GUNPOWDER PLOT To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause: XLII GUNPOWDER PLOT† FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree To plague her beating heart; and there is one That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done Of an assembled Senate unredeemed From subterraneous Treason's darkling power: Worse than the product of that dismal night, The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed. ‡ 69 1822. 5 ΙΟ pretended to be a Puritan minister; and, in his devotions, assumed the airs of madness. See in Strype's The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. i. chaps. xiii. and xvi.-ED. * See the note to the previous sonnet, No. XL.-ED. Originated by Robert Catesby, the intention being to destroy King, Lords, and Commons, by an explosion at Westminster, when James I. went in person to open Parliament on the 5th November 1605.-ED. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, which occurred on August 24, 1572. -ED. XLIII ILLUSTRATION THE JUNG-FRAU AND THE FALL OF THE RHINE NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN THE Virgin Mountain,* wearing like a Queen A brilliant crown of everlasting snow, Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe, *The Jung-frau.-W. W. 1822. ΤΟ This Sonnet was included among the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1822), and the following note was added: "This Sonnet belongs to another publication, but from its fitness for this place is inserted here also. 'Voilà un énfer d'eau,' cried out a German Friend of Ramond, falling on his knees on the scaffold in front of this Waterfall. See Ramond's Translation of Coxe."-W. W. The following extracts from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of the Continental Tour in 1820 illustrate it. "Aug. 9.-I am seated before Jungfrau, in the green vale of Interlaken, 'green to the very door,' with rich shade of walnut trees, the river behind the house. . .. Mountains and that majestic Virgin closing up all. . . . By looking across into a nook at the entrance of the Vale of Lauterbrunnen, Jung-frau presses forward and seems to preside over and give a character to the whole of the vale that belongs only to this one spot." . . . "Aug. 10th.-.. Reached Grindelwald, by the pass close to Jung-frau (at least separated from it by a deep cleft only), which sent forth its avalanches,-one grand beyond all description. It was an awful and a solemn sound.' Aug. 1st.-. Nothing could exceed my delight when, through an opening between buildings at the skirts of the town, we unexpectedly hailed our old and side-byside companion, the Rhine, now roaring like a lion, along his rocky channel. Never beheld so soft, so lovely a green, as is here given to the waters of this lordly river; and then, how they glittered and heaved to meet the sunshine."-ED. LAUD 71 XLIV TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST EVEN such the contrast that, where'er we move,1 Of headstrong will! Now her mood O terrible excess Can this be Piety? No some fierce Maniac hath usurped her name; 1 XLV LAUD † PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,2 1832. Such contrast, in whatever track we move, 1822. 1827. 2 1827. Pursued by Hate, debarred from friendly care; 1822. 5 ΙΟ * Compare Hamlet, act 1. scene i. l. 112.-ED. In this age a word cannot be said in praise of Laud, or even in compassion for his fate, without incurring a charge of bigotry; but fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, "that it is sufficient for his vindication to Laud,1 “in the painful art of dying" tried, (Like a poor bird entangled in a snare Whose heart still flutters, though his wings forbear 5 On hope that conscious innocence supplied,2 Why tarries then thy chariot?* Wherefore stay, (What time a State with madding faction reels) XLVI AFFLICTIONS OF ENGLAND HARP! could'st thou venture, on thy boldest string, The faintest note to echo which the blast observe that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period." A key to the right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:-"Ever since I came in place, I have laboured nothing more than that the external publick worship of God, so much slighted in divers parts of this kingdom, might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be. For I evidently saw that the public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God, which while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour."-W. W. 1827. *In his address, before his execution, Archbishop Laud said, "I am not in love with this passage through the Red Sea, and I have prayed ut transiret calix iste, but if not, God's will be done."-ED. ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS Caught from the hand of Moses as it pass'd Of dread Jehovah; then, should wood and waste Of which the Lord was weary. Weep, oh! weep, 73 5 ΙΟ PART III FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE PRESENT TIMES [WHEN I came to this part of the series I had the dream described in this Sonnet. The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The Sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside it was begun as I left the last house of the vale, and finished, word for word as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written: most of them were frequently retouched in the course of composition, and, not a few, laboriously. I have only further to observe that the intended Church which prompted these Sonnets was erected on Coleorton Moor towards the centre of a very populous parish between three and four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on the road to Loughborough, and has proved, I believe, a great benefit to the neighbourhood.——I. F.] 1 1827. As good men wept, * See Psalm xxxvi. 5, 6.-ED. 1822. The first of Part III. p. 74.-ED. |