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'Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend

Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute;

And care-a comforter that best could suit
Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend;
And Love-a charmer's voice, that used to
lend,

More efficaciously than aught that flows
From harp or lute, kind influence to compose
The throbbing pulse-else troubled without

end;

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now be asked by a full-grown person who | desired for a country, than work which is cannot recollect to have seen one; and it regular, even though ill paid. might be answered by a person twenty years But whilst Mr. Wordsworth appreciates older, that in his youth such an implement the moral influence of mechanical labour in was seen in every cottage and in many abating excitement to 'a point of just relief, houses of somewhat higher pretensions-that we might refer to many passages in the Exit was a wheel mounted two or three feet cursion' to show that its benefits become above the ground, to which the spinner's more than questionable in his eyes, when it foot, by means of a sort of pedal, communi- is carried so far as to suppress the activity of cated a uniform rotatory motion, whilst her the understanding, and render the mind calfingers were busy in manipulating the line lous and insensible. We have not room for of flax drawn from it,-that the motion was quotations; nor need we multiply references; just not so rapid but that it could be distinctly but the subject is discussed at length in the discerned by the eye, and that the sound eighth book, with no pseudo-poetical parwhich accompanied it was something be- tiality-no preference of previous and ancient tween the humming of a top and the purring evils to those of the manufacturing systemof a cat. But if, having explained the but philosophically and fairly; and it is remechanism of the spinning-wheel and its sumed in the ninth book in its natural condirect use and purpose, he were asked to nection with the subject of national education. give some account of its moral influences, If reference be made to these two books, it he might require the aid of the poet :- will be seen by those who are practically acquainted with the subject, that the experiseven-and-twenty years which have elapsed ence and parliamentary inquiries of the since the Excursion was published, have only shown more conclusively the justness of the poet's views and feelings as to the evils which are, perhaps to a certain extent unavoidably, but at all events most unhappily and fatally to many of the lower classes, mixed with up the unsteady and inordinate activities of our manufacturing system. In the course of those years other eminent writers joined in denouncing these evils with all the fervour of the poetical temperament (one great man, Mr. Southey, we need scarcely name,) and more recently public men have been Mechanical employment, even without found in the House of Commons, of an arthese peculiar charms of the spinning-wheel, dent and indefatigable benevolence, to sughas no doubt a tendency to alleviate suffer- gest remedies; whilst there has remained for ing and subdue excitability, and this truth political economists the ungracious but indishas a political as well as a moral bearing; pensable task of determining which of these for in seasons of commercial or agricultural were practicable and which were not. Some difficulty, the political disturbances which progress-much, we trust—has been made in arise amongst the lower orders of the people, the matter; and by a kindly alliance and may be attributed, not to distress and desti- concurrence of all the lights and powers tution only-for it has often been observed which are requisite for the treatment of this that they extend to many who are under no difficult problem-by philanthropical, philoimmediate pressure of want-but also to the sophical, economical, and practical efforts, concurrent deprivation of that great sedative and by eloquence poetical and parliamentary, to the human mind which is found in the and by the press and by the pulpit, it may employment of the body. Neither hunger be hoped that much more progress will be nor full feeding act alike upon all men-the made in no long time, and that the country one will not invariably produce irritability, will owe to Lord Ashley, as a legislator, the still less will the other be unfailingly attended consummation of a work, of which Mr. with contentment-but steady labour or Wordsworth, as poet and ethical philosomanual employment will always promote pher, so ardently urged the commencement. composure of mind. And this may add one We turn to the series of Sonnets 'dedimore to the many considerations which lead the politician, as well as the moralist, to insist that a high rate of wages is less to be

Even Joy could tell, Joy craving truce and rest
From her own overflow, what power sedate
On those revolving motions did await
Assiduously-to soothe her aching breast,
And, to a point of just relief, abate
The mantling triumphs of a day too blest.

p. 23.

cated to Liberty,' with peculiar interest. They were so entitled in previous editions, though in the volume before us they are in

Even so doth God protect us if we be
Virtuous and wise. Winds blow and waters roll,
Yet in themselves are nothing! One decree
Strength to the brave, and Power, and Deity;
Spake laws to them, and said that by the soul
Only, the nations shall be great and free.'-p.

129.

cluded with others under the title of 'Politi- [subordinate and instrumental, and still incal Sonnets.' They are, for the most part, sists upon the higher agency as the vital prosuggested by public occurrences which took tection :place within the eventful and instructive period of the history of liberty extending from the French Revolution to the battle of Waterloo; with some few upon subjects belong. ing to remoter times. They should be read along with those passages in the third book of the Excursion, wherein the Solitary comments on the rise and progress of the French Revolution, and with the admirable ode beThe same strain of sentiment will be found ginning Who rises on the banks of Seine ? to recur repeatedly in the sonnets which reand not without reference to many other late to the events of Bonaparte's wars, and pasthe subjugation or resistance of the several sages too numerous and scattered to be specifically mentioned. In these will be found states whose independence he invaded; and Mr. Wordsworth's sentiments respecting li- at the close of the series, which ends in berty in the various senses in which the word 1811, a censure is pronounced upon a deplois used, as applying to national independence, rable infirmity of man's nature which at that time came in aid of Bonaparte's power, sapto civil liberty, and to individual freedom; and it will appear that his sentiments are ping the hearts of many weak brethren in everywhere pervaded by a deep sense of the this country as well as in his own and others, truth that liberty is essentially of a moral and the tendency to lose all sense of right and spiritual nature, and that however closely connected with political forms and organisations, and dictating and requiring them for her conservation, yet that these forms do not constitute, and cannot of themselves impart, the spirit of liberty-that the forms must result from the spirit, otherwise the spirit will not result from the forms-a doctrine which has a constant application to practical politics. A celebrated event in ancient history is made the occasion of delivering this doctrine in reference both to civil liberty and national independence :

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wrong, and all sense of horror at cruelties and crimes, in an effeminate admiration of talents, achievements, and power. This admiration, thus counteracting the heart's better nature, was in truth, wheresoever it prevailed, an index of the absence or decay of the virtues which are essential to liberty. We have said an effeminate admiration; for it prevailed, we believe, chiefly amongst women, who are more prone than men to feel, concerning things at a distance, according to their effect in story, and not according to their reality in life. Casca, in Shakspeare's play, says of the women who forgave Cæsar, that if Cæsar had stabbed their mothers they would have done no less.' We would not assert so much of the admirers of Bonaparte, whether women or effeminate men. Facts, which are brought before the bodily eyes, or come home to the individual feelings of such persons, will set them right in their sentiments concerning an ambitious conqueror ;— the women of Zaragoza were under no mistake; but that nothing else may have power to do so, there was many a pitiable proof in this country during Bonaparte's career, and to such cases the latter part of the following sonnet adverts, in the strongest language of

A gift of that which is not to be given
By all the blended powers of Earth and Hea- reprehension which we recollect to have met

ven.'-p. 146.

with in Mr. Wordsworth's writings :

Again, in a sonnet written when Bonaparte was threatening the independence of this country, the poet, being at that time on the coast near Dover, contemplates the 'span of waters' which divides England from France, and admitting the mighty power of the physical barrier, yet regards it as merely For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.

Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise,
That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope
Of his pure song, which did not shrink from
In the worst moment of these evil days;
hope
From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven

lays,

Never may from our souls one truth depart-
That an accursed thing it is to gaze
On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye;
Nor-touched with due abhorrence of their
guilt

For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,

And justice labours in extremity-
Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,
O wretched man, the throne of tyranny !'-p.

178.

of liberty; and those who may study, along with their writings, Mr. Wordsworth's political sonnets and the large portion of his other works which bear upon the state and prospects of society, can hardly fail to increase and refresh their knowledge of these subjects, and to appreciate more justly the connection between true liberty and the mere political outworks which often take its name, without by any means comprising its sub

stance.

The corollary from this sonnet is, that when the admiration of anything opposed to For in what does the worth and gloriousvirtue is stronger than virtue itself in a peoness of liberty consist? Not in charters, ple, that people is unfit for liberty, and the statutes, and franchises: these are merely the vital spirit of liberty is not in them. Through documents and conveyances of liberty. Not how much of political theory and practice in the political powers and functions which ought this doctrine to be carried! Is there they authenticate: these, indeed, may constiin this country any constituency to which tute liberty as a means; but the end and what are called popular talents will recom- sanctifying principle of liberty consists in mend a representative notoriously profligate the peace and happiness, the independence and reprobate? That constituency is unfit and elevation of the minds of individual men. for its franchise; and whatever specious preLet us pursue the principle, therefore, into tences may be made of supporting a public practical life, and observe how far political principle, and distinguishing between public institutions succeed, and wherein they fail, to and private conduct-as if the support of produce personal independence. Take, for virtue was not a public principle-such an instance, an Austrian or Prussian tradesman, exercise of the franchise is tainting the very shopkeeper, obsequious behind his counterand place him side by side with the London sources of liberty in the land. For to sup- which is the free man? The Austrian or pose that liberty can be promoted whilst virtue is overlooked, is nothing else than to Prussian will generally be found to wear a suppose that the consequence can be procountenance and manner of independent duced without having regard to the cause. courtesy, confident of meeting the same in return, but not much more bent upon conciliating his customer than he expects his customer to be on conciliating him. The relations between them are marked by no other desire to please on the part of the tradesman, than belongs to the goodwill which ought to subsist between fellow-creatures. True, he is legally liable to be watched by a spy or imprisoned without a warrant; but be lives in no fear that such a thing will happen, and there is no sign that the degradation of his political state enters into his daily feelings, his transactions in business, or his habits in social intercourse. Turn, then, to the London shopkeeper. Of the signs and tokens to be observed in his manners we are unwilling to speak. It is enough to say that they are tinctured with a courtesy which is not independent. And whence comes this? It is not for want of statutes, charters, privileges, and immunities; it is for want of an independence which these gross instrumentalities can neither give nor take away; it is because his mind has been reached by a far more penetrating influence than any which is thus derived-because his will is enslaved; because his heart is venal, and he is ready to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. It is true that he shouts for liberty at the hustings; but

That liberty must rest upon a moral rather than a political basis, and that the attempt is vain to push it forward by merely political impulses, is a truth which has always been before the eyes of our great poets, though often lost to those of our politicians. Coleridge saw it in his youth, instructed by the events that were occurring in France, and expressed it with characteristic force:

'The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion.'*

Milton saw it, ardently political as he was; or perhaps he saw it only when the ardour of his political mind had been informed by experience and tempered by adversity. He asks in the 'Paradise Regained' (iv. 145) what wise man would seek to free a people 'by themselves enslaved,'

'Or could of inward slaves make outward free?' And in the Paradise Lost' (xii. 79) Michael explains to Adam that perfect liberty could only exist in Paradise, being inseparable from virtue, which again is identical with right These great men knew the nature

reason.

* France, an Ode.

though the voice is Jacob's voice, the hands activity to all, will impart an increase of are the hands of Esau; what he values in preponderance to the good. Thus wealth what he calls liberty is chiefly protection and activity, whilst adding largely to the igfrom a tax; money is still the tyrant of his norant and bedarkened part of the populamind; and the very colours of his political tion, produce a more than proportionate liberty may very often be nothing else than addition to those parts which are in some the badge of his inward servitude. degree instructed; and have a yet more imDo we, then, adduce this class, this mino-portant result in carrying the instruction of rity, this mere feature in our society, as im- those who were already instructed to a peaching the value of our free institutions in higher point, and along with greater entheir general results? Far from it. We lightenment, communicating to those classes value those institutions beyond everything greater power and efficacy in good works. except the spirit which produced them, and Hence we have a race of clergymen and the ends which they are to serve. But what country gentlemen far superior to their prewe do aim at is to insist, with Mr. Words-decessors. worth, that political liberty is good and glorious only so far as it conduces to moral and spiritual liberty, and to personal independence that it is pure and righteous only in

so far as it is

'Subservient still to moral purposes, Auxiliar to divine.**

But whilst we never forget that the results of our institutions are good in the main, and whilst we hope that there will accrue under them an incalculable accession of good in the end, it is fit that we should also look the evil results fairly in the face. Wealth and commercial activity, whilst they make the life of man in general a life of progress, worldly condition. By vicissitude the minds make it also a life of vicissitude as regards

And the practical conclusion is-not that any lover of liberty is to be in any one act or thought of his heart less ardent or strenuous of men are exercised in worldly hopes and in the love of liberty-but that for the very fears, the passions connected with gain and sake and in the spirit of that love, he is dili-loss are unduly excited, and the industry of gently to consider the mixed and contrarious the trading classes (which are perhaps the effects to which merely political proceedings most important classes as regards the stamp give birth; and if he supports measures which given to the national character) is no longer are brought forward in the name of politi-ordinate and greedy industry, carrying with the industry of necessity or duty, but an incal liberty, he is to see at least that they it often a taint of gambling speculation, and may be expected to promote personal independence, and so far as may be possible, resembling that vice in its wasting effect not independence only and of itself, but upon the heart. This species of industry, if an independence virtuous, enlightened, it intermits at all, is of too excited a naand founded in humility.

Having these principles in view, and taking the Sth Book of the Excursion' for a connecting commentary, the reader may be led by the Sonnets to trace the course of political liberty through some of its leading consequences in our own country. Its earliest and most assured result is wealth. From wealth is derived national power and independence, and a numerous population: but seeking for its effects within and amongst that population, we find them to be of a mixed and multifarious character, with perhaps only one characteristic common to all, whether good or bad-that of activity. And believing, as it would be impious to disbelieve-believing with a deep trust and assurance that the good elements in human nature are more powerful than the bad and are continually gaining upon them, it follows that an increase of

* Excursion, book iv.

ture to leave the heart to repose even in its intervals; it may possibly not be altogether absorbing and engrossing, but in that case not with rest, but with excitement of anoththe excitement of getting will alternateer kind-the excitement of spending:

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The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.'-
p. 39.*

The latter part of this sonnet has been misapprehended by some persons, who have supposed that Pagan superstitions were commended absolutely,

p. 138.

We have borrowed this from the Miscel-1 That virtue and the faculties within laneous series; but the next we shall quote Are vital,----and that riches are akin is in the same strain, and it was no doubt To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?' from seeing a moral slavery in all this, that Mr. Wordsworth placed it in the Political series in the present volume, and in the former editions amongst the 'Sonnets dedicated to Liberty.'

O thou proud City! which way shall I look
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,
To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook,
Or groom?-We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
The wealthiest man among us is the best :
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.

But though Mr. Wordsworth, in these and other Poems, animadverts upon riches or the love of riches as working against the freedom of the heart, he nowhere advocates equality of station as fostering either independence or any other virtue. Yet it may be asked, do not riches lie at the root of all worldly inequalities? Undoubtedly they do, and riches are as undoubtedly the basis of many social virtues. But in order to be so, they must not be thrown up suddenly by commercial vicissitudes; they must be stable and permanent, and give birth to permanent social relations. Riches which are stable and permanent are overgrown in the course of time with many associations and imaginative colourings, until they seem to be rather the adjuncts of a social pre-eminence than the substance and essence of it. This equable Again in the sonnet at page 138, riches and settled wealth neither agitates the mind are denounced for the fears which they ge- of the possessor nor provokes others to a In October, 1803, at the approach jealous emulation; and without the dif of the great conflict with Bonaparte, Mr. ferences of social rank which spring from Wordsworth had remarked that whilst other it, it may well be questioned whether classes were hopeful and manful, it was the rich who were fearful and desponding :

nerate.

p. 131.

'What do we gather hence but firmer faith That every gift of noble origin

Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;

some of the best parts of our nature would not remain uncultivated. Two kinds of humility at least would cease-that which in a superior forgets superiority, that which in an inferior remembers inferiority; and if it be said that this latter humility is incompatible with freedom of spirit, we answer that on the contrary it is the greatest support to it. For and not merely as being better than a total absence no spirit is less free than that which is jealof devotional and natural sentiment. All that Mr. Wordsworth contends for, is a preference of Tritonously unwilling to acknowledge adventitious or Proteus to Mammon. To those who have not advantages in others-none is more free or considered that, in our imperfect natures, the ap- more generous than that which forgets itself prehension of religious truth is merely relative, and in the respect which, through the influence of that superstition may be often by no means the imaginative sentiments and established manworst of our imperfections, we would recommend the study of some passages in the 21st chapter of ners, it feels for what is by itself (as it were) The Light of Nature and Gospel Lights blended.' placed above itself. Observe the difference An intellect at once more exact and more discur. between the condition of mind of a domestic sive than that of Abraham Tucker, was never exer- servant in the times when such service was cised in theology; and his fancy, if not as abundant as Jeremy Taylor's, is not ices aptly and hap almost hereditary, and that of a footman of the pily illustrative. He warns us against the hasty present day. In the one case authority was rooting out of superstition (or what we take to be softened, the value of kindness enhanced, atsuperstition) wherever it may be found, and at all tachment might take place, the better affecrisks: for it is not uncommon that the same plants tions might be exercised, and the spirit of a deserve cultivation in one place, but require weeding out from another. We sow fields of oats with care servant might be as free as the spirit of a child, and cost, but are very sorry to see them among our though like a child he was dependent. There wheat; the scarlet poppy and sun-resembling mari- are examples of this still, though they are rare gold, which burn up our corn, are esteemed ornaments in our gardens-the carpet-woven grass that unhappily; and it is commonly the case in beautifies our lawns must be extirpated from our the present times that the relation of master fallows by frequent and toilsome ploughings. But and servant resolves itself into the contract that superstition is not always a distinct plant-it is so much servility shall be given for such and sometimes like the green leaves of corn, which pro- such wages, and the independence of the mentect and assist to draw up nourishment into the spire, and will wither away of themselves as that ial is bought and sold. And even where there grows towards maturity.' are no relations of servitude, money intrudes

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