A PLEA FOR AUTHORS, MAY 1838.

FAILING impartial measure to dispense
To every suitor, Equity is lame;

And social Justice, stript of reverence

For natural rights, a mockery and a shame;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence,
If, guarding grossest things from common claim,
Now and for ever, She, to works that came
From mind and spirit, grudge a short-lived fence,
"What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie

For Books!" Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved
That 'tis a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;

No public harm that Genius from her course

Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at their source!

A POET TO HIS GRANDCHILD.

(Sequel to the foregoing.)

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand

"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think

"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink

"Thy children left unfit, through vain demand

"Of culture, even to feel or understand

"My simplest Lay that to their memory

May cling;-hard fate! which haply need not be

"Did Justice mould the statutes of the Land.

"A Book time-cherished and an honoured name
"Are high rewards; but bound they nature's claim
"Or Reasons? No-hopes spun in timid line
"From out the bosom of a modest home
"Extend through unambitious years to come,
My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!" *
May 23rd.

* The author of an animated article, printed in the Law Magazine, in

BLEST Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will Leaves him1 at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye Sees that, apart from magnanimity,

Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill

Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill
With patient care. What tho' assaults run high,
They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil

Its duties;-prompt to move, but firm to wait,-
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found:
That, for the functions of an ancient State-
Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate-
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.*

PROTEST AGAINST THE BALLOT.†

Comp. 1838.

Pub. 1838.

Forth rushed from Envy sprung and Self-conceit,
A Power misnamed the SPIRIT of REFORM,
1 1845.

favour of the principle of Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill, precedes me in the public expression of this feeling; which had been forced too often upon my own mind, by remembering how few descendants of men, eminent in literature, are even known to exist.-W. W., 1838.

The sonnet is not addressed to any grandson of the Poet's.-ED. "All change is perilous, and all chance unsound."

-Spenser.-W. W., 1838.

+ In his notes to the volume of Collected Sonnets (1836), Wordsworth writes:-"Protest against the Ballot.' Having in this notice alluded only in general terms to the mischief which, in my opinion, the Ballot would bring along with it, without especially branding its immoral and antisocial tendency (for which no political advantages, were they a thousand times

And through the astonished Island swept in storm,
Threatening to lay all orders at her feet.

That crossed her way. Now stoops she to entreat

Licence to hide at intervals her head
Where she may work, safe, undisquieted,
In a close Box, covert for Justice meet.
St George of England! keep a watchful eye
Fixed on the Suitor; frustrate her request-
Stifle her hope; for, if the State comply,
From such Pandorian gift may come a Pest
Worse than the Dragon that bowed low his crest,
Pierced by thy spear in glorious victory.

VALEDICTORY SONNET.

Closing the Volume of Sonnets published in 1838.

Comp. 1838.

Pub. 1838.

SERVING no haughty Muse, my hands have here
Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre;

Both to allure the casual Loiterer,

And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.

But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,

greater than those presumed upon, could be a compensation), I have been impelled to subjoin a reprobation of it upon that score. In no part of my writings have I mentioned the name of any contemporary, that of Buonaparte only excepted, but for the purpose of eulogy; and therefore, as in the concluding verse of what follows, there is a deviation from this rule (for the blank will be easily filled up) I have excluded the sonnet from the body of the collection, and placed it here as a public record of my detestation, both as a man and a citizen, of the proposed contrivance." Then follows the sonnet beginning

"Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud."

(See p. 32.)-ED

Reader, farewell! My last words let them be-
If in this book Faney and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!

1839.

The fourteen sonnets "Upon the Punishment of Death were originally published in the Quarterly Review (in December 1841), in an article on the "Sonnets of William Wordsworth" by Henry (now Sir Henry) Taylor, the author of Philip van Artevelde, and other poems. Towards the close of this article, after reviewing the volume of sonnets published in 1838, Sir Henry adds, "There is a short series written two years ago, which we have been favoured with permission to present to the public for the first time. It was suggested by the recent discussions in Parliament and elsewhere on the subject of the 'Punishment of Death.'" When republishing this and other critical Essays on Poetry, in the collected edition of his works in 1878, Sir Henry omitted the paragraphs relating to these particular sonnets.

SUGGESTED BY THE VIEW OF LANCASTER CASTLE (ON THE ROAD FROM THE SOUTH.)

THIS Spot-at once unfolding sight so fair

Of sea and land, with yon grey towers that still
Rise up as if to lord it over air-

"In the session of 1836, a report by the Commissioners on Criminal Law-of which the second part was on this subject (the Punishment of Death)-was laid before Parliament. In the ensuing session this

Might soothe in human breasts the sense of ill,
Or charm it out of memory; yea, might fill
The heart with joy and gratitude to God
For all his bounties upon man bestowed:
Why bears it then the name of "Weeping Hill? " *
Thousands, as toward yon old Lancastrian Towers,
A prison's crown, along this way they past
For lingering durance or quick death with shame,
From this bare eminence thereon have cast
Their first look-blinded as tears fell in showers
Shed on their chains; and hence that doleful name.

II. t

TENDERLY do we feel by Nature's law

For worst offenders: though the heart will heave
With indignation, deeply moved we grieve,
In after thought, for Him who stood in awe
Neither of God nor man, and only saw,

was followed by papers presented to Parliament by her Majesty's command, and consisting of a correspondence between the Commissioners, Lord John Russell, and Lord Denman. Upon the foundation afforded by these documents, the bills of the 17th July 1837-(7th Gul. IV. and 1st Vict. cap. 84 to 89 and 91)-were brought in and passed. These acts removed the punishment of death from about 200 offences, and left it applicable to high treason, -murder and attempts at murder-rape-arson with danger to life-and to piracies, burglaries, and robberies, when aggravated by cruelty and violence." (Sir Henry Taylor, Quarterly Review, Dec. 1841, p. 39.) Some members of the House of Commons-Mr Fitzroy Kelly, Mr Ewart, and others-desired a further limitation of the punishment of death to the crimes of murder and treason only: and the question of the entire abolition of capital punishment being virtually before the country, Wordsworth dealt with it in the following series of sonnets.-ED.

* The name given to the spot from which criminals on their way to the Castle of Lancaster first see it.-ED.

+ "The first sonnet prepares the reader to sympathise with the sufferings of the culprits. The next cautions him as to the limits within which his sympathies are to be restrained." (Sir H. Taylor.)—ED.