to perform. But the happiness of mankind is so closely
connected with this subject, that I cannot suffer such considerations to
deter me from throwing out a few hints, which may lead to a conclusion
that a Republic legitimately constructed contains less of an oppressive
principle than any other form of government.

Your Lordship will scarcely question that much of human misery, that the
great evils which desolate States, proceed from the governors having an
interest distinct from that of the governed. It should seem a natural
deduction, that whatever has a tendency to identify the two must also in
the same degree promote the general welfare. As the magnitude of almost
all States prevents the possibility of their enjoying a pure democracy,
philosophers--from a wish, as far as is in their power, to make the
governors and the governed one--will turn their thoughts to the system
of universal representation, and will annex an equal importance to the
suffrage of every individual. Jealous of giving up no more of the
authority of the people than is necessary, they will be solicitous of
finding out some method by which the office of their delegates may be
confined as much as is practicable to the proposing and deliberating
upon laws rather than to enacting them; reserving to the people the
power of finally inscribing them in the national code. Unless this is
attended to, as soon as a people has chosen representatives it no
longer has a political existence, except as it is understood to retain
the privilege of annihilating the trust when it shall think proper, and
of resuming its original power. Sensible that at the moment of election
an interest distinct from that of the general body is created, an
enlightened legislator will endeavour by every possible method to
diminish the operation of such interest. The first and most natural mode
that presents itself is that of shortening the regular duration of this
trust, in order that the man who has betrayed it may soon be superseded
by a more worthy successor. But this is not enough; aware of the
possibility of imposition, and of the natural tendency of power to
corrupt the heart of man, a sensible Republican will think it essential
that the office of legislator be not intrusted to the same man for a
succession of years. He will also be induced to this wise restraint by
the grand principle of identification; he will be more sure of the
virtue of the legislator by knowing that, in the capacity of private
citizen, to-morrow he must either smart under the oppression or bless
the justice of the law which he has enacted to-day.

Perhaps in the very outset of this inquiry the principle on which I
proceed will be questioned, and I shall be told that the people are not
the proper judges of their own welfare. But because under every
government of modern times, till the foundation of the American
Republic, the bulk of mankind have appeared incapable of discerning
their true interests, no conclusion can be drawn against my principle.
At this moment have we not daily the strongest proofs of the success
with which, in what you call the best of all monarchical governments,
the popular mind may be debauched? Left to the quiet exercise of their
own judgment, do you think that the people would have thought it
necessary to set fire to the house of the philosophic Priestley, and to
hunt down his life like that of a traitor or a parricide? that, deprived
almost of the necessaries of existence by the burden of their taxes,
they would cry out, as with one voice, for a war from which not a single
ray of consolation can visit them to compensate for the additional
keenness with which they are about to smart under the scourge of labour,
of cold, and of hunger?

Appearing, as I do, the advocate of Republicanism, let me not be
misunderstood. I am well aware, from the abuse of the executive power
in States, that there is not a single European nation but what affords a
melancholy proof that if, at this moment, the original authority of the
people should be restored, all that could be expected from such
restoration would in the beginning be but a change of tyranny.
Considering the nature of a Republic in reference to the present
condition of Europe, your Lordship stops here; but a philosopher will
extend his views much farther: having dried up the source from which
flows the corruption of the public opinion, he will be sensible that the
stream will go on gradually refining itself. I must add also, that the
coercive power is of necessity so strong in all the old governments,
that a people could not at first make an abuse of that liberty which a
legitimate Republic supposes. The animal just released from its stall
will exhaust the overflow of its spirits in a round of wanton vagaries;
but it will soon return to itself, and enjoy its freedom in moderate and
regular delight.

But, to resume the subject of universal representation, I ought to have
mentioned before, that in the choice of its representatives a people
will not immorally hold out wealth as a criterion of integrity, nor lay
down as a fundamental rule, that to be qualified for the trying duties
of legislation a citizen should be possessed of a certain fixed
property. Virtues, talents, and acquirements are all that it will look
for.

Having destroyed every external object of delusion, let us now see what
makes the supposition necessary that the people will mislead themselves.
Your Lordship respects 'peasants and mechanics when they intrude not
themselves into concerns for which their education has not fitted them.'

Setting aside the idea of a peasant or mechanic being a legislator, what
vast education is requisite to enable him to judge amongst his
neighbours which is most qualified by his industry and integrity to be
intrusted with the care of the interests of himself and of his
fellow-citizens? But leaving this ground, as governments formed on such
a plan proceed in a plain and open manner, their administration would
require much less of what is usually called talents and experience, that
is, of disciplined treachery and hoary Machiavelism; and at the same
time, as it would no longer be their interest to keep the mass of the
nation in ignorance, a moderate portion of useful knowledge would be
universally disseminated. If your Lordship has travelled in the
democratic cantons of Switzerland, you must have seen the herdsman with
the staff in one hand and the book in the other. In the constituent
Assembly of France was found a peasant whose sagacity was as
distinguished as his integrity, whose blunt honesty over-awed and
baffled the refinements of hypocritical patriots. The people of Paris
followed him with acclamations, and the name of Pere Gerard will long be
mentioned with admiration and respect through the eighty-three
departments.

From these hints, if pursued further, might be demonstrated the
expediency of the whole people 'intruding themselves' on the office of
legislation, and the wisdom of putting into force what they may claim as
a right. But government is divided into two parts--the legislative and
executive. The executive power you would lodge in the hands of an
individual. Before we inquire into the propriety of this measure, it
will be necessary to state the proper objects of the executive power in
governments where the principle of universal representation is admitted.
With regard to that portion of this power which is exerted in the
application of the laws, it may be observed that much of it would be
superseded. As laws, being but the expression of the general will, would
be enacted only from an almost universal conviction of their utility,
any resistance to such laws, any desire of eluding them, must proceed
from a few refractory individuals. As far, then, as relates to the
internal administration of the country, a Republic has a manifest
advantage over a Monarchy, inasmuch as less force is requisite to compel
obedience to its laws.

From the judicial tribunals of our own country, though we labour under a
variety of partial and oppressive laws, we have an evident proof of the
nullity of regal interference, as the king's name is confessedly a mere
fiction, and justice is known to be most equitably administered when the
judges are least dependent on the crown.

I have spoken of laws partial and oppressive; our penal code is so
crowded with disproportioned penalties and indiscriminate severity that
a conscientious man would sacrifice, in many instances, his respect for
the laws to the common feelings of humanity; and there must be a strange
vice in that legislation from which can proceed laws in whose execution
a man cannot be instrumental without forfeiting his self-esteem and
incurring the contempt of his fellow-citizens.

But to return from this digression: with regard to the other branches of
the executive government, which relate rather to original measures than
to administering the law, it may be observed that the power exercised in
conducting them is distinguished by almost imperceptible shades from the
legislative, and that all such as admit of open discussion and of the
delay attendant on public deliberations are properly the province of the
representative assembly. If this observation be duly attended to, it
will appear that this part of the executive power will be extremely
circumscribed, will be stripped almost entirely of a deliberative
capacity, and will be reduced to a mere hand or instrument. As a
Republican government would leave this power to a select body destitute
of the means of corruption, and whom the people, continually
contributing, could at all times bring to account or dismiss, will it
not necessarily ensue that a body so selected and supported would
perform their simple functions with greater efficacy and fidelity than
the complicated concerns of royalty can be expected to meet with in the
councils of princes; of men who from their wealth and interest have
forced themselves into trust; and of statesmen, whose constant object is
to exalt themselves by laying pitfalls for their colleagues and for
their country.

I shall pursue this subject no further; but adopting your Lordship's
method of argument, instead of continuing to demonstrate the superiority
of a Republican executive government, I will repeat some of the
objections which have been often made to monarchy, and have not been
answered.

My first objection to regal government is its instability, proceeding
from a variety of causes. Where monarchy is found in its greatest
intensity, as in Morocco and Turkey, this observation is illustrated in
a very pointed manner, and indeed is more or less striking as
governments are more or less despotic. The reason is obvious: as the
monarch is the chooser of his ministers, and as his own passions and
caprice are in general the sole guides of his conduct, these ministers,
instead of pursuing directly the one grand object of national welfare,
will make it their chief study to vary their measures according to his
humours. But a minister _may_ be refractory: his successor will
naturally run headlong into plans totally the reverse of the former
system; for if he treads in the same path, he is well aware that a
similar fate will attend him. This observation will apply to each
succession of kings, who, from vanity and a desire of distinction, will
in general studiously avoid any step which may lead to a suspicion that
they are so spiritless as to imitate their predecessor. That a similar
instability is not incident to Republics is evident from their very
constitution.

As from the nature of monarchy, particularly of hereditary monarchy,
there must always be a vast disproportion between the duties to be
performed and the powers that are to perform them; and as the measures
of government, far from gaining additional vigour, are, on the contrary,
enfeebled by being intrusted to one hand, what arguments can be used for
allowing to the will of a single being a weight which, as history shows,
will subvert that of the whole body politic? And this brings me to my
grand objection to monarchy, which is drawn from (THE ETERNAL NATURE OF
MAN.) The office of king is a trial to which human virtue is not equal.
Pure and universal representation, by which alone liberty can be
secured, cannot, I think, exist together with monarchy. It seems madness
to expect a manifestation of the _general_ will, at the same time that
we allow to a _particular_ will that weight which it must obtain in all
governments that can with any propriety be called monarchical. They must
war with each other till one of them is extinguished. It was so in
France and....

I shall not pursue this topic further, but, as you are a teacher of
purity of morals, I cannot but remind you of that atmosphere of
corruption without which it should seem that courts cannot exist.

You seem anxious to explain what ought to be understood by the equality
of men in a state of civil society; but your Lordship's success has not
answered your trouble. If you had looked in the articles of the Rights
of Man, you would have found your efforts superseded: 'Equality, without
which liberty cannot exist, is to be met with in perfection in that
State in which no distinctions are admitted but such as have evidently
for their object the general good;' 'The end of government cannot be
attained without authorising some members of the society to command, and
of course without imposing on the rest the necessity of obedience.'

Here, then, is an inevitable inequality, which may be denominated that
of power. In order to render this as small as possible, a legislator
will be careful not to give greater force to such authority than is
essential to its due execution. Government is at best but a necessary
evil. Compelled to place themselves in a state of subordination, men
will obviously endeavour to prevent the abuse of that superiority to
which they submit; accordingly they will cautiously avoid whatever may
lead those in whom it is acknowledged to suppose they hold it as a
right. Nothing will more effectually contribute to this than that the
person in whom authority has been lodged should occasionally descend to
the level of private citizen; he will learn from it a wholesome lesson,
and the people will be less liable to confound the person with the
power. On this principle hereditary authority will be proscribed; and on
another also--that in such a system as that of hereditary authority, no
security can be had for talents adequate to the discharge of the office,
and consequently the people can only feel the mortification of being
humbled without having protected themselves.

Another distinction will arise amongst mankind, which, though it may be
easily modified by government, exists independent of it; I mean the
distinction of wealth, which always will attend superior talents and
industry. It cannot be denied that the security of individual property
is one of the strongest and most natural motives to induce men to bow
their necks to the yoke of civil government. In order to attain this end
of security to property, a legislator will proceed with impartiality. He
should not suppose that, when he has insured to their proprietors the
possession of lands and movables against the depredation of the
necessitous, nothing remains to be done. The history of all ages has
demonstrated that wealth not only can secure itself, but includes even
an oppressive principle. Aware of this, and that the extremes of poverty
and riches have a necessary tendency to corrupt the human heart, he will
banish from his code all laws such as the unnatural monster of
primogeniture, such as encourage associations against labour in the form
of corporate bodies, and indeed all that monopolising system of
legislation, whose baleful influence is shown in the depopulation of the
country and in the necessity which reduces the sad relicks to owe their
very existence to the ostentatious bounty of their oppressors. If it is
true in common life, it is still more true in governments, that we
should be just before we are generous; but our legislators seem to have
forgotten or despised this homely maxim. They have unjustly left
unprotected that most important part of property, not less real because
it has no material existence, that which ought to enable the labourer to
provide food for himself and his family. I appeal to innumerable
statutes, whose constant and professed object it is to lower the price
of labour, to compel the workman to be _content_ with arbitrary wages,
evidently too small from the necessity of legal enforcement of the
acceptance of them. Even from the astonishing amount of the sums raised
for the support of one description of the poor may be concluded the
extent and greatness of that oppression, whose effects have rendered it
possible for the few to afford so much, and have shown us that such a
multitude of our brothers exist in even helpless indigence. Your
Lordship tells us that the science of civil government has received all
the perfection of which it is capable. For my part, I am more
enthusiastic. The sorrow I feel from the contemplation of this
melancholy picture is not unconsoled by a comfortable hope that the
class of wretches called mendicants will not much longer shock the
feelings of humanity; that the miseries entailed upon the marriage of
those who are not rich will no longer tempt the bulk of mankind to fly
to that promiscuous intercourse to which they are impelled by the
instincts of nature, and the dreadful satisfaction of escaping the
prospect of infants, sad fruit of such intercourse, whom they are unable
to support. If these flattering prospects be ever realised, it must be
owing to some wise and salutary regulations counteracting that
inequality among mankind which proceeds from the present _fixed_
disproportion of their possessions.

I am not an advocate for the agrarian law nor for sumptuary regulations,
but I contend that the people amongst whom the law of primogeniture
exists, and among whom corporate bodies are encouraged, and immense
salaries annexed to useless and indeed hereditary offices, is oppressed
by an inequality in the distribution of wealth which does not
necessarily attend men in a state of civil society.

Thus far we have considered inequalities inseparable from civil society.
But other arbitrary distinctions exist among mankind, either from
choice or usurpation. I allude to titles, to stars, ribbons, and
garters, and other badges of fictitious superiority. Your Lordship will
not question the grand principle on which this inquiry set out; I look
upon it, then, as my duty to try the propriety of these distinctions by
that criterion, and think it will be no difficult task to prove that
these separations among mankind are absurd, impolitic, and immoral.
Considering hereditary nobility as a reward for services rendered to the
State--and it is to my charity that you owe the permission of taking up
the question on this ground--what services can a man render to the State
adequate to such a compensation that the making of laws, upon which the
happiness of millions is to depend, shall be lodged in him and his
posterity, however depraved may be their principles, however
contemptible their understandings?

But here I may be accused of sophistry; I ought to subtract every idea
of power from such distinction, though from the weakness of mankind it
is impossible to disconnect them. What services, then, can a man render
to society to compensate for the outrage done to the dignity of our
nature when we bind ourselves to address him and his posterity with
humiliating circumlocutions, calling him most noble, most honourable,
most high, most august, serene, excellent, eminent, and so forth; when
it is more than probable that such unnatural flattery will but generate
vices which ought to consign him to neglect and solitude, or make him
the perpetual object of the finger of scorn? And does not experience
justify the observation, that where titles--a thing very rare--have been
conferred as the rewards of merit, those to whom they have descended,
far from being thereby animated to imitate their ancestor, have presumed
upon that lustre which they supposed thrown round them, and, prodigally
relying on such resources, lavished what alone was their own, their
personal reputation?

It would be happy if this delusion were confined to themselves; but,
alas, the world is weak enough to grant the indulgence which they
assume. Vice, which is forgiven in one character, will soon cease to
meet with sternness of rebuke when found in others. Even at first she
will entreat pardon with confidence, assured that ere long she will be
charitably supposed to stand in no need of it.

But let me ask you seriously, from the mode in which those distinctions
are originally conferred, is it not almost necessary that, far from
being the rewards of services rendered to the State, they should usually
be the recompense of an industrious sacrifice of the general welfare to
the particular aggrandisement of that power by which they are bestowed?
Let us even alter their source, and consider them as proceeding from the
Nation itself, and deprived of that hereditary quality; even here I
should proscribe them, and for the most evident reason--that a man's
past services are no sufficient security for his future character; he
who to-day merits the civic wreath may to-morrow deserve the Tarpeian
rock. Besides, where respect is not perverted, where the world is not
taught to reverence men without regarding their conduct, the esteem of
mankind will have a very different value, and, when a proper
independence is secured, will be regarded as a sufficient recompense for
services however important, and will be a much surer guarantee of the
continuance of such virtues as may deserve it.

I have another strong objection to nobility, which is that it has a
necessary tendency to dishonour labour, a prejudice which extends far
beyond its own circle; that it binds down whole ranks of men to
idleness, while it gives the enjoyment of a reward which exceeds the
hopes of the most active exertions of human industry. The languid tedium
of this noble repose must be dissipated, and gaming, with the tricking
manoeuvres of the horse-race, afford occupation to hours which it would
be happy for mankind had they been totally unemployed.

Reflecting on the corruption of the public manners, does your Lordship
shudder at the prostitution which miserably deluges our streets? You may
find the cause in our aristocratical prejudices. Are you disgusted with
the hypocrisy and sycophancy of our intercourse in private life? You may
find the cause in the necessity of dissimulation which we have
established by regulations which oblige us to address as our superiors,
indeed as our masters, men whom we cannot but internally despise. Do you
lament that such large portions of mankind should stoop to occupations
unworthy the dignity of their nature? You may find in the pride and
luxury thought necessary to nobility how such servile arts are
encouraged. Besides, where the most honourable of the Land do not blush
to accept such offices as groom of the bedchamber, master of the
hounds, lords in waiting, captain of the honourable band of
gentlemen-pensioners, is it astonishing that the bulk of the people
should not ask of an occupation, what is it? but what may be gained by
it?

If the long equestrian train of equipage should make your Lordship sigh
for the poor who are pining in hunger, you will find that little is
thought of snatching the bread from their mouths to eke out the
'_necessary_ splendour' of nobility.

I have not time to pursue this subject further, but am so strongly
impressed with the baleful influence of aristocracy and nobility upon
human happiness and virtue, that if, as I am persuaded, monarchy cannot
exist without such supporters, I think that reason sufficient for the
preference I have given to the Republican system.

It is with reluctance that I quit the subjects I have just touched upon;
but the nature of this Address does not permit me to continue the
discussion. I proceed to what more immediately relates to this Kingdom
at the present crisis.

You ask with triumphant confidence, to what other law are the people of
England subject than the general will of the society to which they
belong? Is your Lordship to be told that acquiescence is not choice, and
that obedience is not freedom? If there is a single man in Great Britain
who has no suffrage in the election of a representative, the will of the
society of which he is a member is not generally expressed; he is a
Helot in that society. You answer the question, so confidently put, in
this singular manner: 'The King, we are all justly persuaded, has not
the inclination--and we all know that, if he had the inclination, he has
not the power--to substitute his will in the place of law. The House of
Lords has no such power. The House of Commons has no such power.' This
passage, so artfully and unconstitutionally framed to agree with the
delusions of the moment, cannot deceive a thinking reader. The
expression of your full persuasion of the upright intentions of the King
can only be the language of flattery. You are not to be told that it is
constitutionally a maxim not to attribute to the person of the King the
measures and misconduct of government. Had you chosen to speak, as you
ought to have done, openly and explicitly, you must have expressed your
just persuasion and implicit confidence in the integrity, moderation,
and wisdom of his Majesty's ministers. Have you forgot the avowed
ministerial maxim of Sir Robert Walpole? Are you ignorant of the
overwhelming corruption of the present day?

You seem unconscious of the absurdity of separating what is inseparable
even in imagination. Would it have been any consolation to the miserable
Romans under the second triumvirate to have been asked insultingly, Is
it Octavius, is it Anthony, or is it Lepidus that has caused this
bitterness of affliction? and when the answer could not be returned with
certainty, to have been reproached that their sufferings were imaginary?
The fact is that the King _and_ Lords _and_ Commons, by what is termed
the omnipotence of Parliament, have constitutionally the right of
enacting whatever laws they please, in defiance of the petitions or
remonstrances of the nation. They have the power of doubling our
enormous debt of 240 millions, and _may_ pursue measures which could
never be supposed the emanation of the general will without concluding
the people stripped of reason, of sentiment, and even of that first
instinct which prompts them to preserve their own existence.

I congratulate your Lordship upon your enthusiastic fondness for the
judicial proceedings of this country. I am happy to find you have passed
through life without having your fleece torn from your back in the
thorny labyrinth of litigation. But you have not lived always in
colleges, and must have passed by some victims, whom it cannot be
supposed, without a reflection on your heart, that you have forgotten.
Here I am reminded of what I have said on the subject of
representation--to be qualified for the office of legislation you should
have felt like the bulk of mankind; their sorrows should be familiar to
you, of which, if you are ignorant, how can you redress them? As a
member of the assembly which, from a confidence in its experience,
sagacity, and wisdom, the constitution has invested with the supreme
appellant jurisdiction to determine the most doubtful points of an
intricate jurisprudence, your Lordship cannot, I presume, be ignorant of
the consuming expense of our never-ending process, the verbosity of
unintelligible statutes, and the perpetual contrariety in our judicial
decisions.

'The greatest freedom that can be enjoyed by man in a state of civil
society, the greatest security that can be given with respect to the
protection of his character, property, personal liberty, limb, and
life, is afforded to every individual by our present constitution.'

'Let it never be forgotten by ourselves, and let us impress the
observation upon the hearts of our children, that we are in possession
of both (liberty and equality), of as much of both as can be consistent
with the end for which civil society was introduced among mankind.'

Many of my readers will hardly believe me when I inform them that these
passages are copied verbatim from your Appendix. Mr. Burke roused the
indignation of all ranks of men when, by a refinement in cruelty
superior to that which in the East yokes the living to the dead, he
strove to persuade us that we and our posterity to the end of time were
riveted to a constitution by the indissoluble compact of--a dead
parchment, and were bound to cherish a corpse at the bosom when reason
might call aloud that it should be entombed. Your Lordship aims at the
same detestable object by means more criminal, because more dangerous
and insidious. Attempting to lull the people of England into a belief
that any inquiries directed towards the nature of liberty and equality
can in no other way lead to their happiness than by convincing them that
they have already arrived at perfection in the science of government,
what is your object but to exclude them for ever from the most fruitful
field of human knowledge? Besides, it is another cause to execrate this
doctrine that the consequence of such fatal delusion would be that they
must entirely draw off their attention, not only from the government,
but from their governors; that the stream of public vigilance, far from
clearing and enriching the prospect of society, would by its stagnation
consign it to barrenness, and by its putrefaction infect it with death.
You have aimed an arrow at liberty and philosophy, the eyes of the human
race; why, like the inveterate enemy of Philip, in putting your name to
the shaft, did you not declare openly its destination?

As a teacher of religion, your Lordship cannot be ignorant of a class of
breaches of duty which may be denominated faults of omission. You
profess to give your opinions upon the present turbulent crisis,
expressing a wish that they may have some effect in tranquillising the
minds of the people. Whence comes it, then, that the two grand causes of
this working of the popular mind are passed over in silence? Your
Lordship's conduct may bring to mind the story of a company of
strolling comedians, who gave out the play of _Hamlet_ as the
performance of the evening. The audience were not a little surprised to
be told, on the drawing up of the curtain, that from circumstances of
particular convenience it was hoped they would dispense with the
omission of the character of--Hamlet! But to be serious--for the subject
is serious in the extreme--from your silence respecting the general call
for a PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, supported by your assertion that we at
present enjoy as great a portion of liberty and equality as is
consistent with civil society, what can be supposed but that you are a
determined enemy to the redress of what the people of England call and
feel to be grievances?

From your omitting to speak upon the war, and your general
disapprobation of French measures and French principles, expressed
particularly at this moment, we are necessarily led also to conclude
that you have no wish to dispel an infatuation which is now giving up to
the sword so large a portion of the poor, and consigning the rest to the
more slow and more painful consumption of want. I could excuse your
silence on this point, as it would ill become an English bishop at the
close of the eighteenth century to make the pulpit the vehicle of
exhortations which would have disgraced the incendiary of the Crusades,
the hermit Peter. But you have deprived yourself of the plea of decorum
by giving no opinion on the REFORM OF THE LEGISLATURE. As undoubtedly
you have some secret reason for the reservation of your sentiments on
this latter head, I cannot but apply the same reason to the former. Upon
what principle is your conduct to be explained? In some parts of England
it is quaintly said, when a drunken man is seen reeling towards his
home, that he has business on both sides of the road. Observing your
Lordship's tortuous path, the spectators will be far from insinuating
that you have partaken of Mr. Burke's intoxicating bowl; they will
content themselves, shaking their heads as you stagger along, with
remarking that you have business on both sides of the road.

The friends of Liberty congratulate themselves upon the odium under
which they are at present labouring, as the causes which have produced
it have obliged so many of her false adherents to disclaim with
officious earnestness any desire to promote her interests; nor are they
disheartened by the diminution which their body is supposed already to
have sustained. Conscious that an enemy lurking in our ranks is ten
times more formidable than when drawn out against us, that the
unblushing aristocracy of a Maury or a Cazales is far less dangerous
than the insidious mask of patriotism assumed by a La Fayette or a
Mirabeau, we thank you for your desertion. Political convulsions have
been said particularly to call forth concealed abilities, but it has
been seldom observed how vast is their consumption of them. Reflecting
upon the fate of the greatest portion of the members of the constituent
and legislative assemblies, we must necessarily be struck with a
prodigious annihilation of human talents. Aware that this necessity is
attached to a struggle for Liberty, we are the less sorry that we can
expect no advantage from the mental endowments of your Lordship.




APPENDIX to Bishop Watson's Sermon.

[It is deemed expedient to reprint here the Appendix to Bishop Watson's
Sermon, which is animadverted on in the preceding Apology. G.]


The Sermon which is now, for the first time, published, was written many
years ago; it may, perhaps, on that account be more worthy of the
attention of those for whose benefit it is designed. If it shall have
any effect in calming the perturbation which has been lately excited,
and which still subsists in the minds of the lower classes of the
community, I shall not be ashamed of having given to the world a
composition in every other light uninteresting. I will take this
opportunity of adding, with the same intention, a few reflections on the
present circumstances of our own and of a neighbouring country.

With regard to France--I have no hesitation in declaring, that the
object which the French seemed to have in view at the commencement of
their revolution had my hearty approbation. The object was to free
themselves and their posterity from arbitrary power. I hope there is not
a man in Great Britain so little sensible of the blessings of that free
constitution under which he has the happiness to live, so entirely dead
to the interests of general humanity, as not to wish that a constitution
similar to our own might be established, not only in France, but in
every despotic state in Europe; not only in Europe, but in every quarter
of the globe.

It is one thing to approve of an end, another to approve of the means by
which an end is accomplished. I did not approve of the means by which
the first revolution was effected in France. I thought that it would
have been a wiser measure to have abridged the oppressive privileges,
and to have lessened the enormous number of the nobility, than to have
abolished the order. I thought that the State ought not in justice to
have seized any part of the property of the Church, till it had
reverted, as it were, to the community, by the death of its immediate
possessors. I thought that the king was not only treated with unmerited
indignity, but that too little authority was left him to enable him, as
the chief executive magistrate, to be useful to the State. These were
some of my reasons for not approving the means by which the first
revolution in France was brought about. As to other evils which took
place on the occasion, I considered them certainly as evils of
importance; but at the same time as evils inseparable from a state of
civil commotion, and which I conceived would be more than compensated by
the establishment of a limited monarchy.

The French have abandoned the constitution they had at first
established, and have changed it for another. No one can reprobate with
more truth than I do both the means and the end of this change. The end
has been the establishment of a republic. Now a republic is a form of
government which, of all others, I most dislike--and I dislike it for
this reason; because of all forms of government, scarcely excepting the
most despotic, I think a republic the most oppressive to the bulk of the
people: they are deceived in it with the show of liberty; but they live
in it under the most odious of all tyrannies, the tyranny of their
equals. With respect to the means by which this new republic has been
erected in France, they have been sanguinary, savage, more than brutal.
They not merely fill the heart of every individual with commiseration
for the unfortunate sufferers, but they exhibit to the eye of
contemplation an humiliating picture of human nature, when its passions
are not regulated by religion, or controlled by law. I fly with terror
and abhorrence even from the altar of Liberty, when I see it stained
with the blood of the aged, of the innocent, of the defenceless sex, of
the ministers of religion, and of the faithful adherents of a fallen
monarch. My heart sinks within me when I see it streaming with the blood
of the monarch himself. Merciful God! strike speedily, we beseech Thee,
with deep contrition and sincere remorse, the obdurate hearts of the
relentless perpetrators and projectors of these horrid deeds, lest they
should suddenly sink into eternal and extreme perdition, loaded with an
unutterable weight of unrepented and, except through the blood of Him
whose religion they reject, inexpiable sin.

The monarch, you will tell me, was guilty of perfidy and perjury. I know
not that he was guilty of either; but admitting that he has been guilty
of both, who, alas, of the sons of men is so confident in the strength
of his own virtue, so assured of his own integrity and intrepidity of
character, as to be certain that, under similar temptations, he would
not have been guilty of similar offences? Surely it would have been no
diminution of the sternness of new republican virtue, no disgrace to the
magnanimity of a great nation, if it had pardoned the perfidy which its
own oppression had occasioned, if it had remitted the punishment of the
perjury of the king to the tribunal of Him by whom _kings reign and
princes decree justice_.

And are there any men in this kingdom, except such as find their account
in public confusion, who would hazard the introduction of such scenes of
rapine, barbarity, and bloodshed, as have disgraced France and outraged
humanity, for the sake of obtaining--what?--Liberty and Equality. I
suspect that the meaning of these terms is not clearly and generally
understood: it may be of use to explain them.

The liberty of a man in a state of nature consists in his being subject
to no law but the law of nature; and the liberty of a man in a state of
society consists in his being subject to no law but to the law enacted
by the general will of the society to which he belongs. And to what
other law is any man in Great Britain subject? The king, we are all
justly persuaded, has not the inclination, and we all know that if he
had the inclination, he has not the power, to substitute his will in the
place of the law. The House of Lords has no such power; the House of
Commons has no such power; the Church has no such power; the rich men of
the country have no such power. The poorest man amongst us, the beggar
at our door, is governed--not by the uncertain, passionate, arbitrary
will of an individual--not by the selfish insolence of an aristocratic
faction--not by the madness of democratic violence--but by the fixed,
impartial, deliberate voice of law, enacted by the general suffrage of a
free people. Is your property injured? Law, indeed, does not give you
property; but it ascertains it. Property is acquired by industry and
probity; by the exercise of talents and ingenuity; and the possession of
it is secured by the laws of the community. Against whom think you is it
secured? It is secured against thieves and robbers; against idle and
profligate men, who, however low your condition may be, would be glad to
deprive you of the little you possess. It is secured, not only against
such disturbers of the public peace, but against the oppression of the
noble, the rapacity of the powerful, and the avarice of the rich. The
courts of British justice are impartial and incorrupt; they respect not
the persons of men; the poor man's lamb is, in their estimation, as
sacred as the monarch's crown; with inflexible integrity they adjudge to
every man his own. Your property under their protection is secure. If
your personal liberty be unjustly restrained, though but for an hour,
and that by the highest servants of the crown, the crown cannot screen
them; the throne cannot hide them; the law, with an undaunted arm,
seizes them, and drags them with irresistible might to the judgment of
whom?--of your equals--of twelve of your neighbours. In such a
constitution as this, what is there to complain of on the score of
liberty?

The greatest freedom that can be enjoyed by man in a state of civil
society, the greatest security that can be given him with respect to the
protection of his character, property, personal liberty, limb, and life,
is afforded to every individual by our present constitution.

The equality of men in a state of nature does not consist in an equality
of bodily strength or intellectual ability, but in their being equally
free from the dominion of each other. The equality of men in a state of
civil society does not consist in an equality of wisdom, honesty,
ingenuity, industry, nor in an equality of property resulting from a due
exertion of these talents; but in being equally subject to, equally
protected by the same laws. And who knows not that every individual in
this great nation is, in this respect, equal to every other? There is
not one law for the nobles, another for the commons of the land--one for
the clergy, another for the laity--one for the rich, another for the
poor. The nobility, it is true, have some privileges annexed to their
birth; the judges, and other magistrates, have some annexed to their
office; and professional men have some annexed to their
professions:--but these privileges are neither injurious to the liberty
or property of other men. And you might as reasonably contend, that the
bramble ought to be equal to the oak, the lamb to the lion, as that no
distinctions should take place between the members of the same society.
The burdens of the State are distributed through the whole community,
with as much impartiality as the complex nature of taxation will admit;
every man sustains a part in proportion to his strength; no order is
exempted from the payment of taxes. Nor is any order of men exclusively
entitled to the enjoyment of the lucrative offices of the State. All
cannot enjoy them, but all enjoy a capacity of acquiring them. The son
of the meanest man in the nation may become a general or an admiral, a
lord chancellor or an archbishop. If any persons have been so simple as
to suppose that even the French ever intended, by the term equality, an
equality of property, they have been quite mistaken in their ideas. The
French never understood by it anything materially different from what we
and our ancestors have been in full possession of for many ages.

Other nations may deluge their land with blood in struggling for liberty
and equality; but let it never be forgotten by ourselves, and let us
impress the observation upon the hearts of our children, that we are in
possession of both, of as much of both as can be consistent with the end
for which civil society was introduced amongst mankind.

The provision which is made for the poor in this kingdom is so liberal,
as, in the opinion of some, to discourage industry. The rental of the
lands in England and Wales does not, I conjecture, amount to more than
eighteen millions a year; and the poor rates amount to two millions. The
poor then, at present, possess a ninth part of the landed rental of the
country; and, reckoning ten pounds for the annual maintenance of each
pauper, it may be inferred, that those who are maintained by the
community do not constitute a fortieth part of the people. An equal
division of land would be to the poor a great misfortune; they would
possess far less than by the laws of the land they are at present
entitled to. When we add to this consideration an account of the immense
sums annually subscribed by the rich for the support of hospitals,
infirmaries, dispensaries--for the relief of sufferers by fire,
tempests, famine, loss of cattle, great sickness, and other misfortunes,
all of which charities must cease were all men on a level, for all men
would then be equally poor,--it cannot but excite one's astonishment
that so foolish a system should have ever been so much as mentioned by
any man of common sense. It is a system not practicable; and was it
practicable, it would not be useful; and was it useful, it would not be
just.

But some one may think, and, indeed, it has been studiously inculcated
into the minds of the multitude, that a monarchy, even a limited one, is
a far more expensive mode of civil government than a republic; that a
civil-list of a million a year is an enormous sum, which might be saved
to the nation. Supposing that every shilling of this sum could be saved,
and that every shilling of it was expended in supporting the dignity of
the crown--both which suppositions are entirely false--still should I
think the liberty, the prosperity, the tranquillity, the happiness of
this great nation cheaply purchased by such a sum; still should I think
that he would be a madman in politics who would, by a change of the
constitution, risk these blessings (and France supplies us with a proof
that infinite risk would be run) for a paltry saving of expense. I am
not, nor have ever been, the patron of corruption. So far as the
civil-list has a tendency to corrupt the judgment of any member of
either house of parliament, it has a bad tendency, which I wish it had
not; but I cannot wish to see the splendour of the crown reduced to
nothing, lest its proper weight in the scale of the constitution should
be thereby destroyed. A great portion of this million is expended in
paying the salaries of the judges, the interpreters of our law, the
guardians of our lives and properties; another portion is expended in
maintaining ambassadors at different courts, to protect the general
concerns of the nation from foreign aggression; another portion is
expended in pensions and donations to men of letters and ingenuity; to
men who have, by naval, military, or civil services, just claims to the
attention of their country; to persons of respectable families and
connections, who have been humbled and broken down by misfortunes. I do
not speak with accuracy, nor on such a subject is accuracy requisite;
but I am not far wide of truth in saying, that a fifth part of the
million is more than sufficient to defray the expenses of the royal
household. What a mighty matter is it to complain of, that each
individual contributes less than sixpence a year towards the support of
the monarchy!

That the constitution of this country is so perfect as neither to
require or admit of any improvement, is a proposition to which I never
did or ever can assent; but I think it far too excellent to be amended
by peasants and mechanics. I do not mean to speak of peasants and
mechanics with any degree of disrespect; I am not so ignorant of the
importance, either of the natural or social chain by which all the
individuals of the human race are connected together, as to think
disrespectfully of any link of it. Peasants and mechanics are as useful
to the State as any other order of men; but their utility consists in
their discharging well the duties of their respective stations; it
ceases when they affect to become legislators; when they intrude
themselves into concerns for which their education has not fitted them.
The liberty of the press is a main support of the liberty of the nation;
it is a blessing which it is our duty to transmit to posterity; but a
bad use is sometimes made of it: and its use is never more pernicious
than when it is employed to infuse into the minds of the lowest orders
of the community disparaging ideas concerning the constitution of their
country. No danger need be apprehended from a candid examination of our
own constitution, or from a display of the advantages of any other; it
will bear to be contrasted with the best: but all men are not qualified
to make the comparison; and there are so many men, in every community,
who wish to have no government at all, that an appeal to them on such a
point ought never to be made.

There are, probably, in every government upon earth, circumstances which
a man, accustomed to the abstract investigation of truth, may easily
prove to be deviations from the rigid rule of strict political justice;
but whilst these deviations are either generally not known, or, though
known, generally acquiesced in as matters of little moment to the
general felicity, I cannot think it to be the part, either of a good man
or of a good citizen, to be zealous in recommending such matters to the
discussion of ignorant and uneducated men.

I am far from insinuating, that the science of politics is involved in
mystery; or that men of plain understandings should be debarred from
examining the principles of the government to which they yield
obedience. All that I contend for is this--that the foundations of our
government ought not to be overturned, nor the edifice erected thereon
tumbled into ruins, because an acute politician may pretend that he has
discovered a flaw in the building, or that he could have laid the
foundation after a better model.

What would you say to a stranger who should desire you to pull down
your house, because, forsooth, he had built one in France or America,
after what he thought a better plan? You would say to him: No, sir--my
ancestors have lived in this mansion comfortably and honourably for many
generations; all its walls are strong, and all its timbers sound: if I
should observe a decay in any of its parts, I know how to make the
reparation without the assistance of strangers; and I know too that the
reparation, when made by myself, may be made without injury either to
the strength or beauty of the building. It has been buffeted, in the
course of ages, by a thousand storms; yet still it stands unshaken as a
rock, the wonder of all my neighbours, each of whom sighs for one of a
similar construction. Your house may be suited to your climate and
temper, this is suited to mine. Permit me, however, to observe to you,
that you have not yet lived long enough in your new house to be sensible
of all the inconveniences to which it may be liable, nor have you yet
had any experience of its strength; it has yet sustained no shocks; the
first whirlwind may scatter its component members in the air; the first
earthquake may shake its foundation; the first inundation may sweep the
superstructure from the surface of the earth. I hope no accident will
happen to your house, but I am satisfied with mine own.

Great calamities of every kind attend the breaking up of established
governments:--yet there are some forms of government, especially when
they happen to be badly administered, so exceedingly destructive of the
happiness of mankind, that a change of them is not improvidently
purchased at the expense of the mischief accompanying their subversion.
Our government is not of that kind; look round the globe, and see if you
can discover a single nation on all its surface so powerful, so rich, so
beneficent, so free and happy as our own. May Heaven avert from the
minds of my countrymen the slightest wish to abolish their constitution!

'Kingdoms,' observes Mr. Locke, 'have been overturned by the pride,
ambition, and turbulency of private men; by the people's wantonness and
desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, as well as by
the rulers' insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary
power over the people.' The recent danger to our constitution was in my
opinion small; for I considered its excellence to be so obvious to men
even of the most unimproved understandings, that I looked upon it as an
idle and fruitless effort, either in foreign or domestic incendiaries,
to endeavour to persuade the bulk of the people to consent to an
alteration of it in favour of a republic. I knew, indeed, that in every
country the flagitious dregs of a nation were always ripe for
revolutions; but I was sensible, at the same time, that it was the
interest, not only of the opulent and powerful, not only of the
mercantile and middle classes of life, but even of honest labourers and
manufacturers, of every sober and industrious man, to resist the
licentious principles of such pestilent members, shall I call them, or
outcasts of society. Men better informed and wiser than myself thought
that the constitution was in great danger. Whether in fact the danger
was great or small, it is not necessary now to inquire; it may be more
useful to declare that, in my humble opinion, the danger, of whatever
magnitude it may have been, did not originate in any encroachments of
either the legislative or executive power on the liberties or properties
of the people; but in the wild fancies and turbulent tempers of
discontented or ill-informed individuals. I sincerely rejoi