WHEN Alpine Vales threw forth a suppliant cry, The majesty of England interposed * And the sword stopped; the bleeding wounds were closed; And Faith preserved her ancient purity. How little boots that precedent of good, For England's shame, O Sister Realm! from wood, Slain by Compatriot-protestants that draw From councils senseless as intolerant Their warrant. Bodies fall by wild sword-law; But who would force the Soul, tilts with a straw 5 VIII ACQUITTAL OF THE BISHOPS A VOICE, from long-expecting 1 thousands sent, * See Milton's Sonnet XVIII., On the late Massacre in Piedmont, beginning Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, This was in 1655. In the following year Cromwell, to whom the persecuted Vaudois subjects of the Duke of Savoy had appealed, interposed in their behalf. Nearly £40,000 were collected in England for their relief.-ED. † Compare The Excursion, book i. ll. 175, 176.—ED. The Bishops who protested against James II.'s Declaration of Indulgence and refused to read it. He ordered the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, For Justice hath absolved the innocent, The Fathers urge the People to be still, 5 9 With outstretched hands and earnest speech1—in vain! Yea, many, haply wont to entertain Small reverence for the mitre's offices, A Prelate's blessing ask on bended knees. IX WILLIAM THE THIRD CALM as an under-current, strong to draw 5 to deprive them of their Sees, and the Bishops were sent to the Tower. "They passed to their prison amidst the shouts of a great multitude, the sentinels knelt for their blessing as they entered the gates, and the soldiers of the garrison drank their healths. The Bishops appeared as criminals at the bar of the King's Bench. The jury had been packed, the judges were mere tools of the Crown, but judges and jury were alike overawed by the indignation of the people at large. No sooner had the foreman of the jury uttered the words Not guilty,' than a roar of applause burst from the crowd, and horsemen spurred along every road to carry over the country the news of the acquittal." (Green.) See Wordsworth's note to the eleventh sonnet in Part I. (p. 12.)-ED. * William III. of Nassau, Prince of Orange, was invited over to England by the nobles and commons who were disaffected towards James II., and landed at Torbay in November 1688.-ED. OBLIGATIONS OF CIVIL to religious libERTY 81 Swayed, and thereby enabled to contend The Hero comes to liberate, not defy; And, while he marches on with stedfast hope,1 ΙΟ X OBLIGATIONS OF CIVIL TO RELIGIOUS Ungrateful Country, if thou e'er forget Nor yet + 5 (Grave this within thy heart!) if spiritual things 1 1845. righteous hope, 1822. * King James II., who fled to France in December 1688.-ED. Algernon Sidney, second son of the Earl of Leicester, equally opposed to the tyranny of Charles and of Cromwell, was implicated in the Rye House Plot, arraigned before the chief-justice Jeffries, condemned illegally, and executed at Tower Hill in December 1683.-ED. Lord William Russell, third son of the Duke of Bedford, member of the House of Commons like Sidney, and like him implicated in the Rye House Plot, condemned at the Old Bailey, and beheaded at Lincoln's-Inn-Fields in July 1683.-ED. VOL. VII G However hardly won or justly dear : What came from heaven to heaven by nature clings, And, if dissevered thence, its course is short. ΧΙ SACHEVEREL * Published 1827 A SUDDEN conflict rises from the swell 1 5 ΙΟ As if a Church, though sprung from heaven, must owe 1 1832. Light with graver flatteries, 1827. * Henry Sacheverel, a high-church clergyman, preached two sermons in 1709, one at Derby, and the other in St. Paul's, London, in which he attacked the principles of the Revolution Settlement, taught the doctrine of nonresistance, and decried the Act of Toleration. He was impeached by the Commons, and tried before the House of Lords in 1710, was found guilty, and suspended from office for three years. This made him for the time the most popular man in England; and the general election which followed was fatal to the Government which condemned him. He was a weak and a vain man, who attained to notoriety without fame.-ED. DOWN A SWIFT STREAM 83 XII * “DOWN A SWIFT STREAM, THUS FAR, A BOLD DESIGN" Published 1827 Down a swift Stream, thus far, a bold design 1 5 10 The depths, and mark the compass of our theme. C. * Compare the extracts from Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (vol. vi. p. 300).-ED. |