ABSTRACT
The first thing that will strike the mind, on taking up this pamphlet, will be the Latinity of its title; and the second will be the English of its contents. Of the former we shall only say, that it is the title of something without a name; – whether an address, speech, letter, or any thing else, to the people of Great Britain, the people of Great Britain must themselves determine. Of the latter, – the English of its contents, – we must observe, that it is so exquisitely compounded of words, idioms, and phrases, obsolete and authorized, unprecedented and vernacular, as to form altogether a style of very peculiar gait and character, resembling nothing so nearly as the blank verse of the Westmorland triumvirate of Bards; who, if they have sometimes condescended to degrade poetry into prose, have occasionally deigned to exalt prose into poetry. Of this, the tract before us is an illustrious example. In these Sibylline leaves, (full of portentous and awful denunciations,) snatched from the winds, and stitched loosely together to make a pamphlet of only one day’s longer life than a newspaper, there is more of the spirit and fire of genuine poetry, than we have found in many a cream-coloured volume of verse, designed to delight and astonish posterity. The language is at once splendid and obscure, vigorous yet prolix, beautiful, bewildering, and uncouth. The sentiments, ardent, and free, and original, are frequently so clouded with mysticism, subtilized by metaphysical refinement, or emblazoned with imagination, that they appear either too dark, too thin, or too bright, to be steadily viewed, or clearly comprehended. But there is a pulse of philanthropy, that beats through every page (though not through every line), and a soul of patriotism that breathes through the whole body of this work, which raise it, as an offspring of intellect, far above the political ephemera, quickened from the carcases of transient events which Time leaves behind him in his devastating march to Eternity, – ephemera, which flutter for a day, then vanish for ever. Among this imbecile and fugitive race the present gorgeous emanation of Genius is born; and with them it must perish. We therefore seize the earliest opportunity to say something ‘concerning’ it, before its freshness and interest are irreparably faded, though we have neither time nor room to do justice to its extraordinary claims, as a great effort of an uncommon mind. It is, self-evidently, the work of a retired man, of deep, enlarged, and patient thought, connected
with no political party, warped by no vulgar prejudices, carried away by no sudden or momentary gust of passion; but who, chiefly in solitude and meditation, yet occasionally stimulated by the society of congenial and equally powerful and eccentric minds, may be said to live in the world of war and business only in the spirit, and who consequently views men and things in a light peculiar to himself, or participated by none, but the small circle in which he moves. Hence his merits and his faults are so far exclusively his own, that they have all been originally conceived, or deliberately and resolutely adopted, by himself. The sentiments of such a man, cherishing independence of mind as the dearest inheritance of his nature, and reverencing liberty as the supreme good of his country, must be worthy of attention; though we have little hope that they will excite much curiosity, or make any very profitable impression upon the people or governors of this island, to whom they particularly and emphatically appeal. Despising all the common place details of every day business, and overleaping all the petty, thwarting, embarrassing, and disheartening circumstances which must be taken into account by practical politicians, and which generally furnish employment enough for their dwarf faculties, Mr. Wordsworth seems to have discovered the spot which Archimedes desired, from whence he might move the world: here taking his stand, and with a glance embracing the whole surface and horizon of his subject, he decides authoritatively on whatever he reviews, and lays down plans of unparallelled magnitude and complexity, with the confidence of a being of almost infallible intelligence. Whether by this strong effort of superior, but only speculative, talents, he will be able to raise the earth one degree nearer to heaven, or even lift these little portions of the earth on which he peculiarly operates – Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain, – a point above their present degraded level, we shall not attempt to determine. Meanwhile, though we cannot subscribe to all the principles maintained in this pamphlet, particularly the vindictive and sanguinary ones which occasionally are manifested, we have perused its eloquent pages with much pleasure and admiration . . . [A summary of Wordsworth’s argument follows.]
