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 Cornell University Library 
 1 5S92.A6W58 
 
 n examination of the charge of apostasy 
 
 3 1924 012 971 184 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 2971 1 84 
 
WORDSWORTH 
 
With 3 Facsimile Reproductions ^ ^io, ros. 6d. 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OY THE WORDSWORTH 
 AND COLERIDGE MANUSCRIPTS IN THE 
 POSSESSION OF MR. T. NORTON LONGMAN. 
 Edited, with Notes, by W. Hale White. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 39 Paternoster Row, London 
 New York and Bombay. 
 
AN EXAMINATION OF THE CHARGE 
 OF APOSTASY AGAINST WORDS- 
 WORTH , i , 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HALE WHITE 
 
 Editor of 'A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 Manuscripts in the possession of Mr T. Norton Longman ' 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND, BOMBAY 
 
 1898 
 
 9 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
A.\^u^<£^ 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 The main object which I have had in view is to arrange 
 a few passages from Wordsworth's, prose and poetical 
 works in such a way as to let him defend himself. No 
 apology therefore is necessary for the length of the 
 quotations. 
 
 I have to thank Professor Knight for permission to 
 make extracts from his " Life of William Wordsworth," 
 and I am also indebted to Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge 
 for similar permission to copy parts of letters published 
 in his " Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge." 
 
 To Mr. T. Hutchinson, Editor of the "Oxford 
 Wordsworth, " and of the reprint of the " Poems in Two 
 Volumes" of 1807, I am under special obligation for 
 many valuable suggestions. 
 
AN EXAMINATION OF THE CHARGE OF 
 APOSTASY AGAINST WORDSWORTH 
 
 There is a widely-spread opinion that Wordsworth 
 towards the middle of his life underwent a great change, 
 and that he apostatised from his earlier feith both in 
 politics and religion, I shall attempt to show that there 
 is no real foundation for this charge against him. ' We 
 will, in the first place, consider the political accusation^ — 
 that, although in his younger days he was republican, or 
 even revolutionary, he afterwards became a common- 
 place Tory. 
 
 In 1 791-2 Wordsworth was in France. Much of 
 the " Descriptive Sketches " was actually composed during 
 the visit,! and the poem was published in 1793. The 
 extract given below is printed as it appeared in 1793, 
 when Wordsworth was twenty-three years old, and, 
 following it, is a reprint of the same verses as they 
 appeared in their final form in 1 836, when he was sixty-six. 
 
 1793 
 ' — " Tho' Liberty shall soon, indignant, raise 
 Red on his hills his beacon's comet blaze ; 
 Bid from on high' his lonely cannon sound. 
 And on ten thousand hearths his shout rebound ; 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 616. 
 
2 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 His larum-bell from village-tow'r to tow'r 
 Swing on th' astounded ear it's dull undying roar : 
 Yet, yet rejoice, tho' Pride's perverted ire 
 Rouze Hell's own aid, and wrap thy hiUs in fire. 
 Lo ! from th' innocuous flames, a lovely birth ! 
 With its own Virtues springs another earth : 
 Nature, as in her prime, her virgin reign 
 Begins, and Love and Truth compose her train ; 
 With pulseless hand, and fix'd unwearied gaze, 
 Unbreathing Justice her still beam surveys : 
 No more, along thy vales and viny groves, 
 Whole hamlets disappearing as he moves. 
 With cheeks o'erspread by smiles of baleful glow, 
 On his pale horse shall fell Consumption go. 
 
 " Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride 
 Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride, 
 To break, the vales where Death with Famine scow'rs, 
 And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribb'd tow'rs ; 
 Where Machination her fell soul resigns, 
 Fled panting to the centre of her mines ; 
 Where Persecution decks with ghastly smiles 
 Her bed, his mountains mad Ambition piles ; 
 Where Discord stalks dilating, every hour, 
 And crouching fearful at the feet of Pow'r, 
 Like Lightnings eager for th' almighty word. 
 Look up for sign of havoc. Fire and Sword 
 —Give them, beneath their breast while Gladness springs, 
 To brood the nations o'er with Nile-like wings ; 
 And grant that every sceptred child of clay. 
 Who cries, presumptuous, ' here their tides shall stay,' 
 Swept in their anger from th' affrighted shore, 
 With all his creatures sink — to rise no more." 
 
 1849-50 
 
 ' — "But foes are gathering — Liberty must raise 
 Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze ; 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 22. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 3 
 
 Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower ! — 
 Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour ! 
 Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire 
 Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire : 
 Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth ; 
 As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth ! 
 — All cannot be : the promise is too fair 
 For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air : 
 Yet not for this will sober reason frown 
 Upon that promise, nor the hope disown ; 
 She knows that only from high aims ensue 
 Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due. 
 
 " Great God ! by whom the strifes of men are weighed 
 In an impartial balance, give thine aid 
 To the just cause ; and, oh ! do thou preside 
 Over the mighty stream now spreading wide : 
 So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied 
 In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs. 
 Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings ! 
 And grant that every sceptred child of clay 
 Who cries presumptuous, ' Here the flood shall stay,' 
 May in its progress see thy guiding hand. 
 And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand ; 
 Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore, , 
 Sink with his servile bands, to rise no more ! " 
 
 I shall refer to this second version again. Meanwhile, 
 we must admit, as a fair inference, that Wordsworth's 
 opinions in 1793 could not have been totally condemned 
 by him in 1836. The two lines 
 
 " May in its progress see thy guiding hand, 
 And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand " 
 
 were added in 1836. 
 
 In 1793 Dr. Watson, Bishop of LlandafF, published 
 his "Sermon preached before the Stewards of the' West- 
 Is 2 
 
 ♦ 
 
4 Examination of the Charge op 
 
 minster Dispensary," and the young Wordsworth was 
 moved to write to him upon the appendix thereto, 
 which contained some "strictures" on the French Revo- 
 lution. Whether the letter was sent we know not. 
 Considering the age of the writer, it is a remarkable essay. 
 The style is already essentially that of the " Convention 
 of Cintra." It is closely packed, and the sentences move 
 towards their conclusion with the march of a battalion. 
 The measures taken in France to reduce the incomes of 
 the superior clergy are applauded, not on any anti-theo- 
 logical grounds, but because " a part of this prodigious 
 mass of riches is gone to preserve from famine some 
 thousands of cures who were pining in villages unob- 
 served by Courts." Wordsworth also declares himself a 
 republican and in favour of universal suffrage. " If there 
 is a single man in Great Britain who has no sufirage 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." His republicanism, however, 
 is mainly a statement of general principles, and he does 
 not recommend immediate action. It is one thing to 
 accept a proposition and it is another to have such con- 
 fidence in it that we are compelled to go out in the 
 street and make it real. Wordsworth was a thinker, 
 and he may have been conscious of the doubt which 
 infects all abstractions, the suspicion that there are limi- 
 tations and equally valid counter-abstractions. In a 
 letter which the Bishop of Lincoln, in the " Memoirs," 
 unfortunately does not date, but which must have been 
 written somewhere about 1793, Wordsworth says to his 
 firiend William Mathews : ' 
 
 ' Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 79, 80. 
 
Apostasy against Wordswosth 5 
 
 " I disapprove of monarchical and aristocratical govern- 
 ments, however modified. Hereditary distinctions, and 
 privileged orders of every species, I think, must neces- 
 sarily counteract the progress of human improvement. 
 Hence it follows, that I am not among the admirers of 
 the British constitution. I conceive that a more excel- 
 lent system of civil policy might be established among 
 us ; yet in my ardour to attain the goal, I do not forget 
 the nature of the ground where the race is to be run. 
 The destruction of those institutions which I condemn, 
 appears to me to be hastening on too rapidly. / recoil 
 from the very idea of a revolution. [The Bishop does 
 not say whether the italics are his own.] I am a de- 
 termined enemy to every species ' of violence. I see np 
 connection^ but what the obstinacy of pride and igno- 
 rance renders necessary, between justice and the sword, — ; 
 between reason and bonds. I deplore the miserable con- 
 dition of the French, and think that we can only be 
 guarded from the, same scourge by the undaunted efforts 
 of good men. ... I severely condemn all inflammatory 
 addresses to the passions of men. I know that the multi- 
 tude walk in darkness. I would put into each man's 
 hand a lantern, to guide him ; and not have him to 
 set out upon his journey depending for illumination on 
 abortive flashes of lightning, or the coruscations of transi- 
 tory meteors." 
 
 The ninth and tenth books of the " Prelude " were 
 written in 1804. Wordsworth therein gives another 
 description of what he felt at the outbreak of the Revolu- 
 tion. When war was declared against France he prayed 
 for the success of his country's enemies. 
 
 '...." I rejoiced. 
 Yea, afterwards — truth most painful to record ! — 
 Exulted, in the triumph of my soul, 
 When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown, 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 722. 
 
6 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 Left without glory on the field, or driven, 
 
 Brave hearts ! to shameful flight. It was a grief, — 
 
 Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that, — 
 
 A conflict of sensations without name. 
 
 Of which he only, who may love the sight 
 
 Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge, 
 
 When, in the congregation bending all 
 
 To their great Father, prayers were offered up, 
 
 Or praises for our country's victories ; 
 
 And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance 
 
 I only, like an uninvited guest 
 
 Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add. 
 
 Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come." 
 
 Oh ! much have they to account for, who could tear. 
 By violence, at one decisive rent. 
 From the best youth in England their dear pride, 
 Their joy, in England : " 
 
 He apologises for the crimes of the Revolution : 
 
 ' " Meanwhile the Invaders fared as they deserved : 
 The Herculean Commonwealth had put forth her arms. 
 And throttled with an infant godhead's might 
 The snakes about her cradle ; that was well, 
 And as it should be ; 
 
 ' . . . . When a taunt 
 Was taken up by scoffers in their pride. 
 Saying, ' Behold the harvest that we reap 
 From popular government and equality,' 
 I clearly saw that neither these nor aught 
 Of wild belief engrafted on their names 
 By false philosophy had caused the woe, 
 But a terrific reservoir of guilt 
 And ignorance filled up from age to age, 
 
 ' Ojrford Wordsworth, p. 724, ' Ibid. p. 725. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 7 
 
 That could no longer hold its loathsome charge, 
 But burst and spread in deluge through the land." 
 
 It is evident that these lines portray to us not merely 
 what Wordsworth was in 1 791—2, but also what he was 
 in 1804. 
 
 Let us now go back two or three years before 1804. 
 In 1799 Buonaparte was made First Consul. After the 
 peace of Amiens in 1802 Wordsworth and Dorothy 
 went to France. Here is a sonnet written at Calais in 
 August 1 802 : 
 
 ' " Jones ! as from Calais southward you and I 
 Went pacing side by side, this public Way 
 Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day. 
 When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty : 
 A homeless sound of joy was in the sky : 
 From hour to hour the antiquated Earth 
 Beat like the heart of Man : songs, garlands, mirth, 
 Banners, and happy faces, far and nigh ! 
 And now, sole register that these things were. 
 Two solitary greetings have I heard, 
 ' Good morrow. Citizen ! ' a hollow word. 
 As if a dead man spake it ! Yet despair \ 
 Touches me not, though pensive as a bird \ 
 Whose vernal coverts winter hath laid bare.'\ 
 
 In this same August also was written the sonnet to 
 Toussaint I'Ouverture ending — 
 
 ^ . . . . " Thou hast left behind 
 Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, and skies ; 
 There's not a breathing of the common vs^ind 
 That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ; 
 Thy friends are exultations, agonies. 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 304. ' Ibid. p. 305. 
 
8 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 The sonnet " October 1 803 " is as follows : 
 
 ' " When, looking on the present face of things, 
 I see one man, of men the meanest too 1 
 Raised up to sway the world, to do, undo. 
 With mighty Nations for his underlings. 
 The great events with which old story rings 
 Seem vain and hollow : I find nothing great : 
 Nothing is left which I can venerate ; 
 So that a doubt almost within me springs 
 Of Providence, such emptiness at length 
 Seems at the heart of all things. But, great God ! 
 I measure back the steps which I have trod ; 
 And tremble, seeing whence proceeds the strength 
 Of such poor Instruments, with thoughts sublime 
 I tremble at the sorrow of the time." 
 
 These sonnets, let us bear in mind, were composed 
 before the book of the " Prelude " just quoted, before that 
 noble expression of sympathy with the Herculean Com- 
 monwealth which 
 
 " Throttled with an infant godhead's might 
 The snakes about her cradle ; " 
 
 The "Thanksgiving Ode" of 1816 of course will be 
 put forward as proof of a recantation which is almost 
 blasphemous. That there are unhappy passages in that 
 ode cannot be denied. The worst originally stood — 
 
 " But Thy most dreaded instrument. 
 In working out a pure intent. 
 Is Man — arrayed for mutual slaughter, 
 — Yea, Carnage is thy daughter ! " 
 
 and thus it remained till 1 845, when Wordsworth altered 
 
 " But Man is Thy most awful instrument 
 In working out a pure intent " : 
 
 leaving out the last two lines. 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 309. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 9 
 
 The version of 18 16 is objectionable, but all that 
 Wordsworth says is that war is ' a means whereby divine 
 purposes are accomplished. If a republican had said it 
 about the destruction of an army employed to crush 
 republican liberty few persons would have objected, and 
 to Wordsworth Buonaparte was the incarnation of 
 despotism. 
 
 The justification of his anti-Buonapartism in the 
 sonnets and "Ode" is exactly that which is pleaded in 
 the " Convention of Cintra," published in 1 809.' 
 
 " This just and necessary war, as we have been ac- 
 customed to hear it styled from the beginning of the 
 contest in the year 1793, had, some time before the 
 Treaty of Amiens, viz. after the subjugation of Switzer- 
 land, and not till then, begun to be regarded by the body 
 of the people, as indeed both just and necessary ; and thi? 
 justice and necessity were by none more clearly perceived, 
 or more feelingly bewailed, than by those who had most 
 eagei-ly opposed the war in its commencement, and who 
 continued most bitterly to regret that this nation 
 had ever borne a part in it. Their conduct was herein 
 consistent : they proved that they kept their eyes steadily 
 fixed upon principles ; for, though there was a shifting 
 or transfer of hostility in their minds as far as regarded 
 persons, they only combated the same enemy opposed to 
 them under a different shape ; and that enemy was the 
 spirit of selfish tyranny and lawless ambition." 
 
 In the same pamphlet the war against the French people 
 at the beginning of the Revolution is denounced together 
 with the war against America as a war against liberty. 
 
 ^ " In the course of the last thirty years we have seen 
 two wars waged against Liberty — the American war, 
 and the war against the French people in the earlier 
 
 ' Prose Works, vol. i. p. 39. * Ibid. p. 135. 
 
lo Examination oh the Charge of 
 
 stages of their Revolution. In the latter instance the 
 emigrants and the continental Powers and the British 
 did, in all their expectations and in every movement of 
 their efforts, manifest a common ignorance — originating 
 in the same source. And, for what more especially 
 belongs to ourselves at this time, we may affirm that 
 the same presumptuous irreverence of the principles of 
 justice, and blank insensibility to the affections of human, 
 nature, which determined the conduct of our govern- 
 ment in those two wars against liberty, have continued 
 to accompany its exertions in the present struggle for 
 liberty, and have rendered them fruitless." 
 
 Wordsworth never cared to defend himself publicly 
 against his calumniators — ;being happily possessed of a 
 very serene indifference to accusations, excepting those 
 urged by himself or occasionally by Dorothy, his wife, 
 Coleridge, or Lamb — but in 1821, in a letter to Loch, 
 he says ' — 
 
 " I should think that I had lived to little purpose if my 
 notions on the subject of government had undergone no 
 modification. My youth must, in that case, have been 
 without enthusiasm, and my manhood endued with small 
 capability of profiting by reflection. If I were addressing 
 those who have dealt so liberally with the words 
 renegade, apostate, &c., I should retort the charge upon 
 them, and say, you have been deluded by places and 
 persons^ while I have stuck to principles. I abandoned 
 France and her rulers, when they abandoned the 
 struggle for liberty, gave themselves up to tyranny, and 
 endeavoured to enslave the world. I disapproved of the 
 war against France at its commencement, thinking — 
 which was perhaps an error — that it might have been 
 avoided ; but after Buonaparte had violated the indepen- 
 dence of Switzerland, my heart turned against him, and 
 against the nation that could submit to be the instrument 
 ' Knight, Life of William Wordsworth, 1889, vol. iii. pp. 58, 59. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth ii 
 
 of such an outrage. Here it was that I parted, in feeling, 
 from the Whigs, and to a certain degree united with 
 their adversaries, who were free from the delusion (such 
 I must ever regard it) of Mr. Fox and his party, that a 
 safe and honourable peace was practicable with the 
 French nation, and that an ambitious conqueror like 
 Buonaparte could be softened down into a commercial 
 rival." 
 
 I think we must now admit that, so fer as the French 
 Revolution was concerned, Wordsworth did not turn 
 traitor. We may be so amazed at Buonaparte's military 
 skill as to forget that it was used for a person and not 
 for a noble cause, or we may thank God for him because 
 he overturned the thrones of Europe ; but we cannot 
 honestly accuse Wordsworth of being an enemy to free- 
 dom because he rejoiced over Waterloo. 
 
 With regard to Wordsworth's general politics expla- 
 nation is not so simple, because until he wrote the two 
 "Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland "in 1818 
 he had seldom, except indirectly, expressed himself on 
 any questions of purely domestic policy ; but there is no 
 doubt that, when he was twenty-three years old (as we 
 have seen from his letter to the Bishop of Llandaff), he 
 was a republican and in favour of Parliamentary Reform. 
 It will clear the ground a little to note that whatever his 
 opinions afterwards on this or that form of government 
 may have been, his sympathies to the end of his days 
 were altogether with common and poor people. Never 
 was there a poet who lived and loved a simpler life. 
 His joys and sorrows took their rise in nothing adven- 
 titious, but in that which is the property of all. Byron 
 was externally anti-aristocratic, but he was really an 
 aristocrat in every fibre. It is true, nevertheless, that 
 
12 Examination op the Charge op 
 
 Wordsworth supported the Tories in the main during 
 the war and also after 1 8 1 f ; that he upheld a property 
 qualification, and that he was not a believer in Catholic 
 Emancipation. As to Catholic Emancipation, he held 
 that it would be no remedy for the " wretched " state 
 of Ireland. The chief proximate ■ causes of Irish 
 misery he considered to be the Papacy and the tenure 
 and management of landed property, and he thought 
 that, evenly balanced as English parties were, the intro- 
 duction into Parliament of a new power independent of 
 each of those parties, the power of dense ignorance, but 
 disciplined by a priesthood, would be most perilous. 
 These, and not theological reasons, are the main argu- 
 ment in his ' Letter to the Bishop of London ' on the' 
 Catholic Relief Bill. His adhesion to the Government^ 
 his belief in a property qualification, and his hostility to j 
 the Reform Act, were due to his dread of reaction. His ' 
 addresses to the freeholders of Westmoreland are in- 
 spired by the horror of Napoleonic tyranny. He feared 
 lest in England, as in France, democracy should end in 
 despotism. To Sir Henry Taylor he says : ' " What 
 may be suffered by the existing generation no man can 
 foresee, but the loss of liberty for a time will be the in- 
 evitable consequence. Despotism will be established, and 
 the whole battle will be to be [«V] fought over by subse- 
 quent generations." In the letter to Loch of 1821 just 
 quoted he thus explains his development since 1793 : 
 
 '' " A free discussion of public measures through the 
 press I deem the only safeguard of liberty : without it I 
 have neither confidence in kings, parliaments, judges, or 
 divines. They have all in their turn betrayed their 
 
 ' Knight, Life, vol. iii. p. 223. « Ibid. pp. 59, 60. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 13 
 
 country. But the press, so potent for good, is scarcely 
 less so for evil ; and unfortunately they who are misled 
 and abused by its means are the persons whom it can 
 least benefit. It is the fatal characteristic of their 
 disease to reject all remedies coming firom the quarter that 
 has caused or aggravated the malady. I am therefore 
 for vigorous restrictions ; but there is scarcely any abuse 
 that I would not endure, rather than sacrifice, or even 
 endanger, this freedom. 
 
 "When I was young — giving myself credit for 
 qualities which I did not possess, and measuring mankind 
 by that standard— I thought it derogatory to human 
 nature to set up property in preference to person, as a title 
 for legislative power. That notion has vanished. I now 
 perceive many advantages in our present complex system 
 of representation, which formerly eluded my observation. 
 This has tempered my ardour for reform : but if any 
 plan could be contrived for throwing the representation 
 fairly into the hands of the property of the country, and 
 not leaving it so much in the hands of the large pro- 
 prietors as it now is, it should have my best support ; 
 though even in that event there would be a sacrifice of 
 personal rights, independent of property, that are now 
 frequently exercised for the benefit of the community." 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, he had come to the conclusion 
 that in an uncontrolled democracy, to which he foresaw 
 the Reform Act must lea^ power would be wielded b^ 
 unreflecting masses and the units would not act \n\ 
 dividually. The House of Commons would cease to 
 be a deliberative assembly and become an assembly of 
 delegates. 
 
 ' " Then will follow frequent Parliaments — triennial 
 perhaps at first — v^hich will convert the representatives 
 into mere slavish delegates, as they now are in America, 
 
 • Knight, Life, vol. iii. p. 128. 
 
14 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 under the dictation of ignorant and selfish numbers, 
 misled by unprincipled journalists, who, as in France, 
 will, no few of them, find their way into the House of 
 Commons, and so the last traces of a deliberative assembly 
 will vanish. But enough of this melancholy topic. I 
 resided fifteen months in France, during the heat of the 
 Revolution, and have some personal experience of the 
 course which these movements must take, if not fearlessly 
 resisted, before the transfer of legislative power takes 
 place." 
 
 The best security, Wordsworth thought, that man, 
 imperfect as he is, would use his reason in voting for a 
 member of Parliament was the ownership of something 
 of value ; the possession of land he believed to be on the 
 whole a better guarantee of honesty than the possession 
 of wealth in any other form. His argument on this 
 point is interesting : 
 
 ' " Knowing that there could be no absolute guarantee 
 for integrity, and that there was no certain test of dis- 
 cretion and knowledge, for bodies of men, the prudence 
 of former times turned to the best substitute human 
 nature would admit of, and civil society furnished. This 
 was property ; which showed that a man had something 
 that might be impaired or lost by mismanagement ; some- 
 thing which tended to place him above dependence from 
 need ; and promised, though it did not insure, some 
 degree of education to produce requisite intelligence. 
 To be a Voter required a fixed Property, or a defined 
 privilege ; to be voted for, required more ; and the scale 
 of demand rose with the responsibility incurred. A 
 Knight of the Shire must have double the estate required 
 from a Representative of a Borough. This is the old 
 law ; and the course of things since has caused, as was 
 
 ' Address to the Freeholders of Pfestmore/and. Prose Works, 
 ▼ol. i. pp. 240, 241. 
 
Apostasy against WosDswosTif 15 
 
 observed above, that high office to devolve almost ex- 
 clusively on Persons of large Estate, or their near con- 
 nections. And why is it desirable that w^e should not 
 deviate from this track ? If we wish for honesty, we 
 shall select men who, not being subject to one of the 
 strongest temptations to be otherwise than honest, will 
 incur heavier disgrace, and meet with less indulgence, if 
 they disappoint us. Do we wish for sage conduct, our 
 choice will fall upon those who have the wisdom that 
 lurks in circumstances, to supply what may be deficient 
 in their personal accomplishments. But, if there be a 
 deficiency, the fault must lie with the electors themselves. 
 When persons of large property are confided in, we can- 
 not plead want of opportunities for being acquainted with 
 them. Men of large estates cannot but be men of wide 
 concerns ; and thus it is that they become^ known in 
 proportion. Extensive landed property entails upon the 
 possessor many duties, and places him in divers relations, 
 by which he undergoes a public trial. Is a man just in 
 his dealings ? Does he keep his promises ? Does he 
 pay his debts punctually ? Has he a feeling for the 
 poor ? Is his family well governed ? Is he a considerate 
 landlord ? Does he attend to his own afiairs ; and are 
 those of others, which have fallen under his care, dili- 
 gently and judiciously managed ? Answers to these 
 questions, where the subject of them has but an incon- 
 siderable landed Property, can only be expected from a 
 very narrow circle of neighbours ; — but place him at the 
 head of a large estate, and knowledge of what he is in 
 these particulars must spread to a distance ; and it will 
 be further known how he has acted as a Magistrate, and 
 in what manner he has fulfilled the duties of every im- 
 portant office which he may have been called to by virtue 
 of his possessions." 
 
 Perhaps the deepest root of Wordsworth's indifference > 
 to popubr " aspirations " was the conviction that indi- 
 viduals must be changed before the condition of the people 
 
1 6 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 as a whole can be improved. He said to Mr. Dewey in 
 1 833,* " that although he was known to the world only 
 as a poet, he had given twelve hours' thought to the 
 condition and prospects of society, for one to poetry." 
 He affirmed that " the world is running mad with the 
 notion that all its evils are to be relieved by political/' 
 changes, political remedies, political nostrums — whereas! 
 the great evils, sin, bondage, misery lie deep in the heart, ) 
 and nothing but virtue and religion can remove them." l 
 We cannot, however, justly affirm that Wordsworth 
 at any time was a Tory, unless the word be used to 
 describe a creed very peculiar in its limitations and one 
 which certainly was not held by the Tory party. He 
 told Crabb Robinson : ^ " I have no respect whatever for 
 Whigs, but I have a great deal of the Chartist in me." 
 In 1835, being then sixty-five years old, he published as 
 an appendix to his Poems some remarks on legislation for 
 the poor. He wished, he said, to talk upon this subject 
 in " plain prose." The New Poor Law Act, it will be 
 remembered, had been passed in 1834. Wordsworth's 
 object in the main is to show that every man who is 
 willing to work and cannot find work has a claim on the 
 State for support. ^ " The point to which I wish to draw 
 the reader's attention is, that all persons who cannot 
 find employment, or procure wages sufficient to support 
 the body in health and strength, are entitled to a main- 
 tenance by law." This is ■* " a principle which cannot be 
 violated without infringing upon one of the most precious 
 rights of the English people, and opposing one of the 
 most sacred claims of civilized humanity." What are the 
 
 ' 7%« Works of the Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., ed. 1844, p. 622. 
 
 ' Diary, vol. iii. p. 31S (second edition). 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 959. ' Ibid. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth \y 
 
 reasons which compel Wordsworth to insist on this 
 right ? They are not derived from expediency, but 
 from first principles. The community is not hound to 
 relieve the poor because relief is good policy, but because 
 the right to property does not rest upon any sounder 
 foundation than the right to live, 
 
 ' " If self-preservation be the first law of our nature, 
 would not everyone in a state of nature be morally 
 justified in taking to himself that. which is indispensable 
 to such preservation, where, by so doing, he would not 
 rob another of that which might be equally indispensable 
 to his preservation ? And if the value of life be regarded 
 in a right point of view, may it not be questioned whether 
 this right of preserving life, at any expense short of en- 
 dangering the life of another, does not survive man's 
 entering into the social state ; whether this right can Ije 
 surrendered or forfeited, except when it opposes the divine 
 law, upon any supposition of a social compact, or of any 
 convention for the protection of mere rights of property ? " 
 
 Again : 
 
 ^"Is it not indisputable that the claim of the state to the 
 allegiance, involves the protection, of the subject ? And, 
 as all rights in one party impose a correlative duty upon 
 another, it follows that the right of the state to require 
 the services of its members, even to the jeoparding of 
 their lives in the common defence, establishes a right in 
 - the people (not to be gainsaid by utilitarians and econo- 
 mists) to public support when, from any cause, they may 
 be unable to support themselves. 
 
 " Let us now consider the salutary and behign opera- 
 tion of this principle. Here we must have recourse to 
 elementary feelings of human nature, and to truths 
 which from their very obviousness are apt to be slighted, 
 till they are forced upon our notice by our own sufferings 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 959. ' Ibid. pp. 959, 960. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 EXAMINATION OF THE CHARGE OP 
 
 or those of others. In the ' Paradise Lost,' Milton 
 represents Adam, after the Fall, as exclaiming, in the 
 anguish of his soul — 
 
 " ' Did I request Thee, Maker, from my clay 
 To mould me man ; did I solicit Thee 
 From darkness to promote me ? 
 
 My will 
 
 Concurred not to my being.' 
 
 " Under how many various pressures of misery have 
 men been driven thus, in a strain touching upon impiety, 
 to expostulate with the Creator ! and under few so 
 afflictive as when the source and origin of earthly exis- 
 tence have been brought back to the mind by its im- 
 pending close in the pangs of destitution. But as .long 
 as, in our legislation, due weight shall be given to this 
 principle, no man will be forced to bewail the gift of life 
 in hopeless want of the necessaries of life." 
 
 Wordsworth is opposed to casting the relief of the 
 poor altogether upon the benevolent. ' " How dis- 
 couraging," he fears, " would be the sense of injustice, 
 which could not fail to arise in the minds of the well- 
 disposed, if the burden of supporting the poor, a burden 
 of which the selfish have hitherto by compulsion borne a 
 share, should now, or hereafter, be thrown exclusively 
 upon the benevolent." To increase the power of self- 
 maintenance, he proposes to repeal such laws as prevent 
 the formation of joint stock companies. 
 
 " " There are, no doubt, many and great obstacles to 
 the formation and salutary working of these societies, 
 inherent in the mind of those whom they would obviously 
 benefit. But the combinations of masters to keep down, 
 unjustly, the price of labour would be feirly checked by 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 962. « Ibid. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 19 
 
 them, as far as they were practicable ; they would 
 encourage economy, inasmuch as they would enable a 
 man to draw profit from his savings, by investing them 
 in buildings or machinery for processes of manufecture 
 with which he was habitually connected. His little 
 capital would then be working for him while he was at 
 rest or asleep ; he would more clearly perceive the 
 necessity of capital for carrying on great works ; he 
 would better learn to respect the larger portions of it in 
 the hands of others ; he would be less tempted to join in 
 . unjust combinations." 
 
 If Wordsworth had been in the House of Commons he 
 would have been considered dangerous, for it is a recur- 
 rence to first principles which has produced every great re- 
 volution, whether in religion, morals, politics, or art. They 
 may be ridiculed, but are always feared as the most insur- 
 rectionary of realities. It would not have excused him 
 in the eyes of a Tory whip that he voted for a Lowther 
 against a Brougham if he could quote that tremendous 
 passage from Milton just cited, and assert that the State 
 could not lawfully ask for obedience from those whom it 
 would iiot feed when they were starving. The whip 
 would have known that no dependence could be placed 
 upon such a man, either on a second reading, or in Com- 
 mi^jge. 
 
 The charge of theological apostasy is one which it is 
 more difficult to meet because it is wider and vaguer. It 
 is alleged that when Wordsworth reached middle life, or 
 even before, he no longer looked upon the world with the 
 same eyes, that he had quieted his scepticism, and that as a 
 necessary consequence his poetry thenceforward became 
 uninteresting. Coleridge himself does not hesitate to 
 accuse him of backsliding. In a letter dated 8th August 
 1820 he says : 
 
20 Examination of the Charge op 
 
 ' " I will not conceal from you [underlined in original] 
 that this inferred dependency of the human soul on 
 accidents of birthplace and abode, together with the 
 vague, misty, rather than mystic, confusion of God with 
 the world, and the accompanying nature-worship, of 
 which the asserted dependence forms a part, is the trait in 
 Wordsworth's poetic works that I most dislike as un- 
 healthful, and denounce as contagious ; while the odd 
 introduction of the popular, almost the vulgar,'religion 
 in his later publications (the popping in, as Hartley says, 
 of the old man with a beard), suggests the painful 
 suspicion of worldly prudence — at best a justification of 
 masking truth (which, in fart, is a falsehood substituted 
 for a truth withheld) on plea of expediency — carried into 
 religion. At least it conjures up to my fency a sort of 
 "Janus head of Spinosa and Dr. Watts, or * I and my 
 brother the dean.' " 
 
 This letter, with its astonishing imputation of worldly 
 prudence, is unworthy of Coleridge. It was written to 
 AUsop ; and Coleridge — the underlining of the " you " 
 should be noticed — has adapted himself closely to AUsop's 
 peculiarities by objecting in the same breath to Words- 
 worth's " nature-worship " and his " popular religion." 
 It might be thought that it would have been difficult even 
 for Coleridge to disagree with both. He ventures in the 
 same letter on another criticism upon Wordsworth which 
 is curiously wide of the mark, and altogether unlike the 
 criticism of earlier days before the rupture between the 
 two friends had taken place. Speaking of the lines in 
 « The Brothers "— . 
 
 " The thought of death sits easy on the man 
 Who has been born and dies among the mountains," 
 
 ' Letters, Conversations, and Rtcollectims of S. 7. Cokridge, yo\.\. 
 p. 107, edit. 1836. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 21 
 
 he says, " I fear that this, like some other few of 
 Wordsworth's many striking passages, means less than it 
 seems, or rather promises, to mean," and then he charges 
 Wordsworth with attributing to a shepherd the eiFect 
 produced upon himself — " the geese of Phoebus are all 
 swans, and Wordsworth's shepherds and estates men are 
 Wordsworth's, even (as in old Michael) in the unpoetic 
 traits of character." Wordsworth might have excused 
 himself, had he cared to do so, by reminding Coleridge 
 that these lines are put into the mouth of the Priest ; 
 that the investiture of the common with that which is 
 created by the poet had been defended by Coleridge 
 himself ; and that, in the ' Biographia Literaria,' he had 
 declared that 
 
 ' " the characters of the vicar and the shepherd mariner 
 in the poem of ' The Brothers,' those of the Shepherd 
 of Green-head Gill in the ' Michael,' have all the veri- 
 similitude and representative quality, that the purposes of 
 poetry can require. They are persons of a known and 
 abiding class, and their manners and sentiments the natu- 
 ral product of circumstances common to the class." 
 
 Coleridge was not ignorant that constant healthy 
 intercourse with great natural objects tends to disperse 
 the fear of death, and he must have remembered 
 Wordsworth's own note on this passage in "The Brothers" : 
 
 * " There is not anything more worthy of remark in 
 the manners of the inhabitants of these mountains, than 
 the tranquillity, I might say indifference, with which they 
 think and talk upon the subject of death. Some of the 
 country churchyards, as here described, do not contain a 
 single tombstone, and most of them have a very small 
 number." 
 
 ' Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 49, edit. 1847. 
 » Lyrical Ballads, vol. ii. p. 226, edit. 1800. 
 
22 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 He proposed to Allsop — it is difficult to believe he 
 would have proposed it to anybody but Allsop — to sub- 
 stitute for Wordsvi^orth's lines the two following : 
 
 " The thought of death sits easy on the man, 
 Whose earnest will [italics in original] hath lived 
 among the deathless." 
 
 One other remark may be offered on Coleridge's 
 indictment. Whatever Wordsworth's theology may 
 have been in later years, he did not spend half his life 
 in attempting to find a philosophy in it. He could not 
 have written five treatises on the Logos and the Logos 
 alogos. Grant all that is said about his submission to 
 orthodoxy, it was nothing but acceptance, and if it is to 
 be condemned, much more to be condemned is Coleridge's 
 attempt to intei'pret the Bible and the catechism by Kant 
 and Schelling, and put upon the plain statements of the 
 church creeds meanings which they were never intended 
 to bear. It was this determination to justify theology by 
 the intellect which made Coleridge such a sad object to 
 Carlyle. Carlyle saw in that ' " hocus-pocus of ' reason ' 
 versus ' understanding ' " something " terribly perilous," 
 the mother in due time of " spectral Puseyisms, monstrous 
 illusory hybrids, and ecclesiastical chimeras." With the 
 simply pious, such as Johnson or Wordsworth, Carlyle 
 sympathised, Wordsworth he thought to be a man 
 ' " multa tacere loquive paratus." " Never, or never but 
 once, had he seen a stronger intellect, a more luminous 
 and veracious power of insight." - . 
 
 I do not deny that at one time in bis life Wordsworth 
 had to struggle with disbelief and despair !i The evidence 
 of the " Prelude " is express on this point. 
 
 ' Life of Sterling, pp. 78, 80, edit. 1851. 
 
 » Reminiscences, pp. 301, 304, vol. ii. Norton's edit. 1887. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth ' 23 
 
 '...." So I fered, 
 Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, 
 Like culprits to the bar ; calling the mind, 
 Suspiciously, to establish in plain day 
 Her titles and her honours ; now believing. 
 Now disbelieving ; endlessly perplexed 
 With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground , 
 Of obligation, what the rule and whence 
 The sanction ; till, demanding formal proof, 
 And seeking it in everything, I lost 
 All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, 
 Sick, wearied out with contrarieties. 
 Yielded up moral questions in despair. 
 
 " This was the crisis of that strong disease. 
 This the soul's last and lowest ebb ; I drooped. 
 Deeming our blessed reason of least use 
 Where wanted most : ' The lordly attributes 
 Of will and choice,' I bitterly exclaimed, 
 * What are they but a mockery of a Being 
 Who hath in no concerns of his a test 
 Of good and evil ; knows not what to fear 
 Or hope for, what to covet or to shun ; 
 And who, if those could be discerned, would yet 
 Be little profited, would see, and ask 
 Where is the obligation to enforce ? 
 And,. to acknowledged law rebellious, still. 
 As selfish passion urged, would act amiss ; 
 The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime." 
 
 The declaration of war against France in 1793 
 and his consequent hatred of the established political 
 creed drove him to a general reconstruction of creeds by 
 Reason alone. He was — 
 
 '...." Pleased with extremes, nor least 
 With that which makes our Reason's naked self 
 The object of its fervour," 
 
 » Prelude, xi. IL 293-320. » Ibid. xi. 11. 233-235. 
 
24 Examination of the Charge ob 
 
 and could — 
 
 '..,." As, by simple waving of a wand, 
 
 The wizard instantaneously dissolves 
 
 Palace or grove, . , . , unsoul 
 
 As readily by syllogistic words 
 
 Those mysteriesof being which have made. 
 
 And shall continue evermore to make. 
 
 Of the whole human race one brotherhood." 
 
 In order to find something of which he was sure, he 
 turned to abstract science — 
 
 "'...." And there sought 
 Work for the reasoning feculty enthroned 
 Where the disturbances of space and time — 
 Whether in matters varipus, properties ' 
 
 Inherent, or from human will arid power 
 Derived — find no admission." 
 
 But it is to Dorothy that he ascribes his gradual 
 
 restoration. 
 
 '...." Then it was — 
 Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good ! — 
 That the beloved sister in whose sight 
 Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice 
 Of sudden admonition — like a brook 
 That did but croii a lonely road, and now 
 Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn. 
 Companion never lost through many a league — " 
 Maintained for me a saving intercourse 
 With my true self." *■ 
 
 ^ Prelude, ■kC\.Vl.%\-%']. « /Wrf. xi. 328-333. ' TJk?. U. 333-342. 
 
 * Mr. T. Hutchinson observes in a note to me : "It is clearly 
 implied in the Prelude, Book xi., that for some time (say 1793 toi79S) 
 Wordsworth was a fervid disciple of Godwin. He had previously been 
 a disciple of Beaupuy, and both these men were enthusiastic votaries 
 of the goddess Reason. On perceiving the consequences of Godwin's 
 system, Wordsworth seems to have lapsed for a time into the apathy of 
 despair. Soon, however, under Dorothy's influence he saw that man's 
 
Apostasy against Wosdswosth 25 
 
 After this " crisis " there is no evidence that Words- 
 worth passed through another. Excepting the record in 
 the " Prelude," we know little or nothing about his 
 thoughts on the highest subjects before 1799, the year- 
 when the " Prelude " was begun. Coleridge, indeed, in 
 1796 determined Wordsworth's position in a phrase 
 which is superficially decisive, but, alas ! is but a phrase. 
 ' In May of that year he tells Thelwall that " a very dear 
 friend " — who was Wordsworth — " is, at least, a, semi- 
 atheist." It is difficult to say what the word theos meant 
 to Coleridge in 1796, and if we knew what it meant, it 
 would be still more difficult to know what a semi-Ae.nb\ 
 of that fheos could mean. We do know that 1795 Cole- 
 ridge wrote " The Eolian Harp " — faultlessly beautiful 
 throughout the first forty-three lines — in which towards 
 the close he conjectures that all animated nature may 
 
 " Be but organic harps diversely framed, 
 That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps 
 Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, 
 At once the Soul of each, and God of all." 
 
 It is true that he turns round to Sara and applauds her 
 because she had 
 
 . . . . " holily dispraised 
 These shapings of the unregenerate mind ; 
 Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break 
 On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring ; " 
 
 but this apparent recantation is nothing more than an 
 early example of Coleridge's habit of temporarily conced- 
 ing everything to the person who for the moment had 
 any power over him. 
 
 happiness lay not in scouring the soul clear of all feelings, prejudices, 
 maxims, principles, &c. (which is what Godwin taught), but in the 
 proper cultivation of his feelings and other faculties of mind, instinct, 
 imagination^ &c." ' Letters, vol. i. p. 164. 
 
26 Examination of the Charge op 
 
 The " Prelude " was begun, as I have just said, in 
 1799, and it was finished in 1805. Prom 1799^ at least, 
 Wordsworth is radically fixed. 
 
 ' . , . " How strange that all 
 The terrors, pains, and early miseries. 
 Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused 
 Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, 
 And that a needful part, in making up 
 . The calm existence that is mine when I 
 Am worthy of myself ! " , 
 
 He may know depression, doubt, melancholy almost 
 hypochondriacal ; he will not be blind to the pathos of 
 human life ; he will admit that the Powers above seem 
 to take small account of a love even like that of Michael, 
 but he does not mutiny. He possesses a rule by which 
 for fifty years he can live. This rule, however, is one 
 peculiar to himself, and is not coincident with that of 
 any church "or sect. It is as true of his religion as it is 
 of his politics, that the line of his convictions cuts across 
 recognised lines, and that at one moment we find him 
 within the Authorised limit' and at another far beyond it. 
 Let us see what are the outlines of his faith as 
 expressed in the " Prelude." He has learned to seek and 
 find pure delight in common things. 
 
 * " Daily the common range of visible things 
 Grew dear to me : already I began 
 To love the sun ; " . . . 
 
 and he has discovered that by constant intercourse 
 with nature, doubts, if they be not answered, disappear. 
 This is one of the truths of which Wordsworth was 
 appointed to be the messenger — that we are to be cured 
 
 ' Prelude, i. U, 344-3SO- ' Ibid. ii. 11. 176-178. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 27 
 
 not so much by argument as by health, sunlight, and 
 beauty. 
 
 ' " If this be error, and another faith 
 Find easier access to the pious mind, 
 Yet were I grossly destitute of all 
 Those human sentiments that make this earth 
 So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice 
 To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes 
 And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds 
 That dwell among the hills where I was born. 
 If in my youth I have been pure in heart, 
 If, mingling with the world, I am content 
 With my own modest pleasures, and have lived 
 With God and Nature communing, removed 
 From little enmities and low desires, 
 The gift is yours ; if in these times of fear 
 This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown, 
 If, 'mid indifference and apathy, 
 ; And wicked exultation when good men 
 On every side fall off, we know not how, 
 To selfishness, disguised in gentle names 
 Of peace and quiet and domestic love. 
 Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers 
 On visionary minds ; if, in this time 
 Of dereliction and dismay, I yet 
 Despair not of our nature, but retain 
 A more than Roman confidence, a faith 
 That feils not, in all sorrow my support. 
 The blessing of my life ; the gift is yours, 
 Ye winds and sounding cataracts ! 'tis yours, 
 Ye mountains ! thine, O Nature ! Thou hast fed 
 My lofty speculations ; and in thee. 
 For this uneasy heart of ours, I find 
 A never-failing principle of joy 
 And purest passion." 
 
 ' Prdtide, ii. 11. 419-451. 
 
28 Examination of the Charge op 
 
 Behind all failure, defeat, death, lie recovery, victory, 
 and life. 
 ' " Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes 
 Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch 
 Her pleasant habitations, and dry up 
 Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare. 
 Yet would the living Presence still subsist 
 Victorious, and composure would ensue. 
 And kindlings like the morning — presage sure 
 Of day returning and of life revived." 
 
 God exists, that is to say, 
 
 ^ " the one 
 
 Supreme Existence, the surpassing life 
 Which — to the boundaries of space and time, 
 Of melancholy space and doleful time, 
 Superior, and incapable of change. 
 Nor touched by welterings of passion — is, 
 And hath the name of, God." 
 
 This is what Wordsworth was thinking when he 
 was at Cambridge, but it is evident that it is also what 
 he thought in 1 804, when the lines were written. The 
 highest love he knows is 
 
 ^ " Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer. 
 
 By heaven inspired ; that frees from chains the soul. 
 Lifted, in union with the purest, best. 
 Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise 
 Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne." 
 
 And his feith is 
 
 * " Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought 
 Of human Being, eternity, and God." 
 
 ' Prelude, v. 11. 30-37. ' Ibid. vi. U. 133-139. 
 
 » Ibid. xiv. 11. 183-187. « Ibid. xiv. 11. 204, 205. 
 
Apostasy against Wosdswosth 29 
 
 It may be said that these quotations show what a gulf 
 there is between the " Prelude " and the " Ecclesiastical 
 Sketches." With these we will deal presently. We may 
 say, however, in passing that we do not know that what 
 is supposed to be added in the " Sketches " was not believed 
 by Wordsworth in 1799. Speaking of books, from 
 Homer to poor men's ballads, he says, at any rate before 
 1804, they are 
 
 '...." only legs, 
 For what we are and what we may become, 
 Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 
 Or His pure Word by miracle revealed." 
 
 He loves the English Church and is indignant that its 
 services should be desecrated as they were at Cambridge. 
 
 * " Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect 
 Whatever formal gait of discipline 
 Shall raise them highest in their own esteem — 
 Let them parade among the Schools at will, 
 But spare the House of God. Was ever known 
 The witless shepherd who persists to drive 
 A flock that thirsts not to a pool disliked ? 
 A weight must surely hang on days begun 
 And ended with such mockery. Be wise, 
 Ye Presidents and Deans, and, till the spirit 
 Of ancient times revive, and youth be trained 
 At home in pious service, to your bells 
 Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound 
 Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air ; 
 And youi* officious doings bring disgrace 
 On the plain steeples of our English Church, 
 Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees. 
 Suffers for this." 
 
 Granting, nevertheless, for argument's sake, that the be- 
 liefs expressed in the " Sketches " were a late accretion, 
 
 ' Prelude, v. U. 219-222. ^ Ibid. iii. 401-418. 
 
30 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 not a fragment of his earlier belief, as will presently^ 
 appear — and this is the important point — was displaced 
 by them. Moreover — to repeat what in substance has 
 been urged before — that which belongs exclusively to the 
 Church is simply indicated : that which does not belong 
 solely to the Church is cherished, expanded, and presented 
 again and again in continually varying forms. 
 
 Let us now turn to the " Excursion," which was com- 
 posed during the years 1795-1813. If we assume that 
 the Wanderer and the Pastor speak as Wordsworth 
 would have spoken, we must also assume that much 
 which is spoken by the Solitary is also Wordsworth. It 
 has a penetrating quality which is a sign that it is an 
 experience. At the very beginning the religion of the 
 Wanderer is given in outline. 
 
 ' " The Scottish Church, both on himself and those 
 With whom from childhood he grew up, had held 
 The strong hand of her purity ; and still 
 Had_watched him with an unrelenting eye. 
 This he remembered in his riper age 
 With gratitude, and reverential thoughts. 
 But by the native vigour of his mind. 
 By his habitual wanderings out of doors. 
 By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works, 
 Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth. 
 He had imbibed of fear or darker thought 
 Was melted all away ; so true was this. 
 That sometimes his religion seemed to me 
 Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods ; 
 Who to the model of his own pure heart 
 Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired, 
 And human reason dictated with awe." 
 
 This passage was revised by Wordsworth in 1827, when 
 
 he substituted " shaped " for " framed " in the last line 
 
 ' Excursion, i. 11. 397-413. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 31 
 
 but one, and again in 1836, when he changed "or" in 
 the last line into " and " as we now have it. It was 
 certainly, therefore, not overlooked, and it may be taken 
 as a warning by any sect inclined to adopt Wordsworth 
 that it will find him a dangerous ally. 
 
 The Wanderer consoles the SoHtary with the hope 
 of the immortality of those he had lost, but though " im- 
 movably convinced " he admits we want 
 
 ' " tlje virtue to exist by faith 
 
 As soldiers live by courage ; as, by strength 
 Of heart, the sailor fights with roaring seas." 
 
 His feith is something which needs resolution, as all faith 
 needs it. It is not a voluntary closure of the eyes, nor is 
 it a passive acceptance of historical testimony. There- 
 fore the Wanderer goes on to tell the Solitary that faith 
 is lost, not because evidence is found to be untrustworthy, 
 but in the main by custom,^ time, and sense. What 
 faith brings to the mind is the tidings of its 
 
 * " Mysterious union with its native sea 
 
 of invisible things ; 
 
 Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; 
 And central peace, subsisting at the heart 
 Of endless agitation." 
 
 The whole drift, however, of the fourth book of the 
 " Excursion " is more remarkable than any detached part, 
 and not less remarkable are its omissions. The " Argu- 
 ment " of the last part of the third book is " His [the 
 Wanderer's] languor and depression of mind, from want 
 of faith in the great truths of Religion and want of con- 
 
 ' Excursion, iv. 11. 202-203. 
 • Jbid. 1. 1 140, 11. 1 144-1 147. 
 
32 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 fidence in the virtue of mankind," and that of the fourth 
 book as it is more fully given in the edition of 1814 is : 
 
 " State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative — 
 A belief in a superintending Providence the only adequate 
 support under affliction — Wanderer's ejaculation, to the 
 supreme Being — Account of his own devotional feelings 
 in youth involved in it — Implores that he may retain in 
 age the power to find repose among enduring and eternal 
 things — What these latter are — Acknowledges the 
 difficulty of a lively feith — Hence immoderate sorrow, but 
 doubt or despondence not therefore to be inferred And 
 proceeds to administer consolation to the Solitary — 
 Exhortations — How these are received — Wanderer 
 resumes — And applies his discourse to that other cause of 
 dejection in the Solitary's mind — The disappointment of 
 his expectations from the French Revolution — States the 
 rational grounds of hope — And insists on the necessity of 
 patience and fortitude with respect to the course of the 
 great revolutions of the world — Knowledge the source 
 of tranquillity — Rural life and Solitude particularly favour- 
 able to a knowledge of the inferior creatures — Study of 
 their habits and ways recommended for its influence on 
 the affections and the imagination — Exhortation to bodily 
 exertion and an active communion with Nature — 
 Morbid solitude a pitiable thing — If the elevated 
 imagination cannot be exerted, try the humbler fancy — 
 Superstition better than apathy — Apathy and destitution 
 unknown in the infancy of society — The various 
 modes of Religion prevented it — This illustrated in 
 the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldean, and 
 Grecian modes of belief — Solitary interposes — Wanderer, 
 in answer, points out the influence of religious and 
 imaginative feeling on the mind in the humble ranks of 
 society, in rural life especially — This illustrated from 
 present and past times — Observation that these principles 
 tend to recall exploded superstitions and popery — 
 Wanderer rebuts this charge, and contrasts the dignities 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 33 
 
 of the Imagination with the presumptive littleness of 
 certain modern Philosophers, whom the Solitary appears 
 to esteem — Recommends to him other lights and guides — 
 Asserts the power of the Soul to regenerate herself — 
 Solitary agitated, and asks how — Reply — Personal appeal 
 — Happy for us that the imagination and affections in our 
 own despite mitigate the evils of that state of intellectual 
 Slavery which the calculating understanding is so apt to 
 produce — Exhortation to activity of Body renewed— ^ How 
 Nature is to be communed with — Wanderer concludes 
 with a prospect of a legitimate union of the imagination, 
 the affections, the understanding, and the reason — Effect 
 of the Wanderer's discourse — Evening — Return to the 
 cottage." 
 
 To understand the importance which Wordsworth 
 assigns to the Imagination, we must remember what he 
 had suffered from destructive analysis. It was the root of 
 all evil to him, and he insists, thereforej on the authority 
 of the Imagination, which is nearly, if not quite, the same 
 as faith. He believes that there are presentations, per- 
 ceptions which if we. like we can reduce to nothings, but 
 are nevertheless realities — in fact, the essential realities of 
 life. He goes very little further than this : for him it is 
 enough, and he leaves to each man to obtain for himself 
 what increase of definiteness he needs. He thought that 
 superstition was nearer the truth than " the formal 
 inference where feeling hath no.place " ; that any religion 
 was better than the mere "repetitions wearisome of 
 sense," and that when the Greek mother offered up her 
 hair to the river Cephisus in thankfulness for her child's 
 return a message was delivered to her through the rite 
 more precious to her than any which "uninspired 
 research " could bring and of greater validity. 
 
34 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 ' " And, doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed 
 Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose 
 Of Life continuous. Being unimpaired ; 
 That hath been, is, and where it was and is 
 There shall endure, — existence unexposed 
 To the blind walk of mortal accident ; 
 From diminution safe and weakening age ; 
 While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays ; 
 And countless generations of mankind 
 Depart ; and leave no vestige where they trod." 
 
 In 1 8 15, just after the " Excursion " was published, 
 Wordsworth composed a sonnet in which the teaching of 
 the fourth book is summed up. 
 
 3 « <■ Weak is the will of Man, his judgment blind ; 
 Remembrance persecutes, and Hope betrays ; 
 Heavy is woe ; — and joy, for human-kind, 
 A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze ! ' 
 Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days 
 Who wants the glorious faculty assigned 
 To elevate the more-than-reasoning Mind, 
 And colour life's dark cloud with orient rays. 
 Imagination is that sacred power, 
 In'iagination lofty and refined : 
 'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower 
 Of Faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind 
 Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, 
 And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind." 
 
 He here affirms exactly what has been said above, that 
 Imagination is not mere picturing or dreaming, but is 
 constructive of reality. 
 
 In the fifth book, where the Priest comes on the 
 scene, none of the usual theological difficulties are pro- 
 
 ' Excursion, iv. 11. 753-762. 
 
 ' Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part i. No. xxxv. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 35 
 
 pounded, nor is the solution of those that are presented 
 to us usual or orthodox. The Wanderer says that the 
 subjects on which he and his friend have discoursed are : 
 
 > " Is Man 
 A child of hope ? Do generations press 
 On generations, without progress made ? 
 Halts the individual, ere his hairs be grey, 
 Perforce ? Are we a creature in whom good 
 Preponderates, or evil ? Doth the will 
 Acknowledge reason's law ? A living power 
 Is virtue, or no better than a name. 
 Fleeting as health or beauty, and unsound ? 
 So that the only substance which remains, 
 (For thus the tenour of complaint hath run) 
 Among so many shadows, are the pains 
 And penalties of miserable life. 
 Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust ! " 
 
 The Priest has no direct answer to give except that 
 
 * " . . . for the general purposes of feith 
 In Providence, for solace and support. 
 We may not doubt that who can best subject 
 The will to reason's law, can strictliest live 
 And act in that obedience, he shall gain 
 The clearest apprehension of those truths. 
 Which unassisted reason's utmost power 
 Is too infirm to reach." 
 
 And then begin the stories of his parishioners. The 
 catholicity of these tales, which is their most singular 
 quality, is expressed essentially in the description of the 
 churchyard. 
 
 ' " To a mysteriously-united pair 
 This place is consecrate ; to Death and Life, 
 
 > Excursion, v. 11. 465-478. ' Ibid. 11. 515-522. 
 
 • Ibid. 11. 903-921. 
 
36 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 And to the best affections that proceed 
 
 From their conjunction ; consecrate to faith 
 
 In him who bled for man upon the cross ; 
 
 Hallowed to revelation ; and no less 
 
 To reason's mandates ; and the hopes divine 
 
 Of pure imagination ; — above all, 
 
 To charity, and love, that have provided, 
 
 Within these precincts, a capacious bed 
 
 And receptacle, open to the good 
 
 And evil, to the just and the unjust ; 
 
 In which they find an equal resting-place : 
 
 Even as the multitude of kindred brooks 
 
 And streams, whose murmur fiUs this hollow vale, 
 
 Whether their course be turbulent or smooth, 
 
 Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost 
 
 Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake, 
 
 And end their journey in the same repose I " 
 
 The Priest declares his " faith in him who bled for 
 man," but, again, it is simply named. There Wordsworth 
 stops reverentially. There is no reference here or else- 
 where to a contract between the First and Second 
 Person in the Trinity, nor any theory as to the mode in 
 which the crucifixion is effective for man's salvation ; 
 but of one thing the poet is sure, that death to all is 
 repose. The last lines of the book affirm that without 
 the co-operation and consent of the soul the Word is 
 ineffectual. 
 
 ' . . . " The pure soul, the soul sublime and pure ; 
 With her two feculties of eye and ear. 
 The one by which a creature, whom his sins 
 Have rendered prone, can upward look to heaven ; 
 The other that empowers him to perceive 
 The voice of Deity, on height and plain, 
 
 ' Excursion, v. U. 986-993. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 37 
 
 Whispering those truths in stillness, which the Word, 
 To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims." 
 
 In the Essay on Epitaphs published in the " Friend " 
 in 1 8 10 the same doctrine is expressed more distinctly. 
 
 1 c( f jjis is jjQt tjjg place to enter into the recesses of 
 these investigations ; but the subject requires me here to 
 make a plain avowal, that, for my own part, it is to me 
 inconceivable, that the sympathies of love towards each 
 other, which grow with our growth, could ever attain 
 any new strength, or even preserve the old, after we had 
 received from the outward senses the impression of death, 
 and were in the habit of having that impression daily 
 renewed and its accompanying feeling brought home to 
 ourselves, and to those we love ; if the same were not 
 counteracted by those communications with our internal 
 Being, which are anterior to all these experiences, and 
 with which revelation coincides, and has through that 
 coincidence' alone [for otherwise it could not possess it) a power 
 to affect us" 
 
 The italics are my own. 
 
 The ground of the defence of the institutions of the 
 Church is that truths of particular importance should be 
 fixed in forms. 
 
 * " . . . The care prospective of our wise 
 
 Forefethers, who, to guard against the shocks, 
 The fluctuation and decay of things, 
 Embodied and established these high truths 
 In solemn institutions." 
 
 This justification of institutions by Wordsworth is 
 worth consideration. It may perhaps be true that "solemn 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 928. 
 ' Excursion, v. 11. 997-1001, 
 
38 Examination op the Charge op 
 
 institutions" are at the present time more than ever neces- 
 sary. We suppose that literature can take their place, 
 that they were the device of an age which had no books ; 
 but it is possible that it may be wise to preserve them 
 just because we have so many books, and because there 
 is so much to be learnt. The mass of truths which con- 
 fronts us is enormous, but in this mass there are a few 
 which are of transcendent importance, and these in some 
 way should be singled out. They ought to be pressed 
 upon us periodically with emphasis, so that we may feel 
 the difference between them and other doctrines which 
 may be disbelieved without peril to our salvation. It 
 may be that institutions are the only protection against 
 the confusion and anarchy which the growing tumult of 
 voices threatens to bring upon us. In the " Essay sup- 
 plementary to the Preface" of 1815 Wordsworth still 
 further defends religious symbols, and at the same time 
 seems almost to anticipate the charge of uncertainty 
 which has been brought against him. 
 
 ' " The concerns of religion refer to indefinite objects, 
 and are too weighty for the mind to support them 
 without relieving itself by resting a great part of 
 the burthen upon words and symbols. The commerce 
 between Man and his Maker cannot be carried on but 
 by a process where much is represented in little, and the 
 Infinite Being accommodates himself to a finite capacity. 
 In all this may be perceived the affinity between religion 
 and poetry ; between religion — making up the deficien- 
 cies of reason by faith ; and poetry — passionate for the 
 instruction of reason ; between religion — whose element 
 is infinitude, and whose ultimate trust is the supreme of 
 things, submitting herself to circumscription, and re- 
 
 • Oxfpri fVordnvortA, p. 945, 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 39 
 
 conciled to substitutions ; and poetry — ethereal and 
 transcendent, yet incapable to sustain her existence 
 without sensuous incarnation." 
 
 The symbol, we see, is precious to Wordsworth for 
 the very reason that it is not definite. He is not careless 
 nor loose in his thinking, but the object, as he says, is 
 indefinite, and any attempt to give it that sharpness of 
 outline which is necessary to some people does but 
 falsify it. He possesses the rare faculty of arresting the 
 demand of the understanding for a completeness which is 
 illusory, and of being content with what he sees. 
 
 If in the remaining books of the " Excursion " the 
 dogmatist seeks for any conclusions which will satisfy, 
 him, he will be disappointed. The proud, avaricious, 
 imperfect, unlovely woman of the sixth book who dies 
 with no confession is thus dismissed — 
 
 • " One vernal evening. 
 
 While she was yet in prime of health and strength, 
 
 I well remember, while I passed her door 
 
 Alone, with loitering step, and upward eye 
 
 Turned towards the planet Jupiter that hung 
 
 Above the centre of the Vale, a voice 
 
 Roused me, her voice ; it said, ' That glorious star 
 
 In its untroubled element will shine 
 
 As now it shines, when we are laid in earth 
 
 And safe from all our sorrows.' With a sigh 
 
 She spake, yet, I believe, not unsustained 
 
 By faith in glory that shall far transcend 
 
 Aught by these perishable heavens disclosed 
 
 To sight or mind. JvTor less than care divine 
 
 Is divine mercy. She, who had rebelled. 
 
 Was into meekness softened and subdued ; 
 
 ' Excursion, vi. 11. 757-777. 
 
40 Examination op the Charge of 
 
 Did, after trials not in vain prolonged, 
 
 With resignation sink into the grave ; 
 
 And her uncharitable acts, I trust. 
 
 And harsh unlcindnesses are all forgiven, 
 
 Tho', in this Vale, remembered writh deep awe." 
 
 Ellen, the sinner, wrhose redemption was her love, passes 
 through " the cloud of death " 
 
 ' " Into that pure and unknown world of love 
 Where injury cannot come : " 
 
 and even Wilfrid Armathwaite, who broke the marriage 
 vow and was 
 
 ' " Stung by his inward thoughts, and by the smiles , 
 Of wife and children stung to agony," 
 
 is " pitied among men " and " absolved by God." 
 
 The conviction that no charm, no drug will cure the 
 soul, but that a healthy life is the sole remedy re-appears 
 in the ninth book : 
 
 * . . . " When we stand upon our native soil, 
 Unelbowed by such objects as oppress 
 Our active powers, those powers themselves become 
 Strong to subvert our noxious qualities : 
 They sweep distemper from the busy day. 
 And make the chalice of the big round year 
 Run o'er with gladness ; whence the Being moves 
 In beauty through the world ; and all who see 
 Bless him, rejoicing in his neighbourhood." 
 
 I have reserved as the last of the quotations from 
 the " Excursion " the alterations in the " Story of 
 Margaret " in the first book because they may appear, 
 superficially considered, to be the strongest proofs of 
 
 ' Excursion, vi. 11. 1050-1051. ' Ibid. 11. 1096-1097. 
 
 • Ibid. ix. 11. 129-137. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 
 
 41 
 
 Wordsworth's later repentance. This story was partly 
 written between 179S and 1797. The lines I am now 
 about to cite were not in that portion of the poem which 
 is due to 1795-7, but are probably to be assigned to 
 1 80 1 and are printed in ordinary type just as they 
 appeared in 18 14. The alterations and additions in 
 italics on the right hand were nearly all made in 1 845. 
 There were one or two alterations between 18 14 and 
 1 845, but none of any importance. 
 
 ' " The Old Man ceased : he saw 
 that I was moved ; 
 
 From that low Bench, rising in- 
 stinctively 
 
 I turn'd aside in weakness, nor 
 had power 
 
 To thank him for the Tale which 
 he had told. 
 
 I stood, and leaning o'er the 
 Garden wall, 
 
 Reviewed that Woman's suffer- 
 ings ; and it seemed 
 
 To comfort me while with a 
 Brother's love 
 
 I bless'd her — in the impotence of 
 grief. 
 
 At length towards the Cottle I 
 returned 
 
 Fondly,— and traced, with interest 
 more mild, 
 
 That secret spirit of humanity 
 
 Which, mid the calm oblivious 
 tendencies 
 
 Of Nature, mid her plants, and 
 weeds, and flowers, 
 
 And silent overgrowings, still 
 survived. 
 
 The Old Man, noting this, re- 
 sumed, and said, 
 
 ' My Friend ! enough to sorrow 
 you have given. 
 
 The purposes of wisdom ask no 
 more; 
 
 TTun towards the cottage I 
 returned; and traced 
 
 Fondly, though with an interest 
 more mtld. 
 
 The purposes of wisdom ask no 
 more: 
 
 ' Excursion, i. 11. 917-970. 
 
42 
 
 Examination of the Charge op 
 
 Be wise and chearful; and no 
 longer read 
 
 The forms of things with an un- 
 worthy eye. 
 
 She sleeps in the calm earth, and 
 peace is here. 
 
 I well remember that those very 
 plumes, 
 
 Those weeds, and the high spear- 
 grass on that wall, 
 
 By mist and silent rain-drops 
 silver'd o'er. 
 
 As once I passed, did to my heart 
 
 convey 
 So still an image of tranquillity, 
 So calm and still, and looked so 
 
 beautiful 
 Amid the uneasy thoughts which 
 
 filled my mind, 
 That what we feel of sorrow and 
 
 despair 
 From ruin and from change, and 
 
 all the grief 
 The passing shews of Being leave 
 
 behind, 
 Appeared an idle dream, that could 
 
 not live 
 Where meditation was. I turned 
 
 away 
 And vralked along my road in 
 
 He ceased. Ere long the sun 
 
 declining shot 
 A slant and mellow radiance, 
 
 which began 
 To fall upon us, while beneath 
 
 the trees, 
 We sate on that ,low Bench : and 
 
 now we felt. 
 Admonished thus, the sweet hour 
 
 coming on. 
 A linnet warbled from those lofty 
 
 elms, 
 A thrush sang loud, and other 
 
 melodies. 
 At distance heard, peopled the 
 
 milder air. 
 
 Nor more would she have crimed 
 as d-ue to One 
 
 Who, in her -worst distress, had 
 efttimes felt 
 
 The unbounded might of prayer ; 
 and learned, with soul 
 
 Fixed on the Cross, that consola- 
 tion springs. 
 
 From sources deeper far than deep- 
 est pain. 
 
 For the Tneek Sufferer. Why then 
 should we read 
 
 The forms of things with an un- 
 worthy eye ? 
 
 As once I passed, into my heart 
 conveyed 
 
 That passing shows of Being leave 
 behind. 
 
 Appeared an idle dream, that 
 could maintain. 
 
 Nowhere, dominion o'er the en- 
 lightened spirit 
 
 Whose meditative sympathies 
 repose 
 
 Upon the breast of Faith. I turned 
 away. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 43 
 
 The Old Man rose, and, with a 
 
 sprightly mien 
 Of hopefal preparation, grasped 
 
 his Staff: 
 Together casting then a farewell 
 
 look 
 Upon those silent walls, we left 
 
 the Shade ; 
 And, ere the Stars were visible, 
 
 > had reached 
 A Vill^e Inn, — our Evening ' 
 
 resting-place." 
 
 These changes, as fer as poetry goes, are certainly 
 about the worst of Wordsworth's afterthoughts. 
 Usually his corrections are improvements. But putting 
 poetry aside, and considering the alterations solely from 
 a philosophical and religious point of view, or as an in- 
 dication of Wdrdsworth's history, there is no significance 
 in them. Excepting the verbal amendments we hear 
 nothing of them till 1845, and there are scores of 
 lines in the "Excursion" written before 1813 quite as 
 orthodox as those we have just read. Then, again, it 
 must be admitted that the new version is more drama- 
 tically consistent than the earlier with the character 
 of the Wanderer. But, more important still, Words- 
 worth even here is not analytically doctrinal and is 
 content to point. Margaret has known the might of 
 prayer, her eyes have rested on the Cross : she has 
 learned 
 
 " that consolation springs, 
 
 From sources deeper fer than deepest pain," 
 
 and the Wanderer is consoled by Faith. There is no 
 exposition of the Atonement, nor are we told definitely 
 what the Faith is, except that it is something awakened 
 
 by , 
 
44 Examination op the Charge op 
 
 " those very plumes, 
 
 Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall, 
 By mist and silent rain-drops silvered o'er." 
 
 Neither are we entitled to deduce anything further from 
 that which is before us. Wordsworth's religion was not 
 a thing constructed by a professional theologian or meta- 
 physician, but was rather a group of convictions and 
 hopes incapable of reduction to a coherent system. As 
 an illustration of the danger of inference we may take 
 the Wanderer's prayer at the opening of the fourth 
 book. 
 
 ' " But leave me unabated trust in thee — 
 And let thy fevour, to the end of life, 
 Inspire me with ability to seek 
 Repose and hope among eternal things — 
 Father of heaven and earth ! and I am rich, 
 And will possess my portion in content ! " 
 
 It might be supposed that the " eternal things " are the 
 eternal things of any ordinary preacher j but, as if on 
 purpose to prevent such a supposition, the Wanderer 
 explains them. 
 
 * " ' And what are things eternal ? — powers depart,' 
 The grey-haired Wanderer stead^tly replied, 
 Answering the question which himsdf had asked, 
 * Possessions vanish, and 'opinions change. 
 And passions hold a fluctuating seat : 
 But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken. 
 And subject neither to eclipse nor wane. 
 Duty exists ; immutably survive. 
 For our support, the measures and the forms. 
 Which an abstract intelligence supplies ; 
 Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not." 
 
 ' Excursion, iv. U. 60-64. * ^l>"i- H. 65-76. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 45 
 
 Could anything be more unexpected ? The " things 
 eternal " in which he is to find repose are Duty and the 
 measures and forms supplied by abstract intelligence, or, 
 as they are called a little lower down, the " transcendent 
 truths of the pure intellect," everlasting as " the blessed 
 spirits " whom God includes " as the sea her waves." 
 
 Coleridge was disappointed with the "Excursion." 
 In a letter to Wordsworth dated 30th May 1815 he 
 gives his reasons : 
 
 * "Whatever in Lucretius is poetry is not philosophical, 
 whatever is philosophical is not poetry ; and in the very 
 pride of confident hope I looked forward to 'The Recluse' 
 as the fint and only true philosophical poem in existence. 
 Of course, I expected the colours, music, imaginative life, 
 and passion oi poetry ; but the matter j^nd arrangement of 
 philosophy ; not doubting from the advantages of the 
 subject that the totality of a system was not only capable of 
 being harmonized with, but even calculated to aid, the 
 unity (beginning, middle, and end) of a poem. Thus, 
 whatever the length of the work might be, still it was a 
 determinate length ; of the subjects announced, each 
 would have its own appointed place, and, excluding re- 
 petitions, each would relieve and rise in interest above the 
 other. I supposed you first to have meditated the faculties 
 of man in the abstract, in their correspondence with his 
 sphere of action, and, first in the feeling, touch, and taste, 
 then in the eye, and last in the ear, — to have laid a solid 
 and immovable foundation for the edifice by removing 
 the sandy sophisms of Locke, and the mechanic dogma- 
 tists, and demonstrating that the senses were living 
 growths and developments of the mind and spirit, in a 
 much juster as well as higher sense, than the mind can 
 be said to be formed by the senses. Next, I understood 
 that you would take the human race in the concrete, 
 
 ' Letters, vol. ii. p. 648. 
 
46 Examination op the Charge of 
 
 have exploded the absurd notion of Pope's ' Essay on 
 Man,' ^ Darwin, and all the countless believers even 
 (strange to say) among Christians of man's having 
 progressed from an ourang-outang state — so contrary to 
 all history, to all religion, nay to all possibility — to have 
 affirmed a Fall in some sense, as a fact, the possibility of 
 which cannot be understood from the nature of the will, 
 but the reality of which is attested by experience and 
 conscience. Fallen men contemplated in the diflFerent 
 ages of the world, and in the difiFerent states — savage, 
 barbarous, civilized, the lonely cot, or borderer's wig- 
 wam, the village, the manufacturing town, seaport, city, 
 universities, and, not disguising the sore evils under which 
 the whole creation groans, to point out, however, a 
 manifest scheme of redemption, of reconciliation with 
 this enmity with Nature — what are the obstacles, the 
 Antichrist that must be and already is — and to conclude 
 by a grand didactic swell on the necessary identity of a 
 true philosophy with true religion, agreeing in the results 
 and diiFering only as the analytic and synthetic process, 
 as discursive from intuitive, the former chiefly useful as 
 perfecting the latter ; in short, the necessity of a general 
 revolution in the modes of developing and disciplining the 
 human mind by the substitution of life and intelligence 
 (considered in its difierent powers from the plant up to 
 that state in which the diiference of degree becomes a 
 new kind (man, self-consciousness), but yet not by 
 essential opposition), for the philosophy of mechanicism, 
 which, in everything that is most worthy of the human 
 intellect, strikes Death, and cheats itself by mistaking 
 clear images for distinct conceptions, and which idly 
 demands conceptions where intuitions alone are possible 
 or adequate to the majesty of the Truth. In short, facts 
 elevated into theory — theory into lawrs — and laws into 
 living and intelligent powers — true idealism necessarily 
 perfecting itself in realism, and realism refining itself 
 into idealism." 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 47 
 
 Granting that Coleridge could have written a poem 
 on this plan, it is a matter for thankfulness that Words- 
 worth did not adopt it and that we have the "Excur- 
 sion" as it stands, notwithstanding its jnconclusiveness. 
 Wordsworth never answered Coleridge's criticism, or, if 
 he did, no trace of the answer is extant. 
 
 Let us look at a few other expressions of Wordsworth's 
 mind during the time the " Excursion " was being written. 
 The " Beggars " was composed in 1 802 and published in 
 1807. It is the story of a couple of gipsy urchins who 
 tell the poet a lie in order to secure an alms. 
 
 * "They dart across my path — but lo. 
 Each ready with a plaintive whine ! 
 Said I, ' not half an hour ago 
 Your Mother has had alms of mine.' 
 ' That cannot be,' one answered — ' she is dead : ' — 
 I looked reproof — they saw — but neither hung his head. 
 
 * She has been dead. Sir, many a day.' — 
 
 ' Hush, boys ! you're telling me a lie ; 
 
 It was your Mother, as I say ! ' 
 
 And, in the twinkling of aji eye, 
 
 ' Come ! come ! ' cried on^, and without more ado 
 
 Off to some other play the "jpyous Vagrants flew 1 " 
 
 There is not a. syllable of denunciation, and Wordsworth 
 calmly told *Crabb Robinson that he purposely intended 
 " to exhibit the power of physical beauty and health and 
 vigour in childhood, even in a state of moral depravity." 
 ■Not even a lie damns the liar for him ; he detaches 
 from the lie the " physical beauty and health and vigour " 
 as something to be loved. " At the Grave of Burns " is 
 dated by Wordsworth 1803, but the exact date when it 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 190. * Diary, voL i. p. 266. 
 
48 Examination op the Charge of 
 
 was completed is uncertain. It was not published till 
 1842, and received Wordsworth's sanction when he was 
 72. What is the final thought by that grave ? 
 
 ' " For he is safe, a quiet bed 
 
 Hath early found among the dead, 
 Harboured where none can be misled, 
 
 Wronged, or distrest ; 
 And surely here it may be said 
 
 That such are blest. 
 
 " And oh for Thee, by pitying grace 
 Checked oft-times in a devious race, 
 May He, who halloweth the place 
 
 Where Man is laid. 
 Receive thy Spirit in the embrace 
 
 For which it prayed 1 
 
 " Sighing I turned away ; but ere 
 Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear, 
 Music that sorrow comes not near, 
 
 A ritual hymn. 
 Chanted in love that casts out fear 
 I By Seraphim." 
 
 He not only refrains from any theological condemnation 
 of Burns, but he does not consider it any part of his duty 
 to criticise him as criticism is generally understood, that 
 is to say, to assume the attitude of an allegorical Justice 
 and put vices in one scale and virtues in the other. To 
 estimate a man by the balance in this way looks simple 
 enough ; but it presupposes, what is often impossible, 
 that we can separate vices from virtues. The root of the 
 vice may be the root also of the virtue. Wordsworth, 
 although a water-drinker, could not award anything but 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsrotrth, p. 284. 
 
Apostasy against Wordswosth 49 
 
 praise even to Tarn O'Shanter.' One evening Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth were with Crabb Robinson at Morgan's. 
 Coleridge was " very metaphysical " and " adhered to 
 Kant," but Wordsworth " praised Burns for his intro- 
 duction to" Tam O'Shanter. Burns had given an 
 " apology for drunkenness, by bringing together all the 
 circumstances which can serve to render excusable that 
 which is in itself disgusting ; thus interesting our feelings, 
 and making us tolerant of what would otherwise be not 
 endurable." The next day but one Robinson walked to 
 Hampstead, and found Wordsworth defending earnestly 
 the Church Establishment.^ "He even said he would 
 shed his blood for it. Nor was he disconcerted by a 
 laugh raised against him on account of his having before 
 confessed that he knew not when he had been in a church 
 in his own country. ' All our ministers are so vile,' said 
 he. The mischief of allowing the clergy to depend on 
 the caprice of the multitude he thought more than 
 outweighed all the evils of an establishment." 
 
 The " Ode to Duty" belongs to 1805. In this noble 
 poem Duty is, it is true, " stern Daughter of the Voice 
 of God " ; but if we hastily assume that Wordsworth 
 " adhered to Kant " we shall be much mistaken. He says 
 of his goddess : 
 
 '...." Thou dost wear 
 The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, 
 are fresh and strong." 
 
 ' Diary, i. p. 388. • Ibid. p. 389. ' Oxford Wordsworlh, p. 492. 
 
 E 
 
so Examination of the Charge of 
 
 ' Duty is, in feet, nothing special, nothing antagonistic 
 to Nature. The laws which control the planets in their 
 orbits, and maintain the stability of the Universe, become 
 Duty when they reveal themselves in man. Those who 
 do not formally acknowledge the obligations of Duty 
 may be none the less what they ought to be. Joy and 
 youth may be authentic legislators. 
 
 " There are who ask not if thine eye 
 Be on them ; who, in love and truth. 
 Where no misgiving is, rely 
 Upon the genial sense of youth : 
 Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot ; 
 Who do thy work, and know it not : 
 Oh ! if through confidence misplaced 
 They feil, thy saving arms, dread Power ! around 
 them cast. 
 
 " Serene will be our days and bright. 
 And happy will our nature be. 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security." 
 
 In September 1806, on a stormy day, Wordsworth 
 heard that Fox was dying. He went for a walk in the 
 evening, " sad . . . even to pain deprest." The " Com- 
 forter," the Holy Ghost, nothing less, found him " upon 
 this lonely road " and consoled him. This is what the 
 Holy Ghost said to him : 
 
 ' Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, said that the last two lines of 
 this quotation were " utterly without meaning," forgetting his Bible, 
 which Wordsworth probably remembered. He is not more unmeaning 
 than the author of the book of Proverbs, who makes the Wisdom 
 which " walks in the way of righteousness " declare that " when He 
 established the Heavens I was there . . . then I was by Him, as a 
 master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before 
 Hiiu." 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 51 
 
 * " A Power is passing from the earth 
 To breathless Nature's daric abyss ; 
 But when the great and good depart 
 What is it more than this — 
 
 " That Man, who is from God sent forth, 
 Doth yet again to God return ? — 
 Such ebb and flow must ever be, 
 Then wherefore should we mourn ? " 
 
 A singular inspiration, especially if we consider that Fox 
 was not altogether exemplary. 
 
 The " Ecclesiastical Sketches " are to the ordinary 
 reader the most uninteresting of all Wordsworth's poems, 
 and they are ecclesiastical in substance as well as in name. 
 They were mostly written in 182 1. In 1820 Words- 
 worth visited Sir G. Beaumont, who was then about to 
 build a church on his estate, and, the conversation turn- 
 ing on church matters, the poet conceived the design of 
 recording the history of " the Church of England both 
 previous and subsequent to the Reformation." But there 
 is something more in the " Sketches " than a history. 
 They fell into two divisions, one being an expression of 
 the various moments in the history, and the other an 
 interpretation of the Church Services. They are no 
 doubt a poetic mistake ; but they can be explained — and 
 the same explanation will serve for more of Wordsworth's 
 poetry — by his theory that it was possible by proper treat- 
 ment to discharge their prosaism from prosaic subjects. 
 The theory is not altogether true, but the part that is true 
 is much more important than the part which is false, 
 because we are particularly liable to overlook the common- 
 place for want of some slight turn to show us what its 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsvaorth, p. 581. 
 
52 Examination op the Charge op 
 
 real form and colour are. Many subjects, nevertheless, 
 cannot be made poetical, and amongst them are most of 
 the texts for the " Sketches." I am not concerned, how- 
 ever, with the " Sketches" as works of art, but as theology. 
 I select the two which more than any of the others are 
 expressive of conformity to the established religion. 
 
 ' BAPTISM. 
 
 " Dear be the Church that, watching o'er the needs 
 Of Infancy, provides a timely shower 
 Whose virtue changes to a christian Flower 
 A Growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds ! — 
 Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds 
 The ministration ; while parental Love 
 Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above 
 As the high service pledges now, now pleads. 
 There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly 
 To meet the coming hours of festal mirth. 
 The tombs — which hear and answer that brief cry, 
 The Infent's notice of his second birth — 
 Recall the wandering Soul to sympathy 
 With what man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from 
 Earth." 
 
 * THANKSGIVING AFTER CHILDBIRTH. 
 
 " Woman ! the Power who left His throne on high, 
 And deigned to wear the robe of flesh we wear. 
 The Power that thro' the straits of Infency 
 Did pass dependent on maternal care. 
 His own humanity with Thee will share, 
 Pleased with the thanks that in His People's eye 
 Thou ofFerest up for safe Delivery 
 From Childbirth's perilous throes. And should the Heir 
 Of thy fond hopes hereafter walk inclined 
 To courses fit to make a mother rue 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 445. * Ibid. p. 447. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 53 
 
 That ever he was born, a glance of mind 
 Cast upon this observance may renewr 
 A better will ; and, in the imagined view 
 Of thee thus kneeling, safety he may find." 
 
 The first of these sonnets was first published in 1827, 
 and the second in 1845. There is nothing stronger than 
 these in the whole series, and they ftiake it clear that 
 Wordsworth, when they were written, held in some 
 fashion to the Incarnation, the Atonement, and Baptismal 
 Regeneration. Directly, however, we attempt to go 
 beyond this bare assertion, we begin to doubt. What is 
 the meaning of the following sonnet, and why is it here 
 among the " Sketches " as No. 34 ? 
 
 ' MUTABILITY. 
 
 " From low to high doth dissolution climb, 
 And sink from high to low, along a scale 
 Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail ; 
 A musical but melancholy chime. 
 Which they can hear who meddle not with crime. 
 Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. 
 Truth fails not ; but her outward forms that bear 
 The longest date do melt like frosty rime. 
 That in the morning whitened hill and plain 
 And is no more ; drop like the tower sublime 
 Of yesterday, which royally did, wear 
 His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain 
 Some casual shout that broke the silent air. 
 Or the unimaginable touch of Time." 
 
 Is mutability, then, so characteristic of things ecclesi- 
 astical that when the thoughts are turned to them it 
 naturally presents itself ? 
 
 • Oxford Wordsworth, p. 449. 
 
54 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 The dogmatic references, also, in the " Sketches " are 
 few. There is not a single sonnet on a creed, and the 
 Athanasian Creed is not once mentioned. The sonnets 
 include Catholicism as well as Protestantism, and indeed 
 the best are those which are Catholic. The " Point at 
 Issue " between Catholicism and Protestantism is thus 
 put : 
 
 • " For what contend the wise ? — for nothing less 
 Than that the Soul, freed from the bonds of Sense, 
 And to her God restored by evidence 
 Of things not seen, drawn forth from their recess, 
 Root there, and not in forms, her holiness" ; — 
 
 This would certainly not be accepted as the " point at 
 issue " by any party in the Protestant Church, although 
 it is very like Wordsworth to make it the one point 
 for which wise men would contend. At times he is at 
 least half-Catholic. Take, for example, the following 
 sonnet from " Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 
 1820": 
 
 ' COMPOSED IN ONE OF THE CATHOLIC CANTONS. 
 
 " Doomed as we are our native dust 
 To wet with many a bitter shower, 
 It ill befits us to disdain 
 The altar, to deride the fane, 
 Where simple Sufferers bend, in trust 
 To win a happier hour. 
 
 " I love, where spreads the village lawn. 
 Upon some knee-worn cell to gaze : 
 Hail to the firm unmoving cross, 
 Aloft, where pines their branches toss ! 
 And to the chapel far withdrawn. 
 That lurks by lonely ways ! 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 436. • Ibid. p. 337. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 55 
 
 " Where'er we roam — along the brink 
 Of Rhine — or by the sweeping Po, 
 Through Alpine vale, or champaign wide, 
 Whate'er we look oh, at our side 
 Be Charity ! — to bid us think. 
 And feel, if we would know." 
 
 So also in the " Stanzas suggested in a Steamboat off 
 St. Bees' Head " : 
 
 ' " Thanks to the austere and simple Devotees, 
 Who, to that service bound by venial fees, 
 Keep watch before the altars of St. Bees. 
 
 " Are not, in sooth, their Requiem's sacred ties 
 Woven out of passion's sharpest agonies, 
 Subdued, composed, and formalized by art. 
 To fix a wiser sorrow in the heart .? 
 The prayer for them whose hour is past away 
 Says to the Living, profit while ye may ! 
 A little part, and that the worst, he sees 
 Who thinks that priestly cunning holds the keys 
 That best unlock the secrets of St. Bees." 
 
 One more remark upon the " Ecclesiastical Sketches." 
 They are dull, but their dullness is significant, because, 
 although Wordsworth was so far misled as to suppose 
 that such material as the Commination Service and Dr. 
 Sacheverell could be transmuted into poems, he does not 
 attempt to get up any fervour over it. He does not whip 
 up his feelings, and there is less emotion in the " Sketches " 
 than in his addresses to kittens and butterflies. He felt 
 less emotion and was too honest to manufacture it. 
 
 Let us look at some other poems written about the 
 time when the " Sketches " were composed, or after 
 them. We do not know precisely the date of the 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 465. 
 
S6 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 following sonnet, but Wordsworth printed it for the first 
 time in the " Waggoner " volume of 1 8 1 9, and in the 
 Fenwick note of many years after says : " Not once 
 only, but a hundred times^ have the feelings of this 
 sonnet been awakened by the same objects seen from the 
 same place." 
 
 ' " I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret 
 Yon slowly-sinking star — immortal Sire 
 (So might he seem) of all the glittering quire ! 
 Blue ether still surrounds him — yet — and yet ; 
 But now the horizon's rocky parapet 
 Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire. 
 He burns — transmuted to a dusky fire — 
 Then pays submissively the appointed debt 
 To the flying moments, and is seen no more. 
 Angels and gods ! We struggle with our fete. 
 While health, power, glory, from their height decline. 
 Depressed ; and then extinguished : and our state, 
 In this, how different, lost Star, from thine. 
 That no to-morrow shall our beams restore ! " 
 
 Wordsworth's hope, " a hundred times " depressed as 
 he saw the stars set behind Loughrigg Fell, w^s certainly 
 not the unwavering so-called conviction of an ordinary 
 member of a sect. In the second ode to Lycoris, due to 
 1 81 7, he describes how he is 
 
 '...." More and more 
 Drawn towards the centre whence those sighs creep forth 
 To awe the lightness of humanity." 
 
 " Devotional Incitements" belongs to as late a date as 
 1832. After an enthusiastic description of "the town's 
 cathedral quire," the poem concludes thus : 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 261. • Jbid. p. 498. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 57 
 
 ' " Alas ! the sanctities combined 
 By art to unsensualise the mind 
 Decay and' languish ; or, as creeds 
 And humours change, are spurned like weeds : 
 The priests are from their altars' thrust ; 
 Temples are levelled with the dust ; 
 And solemn rites and awful forms 
 Founder amid fanatic storms. 
 Yet evermore, through years renewed 
 In undisturbed vicissitude 
 Of seasons balancing their flight 
 On the swift wings of day and night, 
 Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door 
 Wide open for the scattered Poor. 
 Where flower-breathed incense to the skies 
 Is wafted in mute harmonies ; 
 And ground fresh-cloven by the plough 
 Is fragrant with a humbler vow ; 
 Where birds and brooks from leafy dells 
 Chime forth unwearied canticles, 
 And vapours magnify and spread 
 The glory of the sun's bright head — 
 Still constant in her worship, still 
 Conforming to the eternal Will, 
 Whether men sow or reap the fields, 
 Divine monition Nature yields. 
 That not by bread alone we live. 
 Or what a hand of flesh can give ; 
 That every day should leave some part 
 Free for a sabbath of the heart : 
 So shall the seventh be truly blest, 
 From morn to eve, with hallowed rest," 
 
 If Wordsworth was thinking exclusively — an im- 
 probability which is almost an impossibility — of the unreal 
 sanctities of religions which were not his own and 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 228. 
 
5 8 Examination of the Charge ob 
 
 believed that his own religion was permanent, why was it 
 not used as the contrast ? Why did he prefer the divine 
 monition of Nature ? 
 
 During his Italian tour in 1837 he heard a cuckoo at 
 Laverna, which moved him to think 
 
 ' " On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One 
 Crying amid the wilderness" .... 
 
 and he would have 
 
 " given 
 
 Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers 
 
 Revive, their obstinate winter pass away, 
 
 That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo, 
 
 Wandering in solitude, and evermore 
 
 Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave ' 
 
 This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies 
 
 To carry thy glad tidings over heights 
 
 Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole." 
 
 This little poem may not be of much value, but it 
 shows how unaffected Wordsworth is by ordinary associa- 
 tions, and how he makes his own. The simple cuckoo 
 becomes the great Christian prophet, and spring is the 
 advent of our Lord. The common distinction between 
 sacred and profane is nothing to him. 
 
 Wordsworth was in the habit of revising his poems 
 continuously. We cannot infer that because he did not 
 alter a j)assage he entirely approved it or did not wish 
 that he had expressed himself differently ; but if he had 
 really apostatised, he would not have consented to re- 
 publish much that appears in the edition of 1849-50. 
 He would not have sanctioned what he felt to be dangerous 
 error. It would be difficult, however, to select more than 
 
 ' Oxford Wordsworth, p. 361. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 59 
 
 a dozen lines which have been excised or modified because 
 they were heretical politically or theologically. His re- 
 vision in the main was poetical. The bold passages in 
 the " Descriptive Sketches " are left undisturbed, and the 
 prefece to the " Excursion " retains in 1849-50 the verses 
 which frightened some of Wordsworth's friends in 1814. 
 
 '"For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink 
 Deep — and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 
 To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 
 All strength — all terror, single or in bands, 
 That ever was put forth in personal form — 
 Jehovah — with his thunder, and the choir 
 Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones — 
 I pass them unalarmed." 
 
 This may serve as a specimen of scores of other passages 
 of the same type reproduced without change or apologetic 
 comment. 
 
 The " Waggoner " written in 1 805 and published in 
 1819, was much revised subsequently; but there is not 
 one alteration which tends to disturb our sympathy with 
 Benjamin. Burns himself could not have loved Benjamin 
 better than Wordsworth loved him long after the date of 
 the " Ecclesiastical Sketches." Not a correction is made 
 from 1805 downwards in the lines describing the con- 
 fidence of the horses in their master. 
 
 " " For this they know (and let it hide, 
 In part, the offences of their guide) 
 That Benjamin, with clouded brains. 
 Is worth the best with all their pains ; 
 And, if they had a prayer to make. 
 The prayer would be that they may take 
 
 » Oxford Wordsworth, p. 755. ' Ibid. p. 178. 
 
6o Examination op the Charge of 
 
 With him whatever comes in course, 
 
 The better fortune or the worse ; 
 
 That no one else may have business near them, 
 
 And, drunk or sober, he may steer them." 
 
 In a note added in 1836 Wordsworth tells us, evidently 
 with dehght, that he and Coleridge met Benjamin after 
 his dismissal, and that in reply to an expression of regret 
 that the waggon had been taken off the road, he said 
 that " they could not do without me ; and as to the man 
 who was put in my place, no good could come out of 
 him ; he was a man of no ideas." The " Waggoner" was 
 dedicated to Lamb, who, as may be imagined, saw in a 
 moment its meaning or one of its meanings. It was 
 " no common favourite " with him because of its " spirit 
 of beautiful tolerance." It may not be out of place to 
 observe that Wordsworth never wavered in his reveren- 
 tial aiFection for Lamb. Lamb differed from him on 
 many points accounted " fundamental " by theologians 
 and moralists, but Wordsworth's testimony in 1835 
 was that 
 
 '...." at the centre of his being, lodged 
 A soul by resignation sanctified." 
 
 It does not seem to have struck Wordsworth's biographers 
 that he owed much to Lamb ; but if we remember that 
 the friendship began in 1797, and that it was very 
 intimate, we cannot help believing that it greatly in- 
 fluenced Wordsworth's poetry. I like to think that to 
 Lamb something is due of the " beautiful tolerance " 
 which distinguishes the " Waggoner," " Beggars," and 
 the " Two Thieves." 
 
 If it be said that I have not done much to defend 
 
 ' Oxford IVordswortk, p. 584. 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 6i 
 
 Wordsworth, I can but reply that the attack is weak. 
 No stronger evidence against him can be obtained from 
 his poems, letters, or life than that which I have 
 produced. The utmost which can fairly be admitted 
 after patient examination is that, superficially, in religious 
 matters he was a/ways inconsistent ; but it is untrue that 
 he ever fell away from the faith of his earlier years or that 
 he ever added anything destructive of it. The apparent 
 contradictions in his creed were not of a kind which in- 
 volved treason. Ahaz, we know, instructed Urijah the 
 priest to built an altar after the Damascus model and to 
 offer thereon the great sacrifices and the king's sacrifice, 
 but to retain the altar of Jehovah in order that private 
 inquiry might be made of Him thereon. That was an 
 inconsistency which was fatal. Wordsworth worshipped 
 the true God alone, from the days of the "Lyrical 
 Ballads " to his death, and set up no shrine to Baal. His 
 religion was like that of the " Wanderer," 
 
 " Who to the model of his own pure heart , 
 Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired, 
 And human reason dictated with awe ; " * 
 
 but he conformed — in his own way — to the rites of the 
 Church of England. That is a fact, but we must take it 
 simply as it stands. If it be said that he could not have 
 conformed if he had remained what he was when he 
 wrote the " Prelude," ,1 deny the conclusion absolutely. 
 
 ' " Theologians may puzzle their heads about dogmas as they will, 
 the religion of gratitude cannot mislead us. Of that we are sure ; 
 and gratitude is the handmaid to hope, and hope the harbinger of 
 &ith. I look abroad upon Nature, I think of the best part of our 
 Species, I lean upon my Friends, and I meditate upon the Scriptures, 
 especially the Gospel of St. John, and my creed rises up of itself, with 
 the ease of an exhalation, yet a fabric of adamant." Letter from 
 W. W. to Sir G. Beaumont. 28 May 1825. Li/e, iii. 115. 
 
62 Examination of the Charge of 
 
 Genuine convictions much more discordant than any 
 which he held are to be found side by side in honest men. 
 Spinoza's philosophy is strict, but even Spinoza declared 
 revelationem maxime necessariam fuisse, advised the people 
 of the house in wrhich he lodged not to miss any of their 
 clergyman's sermons, and told his landlady that her 
 religion was a good one and that she was not to look for 
 another. 
 
 The explanation of the vulgar mistake with regard 
 to Wordsworth I believe mainly to be that more than 
 most men he has suffered from cursory inspection. A 
 large part of what he wrote is not externally attractive, 
 and is little read. Nevertheless, he is a man of such 
 mark that all cultivated men and women feel that they 
 must have something to say about him, and so they take up 
 " Lucy Gray " and " 1 8 1 5 " and pass on, summing him 
 up in a phrase, " inspired poet, dullest of renegades." The 
 antithesis does not exist, and could not have existed ; but 
 it saves them much trouble, not only in criticism and con- 
 versation, but in their own thinking. It is also seductive, 
 because it is so much more brilliant to shut up a man 
 like Wordsworth in a formula than to confess we can but 
 put down a point here and there which cannot be 
 connected by any circumscribing outline. 
 
 Another reason why the renegade half of the antithesis 
 is popular is that people are disappointed that Words- 
 worth did not develop after the ordinary fashion. If he 
 had become a poet of revolt and despair, he would have 
 been more acceptable to most of those persons who make 
 poems, review them, or read them ; but the poetry of 
 revolt and despair has already become rather easy and 
 certainly superfluous. We are beginning to see that the 
 merest fragment added to the stock of beliefe which 
 
Apostasy against Wordsworth 63 
 
 enable us to live in peace and hope is of more value than 
 profitless rebellion. It is not my object, however, to 
 attempt any estimate of Wordsw^orth's services. My 
 sole aim is to showr that he was no apostate, and that 
 to the last he was himself. 
 
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