of the duty of economy, as a means to insure literary independence. Scott's reply always was, 'Oh, I can make as much as I please by writing.' writing.' 'This,' said Mr. W., ' was marvellous to me, who had never written a line with a view to profit.' Speaking of his own prose writing, he said that but for Coleridge's irregularity of purpose he should probably have left much more in that kind behind him. When Coleridge was proposing to publish his Friend, he (Mr. Wordsworth) offered contributions. Coleridge expressed himself pleased with the offer, but said, 'I must arrange my principles for the work, and when that is done I shall be glad of your aid.' But this ' arrangement of principles' never took place. Mr. Wordsworth added, 'I think my nephew, Dr. Wordsworth,* will, after my death, collect and publish all I have written in prose.' On this day, as I have heard him more than once before, Mr. Wordsworth-in a way very earnest, and to me very impressive and remarkable-disclaimed all value for, all concern about, posthumous fame." Wordsworth wrote to Mr. Gladstone from Rydal Mount, on the 21st March 1844 : "MY DEAR MR. GLADSTONE,-Pray accept my thanks for your State and Prospects of the Church, which I have carefully read; and lent it immediately to a neighbouring clergyman. You have approached the subject in a most becoming spirit, and treated it with admirable ability. From scarcely anything that you have said did I dissent, only I felt some little dissatisfaction as to the limits of your Catholicity, for some limits it must have; but probably you acted wisely in not being more precise upon this point. You advert to the formal and open schism of Methodism, but was not that of Disney, and others to which Cowper adverts, in some respects of more importance? * On another occasion, his nephew remarks, he intimated a desire that his works in prose should be edited by his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan. Not as relates to the two or three conspicuous individuals who seceded and became preachers in London, but from its leading the way to the transit of so great a number of Presbyterian Clergy with no small portion of their several congregations into Unitarianism. This occurred all over England, and was I believe especially remarkable in the city of Norwich, though many there took refuge in the Church of England. Happily there is both in the written word of God, and in the constitution of his creature Man, an adequate preservative from that lifeless form of religion; nevertheless, as it influenced in no small degree what in the Presbyterian and other congregations was called the better educated part of the community, the result was to be lamented, and in some respects more than the schism of the Wesleyans, which turned mainly if not exclusively at first upon the rejection of Episcopal jurisdiction, leaving the great points of Catholic doctrine untouched. To what you have so justly said upon Tractarianism much in the same spirit might be added. It was a grievous mistake that these Tracts issued from the same place, and were numbered, and at the same time anonymous. Upon the mischief that unavoidably attaches to publication without name, especially, you might have added, corporate publications, you have written with much truth and feeling. But the whole proceeding was wrong, and has led to errors, doubts, and uncertainties, shiftings and ambiguities, not to say absolute double-dealing, injurious to readers and perilous to those in whom they originated. First, it has caused the great and pernicious error of the Movement being called the Oxford Movement, as if it originated there; and had sprung up in a moment. But this opinion, which is false in fact, detracts greatly from its dignity, and tends much to narrow and obstruct its range of operation. There is one snare into which it was impossible that writers so combined should not fall, that of the individual claiming support for his opinion from the body when it suited him so to do, and rejecting it, and resting upon his individuality, when that answered his purpose better, I As to Romanism, having lived much in countries where it is dominant, and being not unacquainted with much of its history, my horror of it, I will not use a milder term, notwithstanding all that I love and admire in that Church, is great indeed. trust with you that there is small reason for believing that it will ever supplant our Church in this country, but we must never lose sight of its manifold attractions for the two extremes of our artificial society, the opulent and the luxurious, never trained to vigorous thinking, and who have outlived the power of indulging in their excesses, these on the one hand; and, on the other, the extreme poor, who are greatly in danger of falling under the influence of its doctrines, pressed upon them by a priesthood so constituted. But as my departed friend Southey said long ago— Onward in faith, and leave the rest to Heaven. With a thousand thanks for your valuable tract, and the best of good wishes for your health and welfare,—I remain, with sincere respect and regard, my dear Mr. Gladstone, faithfully yours, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH." The following are extracts from the Journals of Caroline Fox :-* "August 21st, 1843.-Aunt Charles sends brilliant accounts of her present environment. Hartley Coleridge on one side, Wordsworth on the other. She says the latter is very sensible and simple about the Laureateship; he speaks of it very kindly, but has quite declined doing any work connected with it on compulsion. He says it is most gratifying to fill the same station that Dryden and Southey have done. * Journals of Caroline Fox, vol. ii. p. 15. October 6, 1844.*-Anna Maria and I paid a visit to the Wordsworths. He was in great force, and evidently enjoyed a patient audience. He wanted to know how we came from Cornwall, which naturally brought us to railroads, and a short lament over the one they mean to introduce here. He grieves that the ravens and eagles should be disturbed in their meditations, and fears that their endeavours after lyric poetry will be checked. However, he admits that railroads and all the mechanical achievements of this day are doing wonders for the next generation; indeed, it is the appropriate work of this age and this country, and it is doing it gloriously. That anxious money-getting spirit which is a ruling principle in England, and a passion and a law in America, is doing much by exhausting itself; we may therefore look forward with hopeful trust. Nothing excellent or remarkable is done unless the doer lays a disproportionate weight on the importance of his own peculiar work; this is the history of all sects, parties, cliques, and stock-jobbers whatsoever. He discoursed on the utter folly of sacrificing health to books. No book-knowledge in the world can compensate you for such a loss; nothing can excuse your trifling with health except duty to God or to your neighbour. . . . Then we asked about his Solitary's valley-whether it had a real or only a poetical existence? Why, there is such a valley as I have described in that book of The Excursion, and there I took the liberty of placing the "solitary." He gave the outline of a beautiful tour for us amongst the lakes, and assured us that the guides would not treat us to passages from The Excursion, as they probably did not know of the existence of such a poem. Told him of our Wednesday evening readings of The Excursion. I hope you felt much the wiser for it when you had finished,' he said laughingly. When we told him who had * Vol. ii. pp. 37-44. been the genius of those bright starry evenings, he said, 'John Sterling! Oh! he has written many very beautiful poems himself; some of them I greatly admire. How is he now ? I heard that he was in poor health.' When told-'Dead!' he exclaimed; that is a loss to his friends, his country, and his age. A man of such learning and piety! So he is gone, and Bowles and Rogers left, who are so much older!' And the poor old man seemed really affected. He said, 'I was just going to have sent him a message by you to say how much I had been admiring his poetry.' I read him the lines— Regent of poetic mountains, Drawing from their deepest fountains Wordsworth, dear and honoured name, which he begged me to transcribe for him. Talked of the effect of German literature on the English mind. We must wait to find out what it is; my hope is, that the good will assimilate itself with all the good in the English character, and the mischievous element will pass away like so much else.' The only special criticism which he offered on German literature was, 'that they often sacrifice truth to originality, and in their hurry to produce new and startling ideas, do not wait to weigh their worth. When they have exhausted themselves, and are obliged to sit down and think, they just go back to the former thinkers, and thus there is a constant revolution without their being quite conscious of it. Kant, Fichte, Schelling; Schelling, Fichte, Kant; all this is dreary work, and does not denote progress. However, they have much of Plato in them, and for this I respect them; the English, with their devotion to Aristotle, have but half the truth; a sound philosophy must contain both Plato and Aristotle.' He talked of the national character of the French and their equalising methods of education. 'It is all VOL. III. 2 G |