Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew 10 Palafox-y-Melzi, Don Joseph (1780-1847), immortalized by his heroic defence of Saragossa in 1808-9. He was of an old Aragon family, and entered the Spanish army at an early age. In 1808, when twenty-nine years of age, he was appointed governor of Saragossa, by the people of the town, who were menaced by the French armies. He defended it with a few men, against immense odds, and compelled the French to abandon the siege, after sixty-one days' attack, and the loss of thousands. Saragossa, however, was too important to lose, and Marshals Mortier and Moncy renewed the siege with a large army. Palafox (twice defeated outside) retired to the fortress as before, where the men, women, and children fought in defence, till the city was almost a heap of ruins. Typhus attacked the garrison within, while the French army assailed it from without. Palafox, smitten by the fever, had to give up the command to another, who signed a capitulation next day. He was sent a prisoner to Vincennes, and kept there for nearly five years, till the restoration of Ferdinand VII., when he was sent back on a secret mission to Madrid. In 1814 he was appointed Captain-General of Aragon; but for about thirty years-till his death in 1847-he took no part in public affairs. -ED. "O'ER THE WIDE EARTH, ON MOUNTAIN AND ON PLAIN" Composed 1809. - Published 1809* O'ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, * In Coleridge's Friend, December 21.-ED. A Godhead, like the universal PAN ; * 5 10 Of man converse with immortality ? "HAIL, ZARAGOZA! IF WITH UNWET EYE" Composed 1809. - Published 1815 HAIL, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye 5 10 * Compare Aubrey de Vere's Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey, vol. i. chap. viii. p. 204.-ED. In The Friend (edition 1812), the following footnote occurs Led on the eternal spring.-MILTON." ED. + Compare a passage in Wordsworth's Essay Concerning the Convention of Cintra (1809, pp. 180-1), beginning "Most gloriously have the Citizens of Saragossa proved that the true army of Spain, in a contest of this nature, is the whole people."-ED. Till not a wreck of help or hope remained, See note to the sonnet beginning "And is it among rude untutored Dales" (p. 222). "Saragossa surrendered February 20, 1809, after a heroic defence, which may recall the sieges of Numantiaor Saguntum. Every street, almost every house, had been hotly contested; the monks, and even the women, had taken a conspicuous share in the defence; more than 40,000 bodies of both sexes and every age testified to the obstinate courage of the besieged." (See Dyer's History of Modern Europe, vol. iv. p. 496.)—ED. "SAY, WHAT IS HONOUR?—'TIS THE Composed 1809. - Published 1815 Say, what is Honour?-'Tis the finest sense And guard the way of life from all offence Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail, Glory, and triumph. Yet with politic skill 5 10 necessity was italicised in the editions of 1815 A Kingdom doth assault, and in the scale 1815. * The beginning is imitated from an Italian Sonnet.-W. W. 1815. In 1837 Wordsworth put it thus, "In this Sonnet I am under some obligations to one of an Italian author, to which I cannot refer." But it is to be noted that in the edition of 1837, this note does not refer to the sonnet on Saragossa, but to that beginning "O, for a kindling touch from that pure flame," belonging to the year 1816. In subsequent editions the note is reappended to this sonnet beginning "Hail, Zaragoza!"-ED. Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust- "BRAVE SCHILL! BY DEATH DELIVERED, TAKE THY FLIGHT" Composed 1809.-Published 1815 BRAVE Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed. 5 10 Ferdinand von Schill, a distinguished Prussian officer, born 1773, entered the army 1789, was seriously wounded in the battle of Jena, but took the field again at the head of a free corps. Indignant at the subjection of his country to Buonaparte, he resolved to make a great effort for the liberation of Germany, collected a small body of troops, and commenced operations on the Elbe; but after a few successes was overpowered and slain at Stralsund, May 31, 1809. On June 4, 1809, Wordsworth writing to Daniel Stewart, editor of The Courier newspaper, says, "Many thanks for the newspaper. Schill is a fine fellow." The sonnet was doubtless inspired by what he thus heard of Schill.-ED. 1 1837. in a darksome night: 1815. "CALL NOT THE ROYAL SWEDE Composed 1809. - Published 1815 CALL not the royal Swede unfortunate, Who never did to Fortune bend the knee; Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly Temptation; and whose kingly name and state Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared ; And hence, wherever virtue is revered, He sits a more exalted Potentate, Throned in the hearts of men. 5 Should Heaven ordain 10 That this great Servant of a righteous cause Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure, The royal Swede, "who never did to Fortune bend the knee," was Gustavus IV. He abdicated in 1809, and came to London at the close of the year 1810. Compare the earlier sonnet on the same King of Sweden (vol. ii. p. 338), beginning The Voice of song from distant lands shall call. In the edition of 1827, Wordsworth added the following note: "In this and a former Sonnet, in honour of the same Sovereign, let me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles avowed in his manifestos; as laying hold of these advantages for the purpose of embodying moral truths. This remark might, perhaps, as well have been suppressed ; for to those who may be in sympathy with the course of these Poems, it will be superfluous; and will, I fear, be thrown away upon that other class, whose besotted admiration of the intoxicated despot here placed in contrast with him, is the most melancholy evidence of degradation in British feeling and intellect which the times have furnished. "-ED. |