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 I 4 
 
 WRIGHT 
 
 REPLY TO A SCURRILOUS 
 ARTICLE ON MR. WRIGHT'S 
 " POETRY SACRED AND 
 PROFaNE"
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 REPLY 
 
 TO 
 
 A SCURRILOUS ARTICLE 
 
 a 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. WRIGHT'S 
 POETRY SACRED AND PROFANE," 
 
 AS CONTAINED IN THE 
 
 "NOTTINGHAMSHIRE GUARDIAN" 
 
 of October 30. 1851. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1851.
 
 London : 
 
 Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 
 
 New-street-Square.
 
 5T7? 
 
 A REPLY, 
 
 &c. 
 
 The history of mankind affords abundant evidence of 
 the fact, that in proportion to the magnitude of a 
 popular error, and the amount of individual zeal for 
 its correction, is the measure of ingratitude and abuse 
 commonly awarded in return. Such has been the 
 recompense of discoverers in science, of great moral 
 teachers, of social and political reformers ; and it would 
 seem to be the lot of any that shall dare to challenge 
 the pretensions of an acknowledged authority in lite- 
 rature. Nor does it inspire one with a very lofty 
 conception of human . justice to find that, whilst an 
 inquiry into the writings of a man appointed by the 
 State to an office of intellectual distinction, and paid 
 out of the public Treasury for sustaining it, though 
 conducted openly, avowedly, and in the true spirit of 
 criticism, shall subject its author to the charge of 
 
 A 2 
 
 3074308
 
 literary treason, the meanest hireling in our periodical 
 literature, under the plea of established usage, shall 
 claim the right of covertly assailing him, in reply, with 
 the foulest vituperation that malignancy can suggest. In 
 publishing my strictures on the genius and versification 
 of Wordsworth, I was not unaware that I should 
 expose myself to the risk of such treatment : warning 
 upon warning reached me from intelligent friends ; but 
 it is no part of my policy to compromise my inde- 
 pendence, and I chose to express my convictions in so 
 undisguised a form as should make me personally 
 answerable for their enunciation. No sooner had 
 my volume, entitled " Poetry Sacred and Profane," 
 appeared, than the rabid partisans of the prevailing 
 school of poetry visited me with their utmost in- 
 dignation. Foremost in the onslaught stood an arro- 
 gant reviewer in the " Morning Post" — that feeble, 
 impotent representative of a political code under which 
 industry pined, and virtue long, too long, sorrowed in 
 our streets. This was but natural. To the principles 
 advocated in the " Morning Post" the Lake Poets were 
 professedly attached. Coleridge, who, until degraded 
 by vice that would have ruined a yet brighter intellect, 
 is said to have been the most powerful writer of the 
 party, was employed upon it for some time ; and 1
 
 honour the feeling that prompted the editor, in remem- 
 brance of his past services, to come to the rescue of 
 Wordsworth in his extremity. In the late Laureate's 
 success Coleridge was deeply interested ; for whether 
 hired to the work or not, he is best known in the 
 republic of letters for his special pleading on Words- 
 worth's behalf. But though inclined to make due 
 allowance for the sympathy entertained by the " Morn- 
 ing Post" for the imperilled reputation of the late 
 Laureate, I have little cause to respect the mode in 
 which it has been exercised. Conscious of his inability 
 to refute the argument by which I had arrived at a 
 just appreciation of the Poets merit, the reviewer sought 
 refuge in the well known classical proverb — 
 
 qui rem facias, rem, 
 Si possis, recte ; si non, quocunque rnodo rem, 
 
 and lavished upon me a torrent of brutal invective 
 that has hardly a parallel in the annals of criticism. 
 So gross an outrage would have been less surprising, 
 if I had availed myself of the collateral testimony of 
 the biographer, when dealing with the subject on which 
 I happen to be at issue with established opinion. I 
 might have shown that the selfishness which uniformly 
 distinguished the Poet through a long life, as witnessed 
 
 A 3
 
 in the little concern lie manifested for his best friends, 
 was in keeping with the affectation of sensibility be- 
 trayed in his verse. I might have placed him in a 
 yet more unenviable position, by alluding to the heart- 
 less manner in which he would disparage the literary 
 productions of one who, in all the gifts and graces 
 that most liken man to his Maker, was vastly his 
 superior.* I might have illustrated his self-sufficiency 
 by reference to the contempt he avowed for nearly all 
 authorities in literature, whether ancient or modern. 
 And I might have involved him further in depravity 
 of sentiment, by quoting the fact that he would 
 wantonly cut a new and valuable book with a knife 
 that had been recently besmeared with butter ! Thus 
 much had been related of him by others : but I declined 
 to pursue the Poet through the relations of social life, 
 except for the sake of conveying my unfeigned admi- 
 ration of the motive that governed his literary career. 
 My dealing was with the character of his writings ; 
 and for having presumed to exercise the right of 
 individual judgment in the most unexceptionable man- 
 ner I could devise, the " Morning Post " has attacked 
 me with a scurrility that would have subjected its 
 
 * Robert Southey.
 
 author to the penalty of tine or imprisonment, if he 
 had personally addressed it to me in the streets of 
 London. 
 
 Encouraged by the impunity with which such outrage 
 may be committed, the "Nottinghamshire Guardian" 
 has published an article exceeding in virulence, if 
 possible, that of the " Morning Post," It is no part of 
 my intention to retaliate after a like manner. An 
 insult that may be so easily repelled by the aid of 
 reason would be ill redressed by low ribaldry. Identi- 
 fied as is my assailant with the cause of agricultural 
 protection and its associate interests, it is with singular 
 infelicity that he sneers at my contributions to pastoral 
 poetry. His zeal in the very onset outstrips his pru- 
 dence: for disregarding the fact that Wordsworth's 
 fame is based on the supposed ability with which he 
 has treated butterflies, robins, larks, sparrows' nests, and 
 pet lambs, he charges me with self-exaggeration, because 
 I have been able to gratify my friends with a poetical 
 description of snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, spring 
 flowers, &c. As well might he revile Theocritus for 
 having entertained his friends with similar effusions.* 
 
 * Kcu to pocov koXov ecrri, icai o \puvog aiiro fiapaivti' 
 Kct< to iov Ka\6v iotiv kv eiapt, ical ra%v yiP$' 
 Aevkov to Kpivov tori, ^iiipaiviTat ariKci ttittti)' 
 
 A 4
 
 I profess only to have pleased my personal acquaintance, 
 as may be learned by reference to the early part of my 
 " Introduction." And in what respect have I offended 
 good taste by submitting my verses, as was also Words- 
 worth's habit, to the consideration of my literary con- 
 nexions, before engaging to publish them ? The practice 
 is of great antiquity, and has, moreover, the sanction of 
 universal custom. But my reviewer in the " Guardian," 
 though perhaps objecting not to this course in principle, 
 regrets its observance on my part, because I have been 
 tempted by the " flattery of friendship" to publish much 
 that was admired, and thus throw myself " on the sharp 
 weapons of criticism." If it be any consolation, in his 
 anxiety on my account, to be faithfully dealt with, I 
 can assure him that unless such " weapons" come 
 
 'A %s X l ^ v ^£ VK <*) Ka ' raKirai arlica. Tra-^Ofj' 
 
 Kat KaXXog ku\6v ion to TratxuKov, aAA' 6\iyov (,r\. 
 
 Idyl, xxiii. 28. 
 
 The blushing rose exhales a sweetness round, 
 Then drooping fast falls scentless to the ground ; 
 The violet, nurtured by the genial rays 
 Of opening Spring, expands, and soon decays ; 
 The fragrant lily too, howe'er it glow 
 With beauty, sinks as does the fallen snow ; 
 So lovely youth, frail as the transient flower, 
 Must quickly yield to Death's relentless power.
 
 better sharpened than are those from his armory, I 
 shall have little cause to bewail my friends' applause, 
 or my own temerity. With a bravery equal to that of 
 the redoubtable critic of the " Morning Post," the hero 
 of the " Guardian" bounces and fulminates, in the hope 
 to fill me with horrid apprehensions, for having written 
 a spirited " Introduction" to my volume. Had the 
 book " come before the world either without any intro- 
 duction, or (with) one different from that which occu- 
 pies its first thirty pages," he might have displayed less 
 formidable anger, and I, with his consent, have passed 
 unscathed. " Ay, there's the rub : " that Introduction 
 will surely break his heart, and haply some besides. 
 And yet 'tis " strange," 'tis " passing strange," that the 
 composition which he pronounces to be of such feeble 
 import that a child might have conceived it, should have 
 thrown into a paroxysm of rage two doughty champions 
 of Wordsworth's muse! Unfortunately for our local 
 critic, he lacks every requisite of his art. The freedom 
 with which he misquotes an author, his bad grammar, 
 imperfect reading, and unaccountable ignorance of the 
 simplest truths in Nature, disqualify him to rank with 
 even 
 
 " The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, 
 With loads of learned lumber in his head."
 
 10 
 
 And in trespassing on a delicate province more rudely 
 than his exemplar of the " Morning Post," he extorts 
 the declaration that 
 
 " i'ools rush in where angels fear to tread." 
 
 Aware, most likely, that the stanzas written by 
 Wordsworth on the death of Lucy, which I have else- 
 where adduced, as affording but a questionable proof 
 of tenderness, have been held by some journalists to 
 constitute an exquisite little poem, he insists on their 
 superiority to some verses of my own. I have never 
 had the vanity to contend with the Laureate for the 
 palm: without troubling myself, therefore, about the 
 comparison, I shall proceed to show in Avhat the mean- 
 ness of this piece consists. 
 
 " She dwelt among the untrodden ways 
 Beside the springs of Dove, 
 A Maid whom there were none to praise 
 And very few to love." 
 
 An inelegance, almost exclusively confined to writers 
 of the Lake school, as seen in the employment of a 
 noun together with its correspondent pronoun, dis- 
 figures this stanza. The bad taste implied in its 
 adoption will be the more obvious on a transposition 
 of the words. A maid she dwelt among the untrodden
 
 11 
 
 ways. It may be urged that our authorized version 
 of the Bible sanctions the usage I condemn. So it 
 does : but it is equally true that a modern version 
 would not be suffered to perpetuate the fault. A man 
 of education is rarely, if ever, heard to offend the ear 
 by the use of this pleonasm ; and a schoolboy, who 
 should construct a stanza after such fashion, would 
 most assuredly expose himself to the ridicule of his 
 class-fellows, and the reproof of his master. Admira- 
 tion of the fair sex is the common precursor of love ; 
 and those whom we admire we are wont to praise. 
 Then is there no self-contradiction involved in the Poet's 
 assertion that, though impliedly loved, there was none 
 to praise his Lucy ? 
 
 " A violet by a mossy stone 
 Half hidden from the eye ! 
 Fair as a star, when only one 
 Is shining in the sky." 
 
 T know not how the Poet could have selected a better 
 emblem of Lucy's beauty, modesty, sweetness, and 
 seclusion, than was to be found in the simple violet. 
 But in making this admission, I take it for granted 
 that he designed the flower to represent her charms. 
 No comparison is instituted ; hence the reader is left 
 to provide for an awkward ellipsis, as his ingenuity
 
 12 
 
 shall best enable him, because it would seem that the 
 writer knew not how to give full and perfect expression 
 to his own thoughts. If, instead of crippling himself 
 in this manner upon the two first lines, he had taken 
 the entire stanza through which to convey his meaning, 
 he might have acquitted himself better : but dissatisfied, 
 apparently, with the flower as a type of Lucy's worth, 
 he would fain have likened her to a star that blazes 
 in the firmament, to be seen of all men. How could 
 these two objects, having no attributes in common, be 
 made alike illustrative of the maiden ? 
 
 " She lived unknown, and few could know 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave, and, oh, 
 The difference to me ! " 
 
 r Flie Poet now recurs to Lucy's unobtrusive sim- 
 plicity, which happens to be directly at variance with 
 the personal attractiveness implied in her resemblance 
 to a star ; and then announcing her death, he leaves 
 us to infer in what degree he bewailed her loss, by 
 saying that it made a " difference " to him. It is but 
 charitable to suppose that the " difference " was felt 
 in a diminution of his worldly happiness ; yet it is 
 difficult to imagine that the man, who had confessedly
 
 13 
 
 no praise to bestow on Lucy during her life, would 
 suffer much anguish at her death. 
 
 This analysis of what is said to express " the deep 
 but subdued and silent fervour " of the Poet may, per- 
 adventure, be somewhat distaseful to my reviewer in 
 the " Guardian," and other lovers of the bathos : and 
 it is to be feared that I shall not atone for my trans- 
 gression by contending that the town in which I live, 
 though by no means distinguished for its literature, 
 is crowded with youth of both sexes that could do 
 greater honour to Lucy's memory than was conferred 
 upon it by Wordsworth. 
 
 The critic's pitiful remarks on " My love and I 
 together grew " shall be disposed of in few words. 
 I can easily believe a man, mean enough to make a 
 pretended critique the vehicle of personal insult, to be 
 a stranger to the use of endearing epithets : I can 
 believe such man to be scantily endowed with sense 
 as with moral principle : but I cannot believe him to 
 be so ignorant as not to know that the term " My love," 
 in this instance, applies to the object of regard. This 
 being understood, all his tortuous cavillings serve but 
 to disclose the wickedness of his purpose. 
 
 After a little further vapouring, my reviewer ob-
 
 14 
 
 serves " it is with Mr. Wright, not tcith Mr. Words- 
 worth, that we have now to deal : " then, by an amusing 
 stroke of practical negation, he presents to my notice a 
 few of the Laureate's stanzas, and asks what I have 
 to say of them. Irrelevant as is their consideration to 
 my own defence, I will bestow upon them a passing 
 comment. 
 
 " There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
 The earth, and every common sight, 
 To me did" seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light, 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — 
 Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
 By night or day, 
 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more." 
 It would be unjust to deny that the former part of 
 
 this stanza well expresses the sentiments of all who look 
 back upon that sunny period of life when, at the sight 
 of every new object, the heart leaped for joy : and I 
 presume it was the Poefs intention to say that now 
 having attained to manhood, Nature wears not so divine 
 an aspect as she then did. Literally interpreted, how- 
 ever, he is in the predicament of Milton — insensible to 
 those inviting scenes that wait on vision. Nor is it pos-
 
 15 
 
 sible to force any other meaning upon the passage, by a 
 gratuitous assumption of tropes and figures. 
 
 " Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
 By night or day, 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more " 
 
 is a plain unqualified attestation of a fact which, having 
 not its basis in truth, can find no countenance in the 
 false guise of poetry. 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And cometh from afar : 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home : " 
 
 The characteristic idiosyncrasy of the Poet is well 
 illustrated in this stanza. 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:" 
 
 Who, besides Wordsworth, would have written that ? 
 Whatever he might have wished to express, it is certain 
 that the doctrine of transmigration is here boldly pro- 
 pounded ! "The soul that rises with us — hath had 
 elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar," unconscious 
 of its former association, as implied in the " sleep " and
 
 16 
 
 "forgetting" with which "birth" is identified. But 
 now wishing to qualify the sense, as was his custom, he 
 tells us that the soul comes " not in entire forgetfulness, 
 and not in utter nakedness ; " and we are thus to sup- 
 pose that on quitting the body in which it formerly 
 dwelt, it receives a commission to inhabit another, and 
 comes "trailing clouds of glory — from God, who is our 
 home." Nor is it unreasonable to conclude that, as my 
 reviewer in the " Guardian" refers me to the passage 
 with much exultation, it involves an hypothesis to which 
 he cordially subscribes. And having enjoyed the bene- 
 fit of the Poets philosophy of birth, it would be unfair 
 to deny him the solace afforded by the same authority 
 in the event of death : 
 
 " Sleep 
 Doth, in my estimate of good, appear 
 A better state than waking ; death than sleep : 
 Feelingly siveet is stillness after storm, 
 Though under covert of the wormy ground !" 
 
 Almost as certainly as that light is refracted in its 
 transmission through an earthly medium, did truth 
 suffer obscurity in encountering Wordsworth's mind : 
 such indeed was his intellectual perversion, that he could 
 scarcely avail himself of information, come whence it 
 might, without adulterating it with some adventitious
 
 17 
 
 weakness of his own. Limited to the sphere of the 
 nursery, where 
 
 " ten low words oft creep in one dull line," 
 
 no harm resulted from this infirmity. But he grew 
 inflated, — took higher ground, — and speculating con- 
 fidently, in proportion as he departed from current 
 opinion did he commonly lapse into error. 
 
 Having thus far endeavoured to edify my reviewer 
 with a criticism on the verse of which he boasts, I shall 
 hasten to meet the objections he offers to my poem on 
 " the Thrush." By an unfortunate obliquity of thought 
 to which impertinence is liable, he proposes to compare 
 it with one on a like subject from the pen of Words- 
 worth, and then complacently introduces " the reverie of 
 poor Susan," in which the bird has neither part nor lot, 
 except that it reminded Susan of the home of her child- 
 hood. A little further search amongst the Laureate's 
 pastorals might have rewarded him with a discovery of 
 several thrushes, engaged in concert with other birds, 
 to whose united sweetness my own " Thrush " must 
 have deferred. And as it would be ungenerous to take 
 advantage of his omission in this instance, I shall do 
 what he has left undone. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 " The sun has long been set, 
 
 The stars are out by twos and threes, 
 
 The little birds are piping yet 
 Among the bushes and trees ; 
 
 There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes, 
 
 And a far-off wind that rushes, 
 
 And a sound of water that gushes, 
 
 And the cuckoo's sovereign cry 
 
 Fills all the hollow of the sky. 
 Who would 'go parading' 
 
 In London, ' and masquerading,' 
 
 On such a night of June 
 
 With that beautiful soft half-moon, 
 
 And all these innocent blisses ? 
 
 On such a night as this is ! " 
 
 To those who, like the Poet, shall have been privi- 
 leged to hear the thrush, the cuckoo, and other diurnal 
 songsters, long after sunset, when the stars have been 
 out " by twos and threes," this effort to commemorate, 
 in imperishable song, an event of such rare occurrence, 
 will, I doubt not, be highly acceptable. 
 
 Since the critic has been pleased to assure me that 
 his animadversions were dictated " in no unkind spirit," 
 I can conceive it possible that he might have quoted 
 the five stanzas, of which my poem " to the Thrush " 
 consists, if, as he ingenuously intimates, he could have 
 found space for more than three. Being provided with
 
 19 
 
 that which to him was a desideratum, and being more- 
 over on good terms with the entire piece, I shall submit 
 it to the reader's attention, before dealing with the 
 clamour that has been raised against it. 
 
 TO THE THRUSH. 
 
 Herald of Spring ! thy quickening call 
 
 To unawakened joy inspires 
 The listless grove, the fields, *and all 
 
 Inherent hope with fond desires; 
 While storms, arrested by thy spell, 
 Shrink back in frozen wilds to dwell. 
 
 The Genii of the woods revere 
 
 Thee as the soul of fabled Pan, 
 Enlivening with thy strains the ear 
 
 Of generous and untutored man; 
 And, smiling in their woodland flowers, 
 They lure thee to their sylvan bowers. 
 
 Lavish of song, thy music fills 
 
 The distant plain with varied mirth, 
 
 That wakes the voice of echoing hills, 
 Till all the teeming face of earth, 
 
 Responsive to thy vocal sweets, 
 
 The story of thy love repeats. 
 
 * The words in italics are now printed to correspond with the 
 reviewer's type. 
 
 b 2
 
 20 
 
 The shade of heathen Druid holds 
 Communion with thy sprightly race, 
 
 In mystic language that unfolds 
 Its virtue in the pica sing grace 
 
 Of mistletoe, dispensing charms 
 
 To Britons with extended arras! 
 
 Pomona, with indulgent hand, 
 
 Invites thee to her rich domain ; 
 Yea, cultured and uncultured land 
 
 Attest thy undisputed reign ; 
 While admiration seals the tongue 
 When listening to thy welcome song ! 
 
 There is an old proverb that a work well begun is 
 half accomplished, dimidium facti, qui cospit, habet, to 
 which it would appear, in the estimation of my re- 
 viewer, I have paid little heed ; for he charges me with 
 having introduced " the Thrush " in a false character, 
 inasmuch as I have allowed him to "usurp the office 
 usually assigned to the swallow and cuckoo." That 
 this man can neither have read a creditable authority 
 in Natural History, nor have observed the habits of 
 the feathered race, I will engage to prove. The 
 Missel Thrush is a bird of vigorous habit, whose 
 notes may be occasionally heard at Christmas, — often 
 in January ; and in the following month he is pretty 
 nearly in full song. Let but a gleam of sunshine now
 
 21 
 
 appear, and from the top of an apple tree, an oak, 
 or a poplar, while other birds are mute, he will greet 
 the approaching Spring in a strain that seems to ani- 
 mate all Nature. Nay, he will even combat the wind 
 and rain in his mirth ; so that " the name of Storm-cock 
 is a well known appellation for the Missel Thrush."* 
 While thus anticipating every other bird in song, 
 where are the migratory swallow and cuckoo ? They 
 reach not our shores until about the middle of April, 
 when, according to a somewhat prevalent notion, Spring 
 has already commenced her genial reign. Concur- 
 rently with this seasonable accession of sprightliness in 
 the Thrush, is witnessed a like impatience of restraint in 
 the vegetable kingdom. The vital principle, which has 
 previously been latent, discovers itself in a visible series 
 of reproductive operations, as in the instance of sentient 
 life. And since the Thrush stands alone in ministering 
 to expectancy, I cannot have exceeded the licence of 
 poetry in the first stanza addressed to him : 
 
 Herald of Spring! thy quickening call 
 
 To unawakened joy inspires 
 The listless grove, the fields, and all 
 
 Inherent hope with fond desires ; 
 "While storms, arrested by thy spell, 
 Shrink back in frozen wilds to dwell. 
 
 * Yarrell. 
 
 B 3
 
 22 
 
 Another difficulty occurs to the critic in the next 
 stanza ; for not being " well up " in the learning of the 
 schools, he cannot discover the appropriateness of my 
 allusion to the Egyptian deity. He who has listened to 
 the varied notes of the Missel Thrush will hardly have 
 failed to mark how closely some of them resemble those 
 of the Pan-pipe or mouth organ. And the bird, like the 
 fabled god, being for the most part a resident of wood 
 and grove, the faculty of association readily accorded to 
 it the spirit of this deity. Pan, moreover, having been 
 esteemed the god of shepherds, I could be at no loss to 
 conceive the applicability of the songster to the enjoy- 
 ment of such as are engaged in pastoral husbandry. 
 Does the reviewer object to my recognition of the 
 farmer as a "generous and untutored man"? Why, 
 the simplicity with which he suffers himself to be 
 deluded by the " Nottinghamshire Guardian " into a 
 belief that the Legislature will re-impose a corn law, 
 for the benefit of landlords and their tenantry, at the 
 cost of the manufacturing and commercial interests, is 
 the best authority I can plead in justification of the 
 expression. But while ascribing to the farmer a gene- 
 rosity which greatly enhances his claim to sympathy at 
 a period of agricultural depression almost without pre- 
 cedent, I will do him the further justice to assert that
 
 23 
 
 he is too well acquainted with his vernacular tongue 
 to insist, as does my reviewer, that "woodland" and 
 " sylvan" are correlative terms. Woodland, in its most 
 correct sense, means land occupied by wood; and 
 "woodland flowers" are such as grow upon its surface, 
 and which, in the primitive phraseology of Wordsworth, 
 would be called " ground-flowers." Sylvan, on the 
 contrary, has immediate reference to that which consti- 
 tutes the wood. By a sylvan bower, then, is implied a 
 retreat of some altitude, in which the Thrush is found 
 as well to sing as to build its nest : thus the necessary 
 distinction between these epithets, at which the re- 
 viewer sneers, is duly preserved in the couplet that 
 closes the second stanza. Passing by the third, he 
 encounters an inexplicable difficulty at the fourth stanza, 
 where the Thrush, Druidic shades, and mistletoe seem, 
 in his bewilderment, to dance before him 'in all the 
 mazes of metaphorical confusion.' For his comfort I 
 would remark that the Druids " deemed the mistletoe 
 sacred, if it vegetated from the oak. They selected 
 groves of oaks, and thought every thing sent from 
 heaven which grew on this tree. On the sixth day of 
 the moon, wliich was the beginning of their months and 
 years, and of their period of thirty years, they came to 
 the oak on which they observed any of the parasitical 
 
 B 4
 
 24 
 
 plant (which they called all-healing), prepared a sacri- 
 fice and a feast under this venerated tree, and brought 
 thither two white bulls, whose horns were then first 
 tied. The officiating Druid, in a white garment, climbed 
 the tree, and, with a golden knife," or, according to 
 Stukeley, a brass hatchet, " pruned off the mistletoe, 
 which was received in a white woollen cloth below. 
 They then sacrificed the victims, and addressed their 
 gods to make the mistletoe prosperous to those to whom 
 it was given ; for they believed that it caused fecundity, 
 and was an amulet against poison."* Almost the sole 
 agent in the perpetuation of this parasite is the Missel 
 Thrush, which greedily devours its berries. In doing 
 so, it not unfrequently happens that some portion of the 
 seed, by means of the viscid pulp in which it is em 
 bedded, adheres to the exterior of the beak, and, on 
 being rubbed by the bird upon a branch on which 
 it subsequently alights, clings in like manner to the 
 bark, and in due time germinates. Profiting bv this 
 curious fact, the naturalist has often tried to propagate 
 the mistletoe; and though success may have occasionally 
 rewarded him, he has much more commonly failed. Such 
 is the testimony of Abercrombie ; and to his I may add 
 my own, having made the experiment in a vast many 
 
 * Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons.
 
 25 
 
 instances with uniform failure. Of all this my reviewer 
 can have known nothing. Convicted then as he now 
 stands of ignorance that, but for the pains I have taken 
 with him, might have been thought incredible on a 
 subject of popular interest, he might well exclaim " of 
 the lines we have italicized we must acknowledge that 
 the meaning lies too deep for our comprehension.' 
 Assisted, however, by the information I have vouchsafed 
 him, supported as it is by the eagerness with which, as 
 a nation, we yet search for mistletoe in the furtherance 
 of our Christmas convivialities, it is possible he may 
 learn that, in the figurative language of the following 
 stanza, is conveved much that a man of better education 
 would have known how to appreciate : 
 
 The shade of heathen Druid holds 
 Communion with thy sprightly race, 
 
 In mystic language that unfolds 
 Its virtue in the pleasing grace 
 
 Of mistletoe, dispensing charms 
 
 To Britons with extended arms ! 
 
 When first proposing to include the " Imprecation " 
 among other pieces that occupy a place in my volume, 
 I doubted the propriety of doing so ; but my scruples 
 were soon dissipated on reading " The Sisters " by the 
 present Laureate, who may fairly be said to represent 
 the caudal extremity of the Lake school. Not wishing
 
 26 
 
 to injure the moral susceptibility of my reviewer beyond 
 the demands of necessity, I must implore him, on my 
 introduction of " The Sisters," to bear up against the 
 infliction as best he can. It is hard work for a man 
 who is confessedly shocked at the resentment of an 
 unprovoked outrage, to be dragged through a scene 
 of seduction, damnation, treachery, and murder; but 
 he will surely console himself with the reflection that 
 it proceeds from the pen of one, whose boast it is to 
 have received the laurel " from the brows of him that 
 uttered nothing base." 
 
 THE SISTERS. 
 
 BY ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 We were two daughters of one race : 
 She was the fairest in the face : 
 
 The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
 They were together, and she fell ; 
 Therefore revenge became me well. 
 
 O the Earl was fair to see ! 
 
 She died : she went to burning flame : 
 She mixed her ancient blood with shame. 
 
 The wind is howling in turret and tree. 
 Whole weeks and months, and early and late, 
 To win his love I lay in wait : 
 
 O the Earl was fair to see !
 
 27 
 
 I made a feast ; I bad him come ; 
 I won his love, I brought him home. 
 
 The wind is roaring in turret and tree. 
 And after supper, on a bed, 
 Upon my lap he laid his head : 
 
 O the Earl was fair to see ! 
 
 I kissed his eyelids into rest : 
 His ruddy cheek upon my breast. 
 
 The wind is raging in turret and tree. 
 I hated him with the hate of hell, 
 But I loved his beauty passing well. 
 O the Earl was fair to see ! 
 
 I rose up in the silent night : 
 
 I made my dagger sharp and bright. 
 
 The wind is raving in turret and tree. 
 As half-asleep his breath he drew, 
 Three times I stabbed him thro' and thro'. 
 
 O the Earl was fair to see ! 
 
 I curled and combed his comely head, 
 He looked so grand when he was dead. 
 
 The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
 I wrapt his body in the sheet, 
 And laid him at his mother's feet. 
 
 O the Earl was fair to see ! 
 
 In taking leave of the literary charlatan, whose 
 impositions find currency through the " Nottingham- 
 shire Guardian/' I will just add that, if amongst the
 
 28 
 
 fraternity to which he belongs men of better parts are 
 to be found, there are none more adroit in the use of 
 petty artifice than lie is. From the novel device by 
 which, with the aid of diamond type on one hand, and 
 stalwart Roman on the other, he succeeds in contrast- 
 ing authors, down to the marshalling of a group of 
 notes of exclamation, after the manner of a line of 
 infantry, he is distinguished from the ruffians of the 
 "Morning Post" and " Tait," who, confiding in the 
 resources of unabashed impudence, deal only in scur- 
 rility. At the hands of the journalists I well knew, 
 as already intimated, that in the publication of my 
 volume I could expect no sympathy ; for though most 
 of them had, in years that are gone by, treated Words- 
 worth more contemptuously than I have done, his 
 appointment to the rank of Laureate tended greatly 
 to conciliate them. So little did the Poet write from 
 the date of his elevation to his demise in 1850, that 
 they had few opportunities for eulogizing him until 
 the appearance of his " Prelude," which, by way of 
 showing with what good taste his " Prefaces " had been 
 attached to the conclusion of his works, was directed 
 to be published at the close of his life. But the 
 announcement of his memoirs was the key-note to 
 posthumous praise, that has swelled almost into a
 
 29 
 
 national chorus ; and my own strictures on his versi- 
 fication following immediately upon this performance, 
 the critics, to be true to themselves, must necessarily 
 complain of me. To that I could make no valid 
 objection : having insisted on my own right of indi- 
 vidual judgment when estimating the worth of another, 
 I ought not, on frivolous ground, to impeach the 
 reviewer. Nor do I: it is against the abuse of his 
 prerogative that I protest. Had my unjust judges 
 taken for their guidance this law — "with the same 
 measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to 
 you 'again," I should have been satisfied with their 
 decision. In my analysis of Wordsworth's character 
 as a Poet, I quoted many passages from his works as 
 illustrative of my argument; and contended that a 
 reference to long, entire, and much admired pieces 
 would no less warrant the conclusions to which I had 
 arrived. To have justified their condemnation of me 
 they were bound to disprove my authority ; but dread- 
 ing a task so much beyond their capacity, they have 
 madly assailed me with unqualified invective. Dis- 
 mayed in nowise by such treatment, and strong in the 
 conviction that if writers of Wordsworth's class are 
 still to enjoy the distinguished recognition of the State, 
 England will be doomed to chronicle her literary
 
 30 
 
 decline from the reign of Victoria, I persist in disputing 
 the title of such men to intellectual supremacy. But 
 while thus firm and unshaken in my purpose, it cannot 
 be supposed that I shall stoop to a warfare with every 
 foul adversary that may propose to enter the lists 
 with me ; nor can it be expected that I shall further 
 notice the assumptions of one who, bringing neither 
 talents nor acquirements above those of mediocrity to 
 the contest, is a stranger to the courtesy that adorns 
 the character of an English gentleman. 
 
 John Wright. 
 
 High Pavement, Nottingham. 
 Nov. 20th. 1851. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 London : 
 
 Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 
 
 New-street- Square.

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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