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66

DISTRACTIONS.

XLI.

DISTRACTIONS.

MEN, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy
Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split
With morbid restlessness; *the ecstatic fit
Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,
The Saints must govern, is their common cry;
And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ
Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit
Beneath the roof of settled Modesty.
The Romanist exults; fresh hope he draws
From the confusion, craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad-t
To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:

1

Totters the Throne; the new-born Church is sad
For every wave against her peace unites.

1 1827.

The Throne is plagued ;

1822.

* The first nonconforming sect in England originated in 1556. It broke off from the Church, simply on a question of vestments. The chief divisions of English Nonconformity in the latter half of the sixteenth century were (1) the Brunists, or Barronists. The disciples of Brun quarrelled and divided amongst themselves. (2) the Familists, an offshoot of the Dutch Anabaptists, a mystic sect which quarrelled with the Puritans. (3) The Anabaptists, who were not only religious sectaries, but who differed with the Church on sundry social and civil matters. "They denied the sanctity of an oath, the binding power of laws, the right of the magistrate to punish, and the rights of property."-(Perry's History of the English Church, p. 315.) See also Hooker, Preface to his Ecclesiastical Polity, c. viii. 6-12; and, on the "indigested enthusiastical scheme called The Kingdom of Christ, or of his Saints,” the Life of Sir Matthew Hale, Eccl. Biog. iv. 533. -ED.

+ A common device in religious and political conflicts.-See Strype, in support of this instance.-W. W., 1822. Probably the reference is to the case of Cussin, a Dominican Friar, who pretended to be a Puritan minister, and in his devotions assumed the airs of madness. See in Strype, the Life of Archbishop Parker, Vol. I., chaps. xiii. and xvi.-ED.

See the note to the previous sonnet, No. XL. --ED.

ILLUSTRATION.

XLII.

GUNPOWDER PLOT.*

FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree

To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion

With things that were not, yet were meant to be.
Aghast within its gloomy cavity

That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe

Of an assembled Senate unredeemed

From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!

Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.†

67

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
Wonder that aught of aspect so serene
Can link with desolation. Smooth and
And seeming, at a little distance, slow,

green

The waters of the Rhine; but on they go

Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen;

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 on St Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24, 1572.-ED.

The Jung-frau.-W. W.

68

TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe
Blasts of tempestuous smoke-wherewith he tries 1
To hide himself, but only magnifies;

And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe,
Deafening the region in his ireful mood.*

XLIV.

TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

EVEN Such the contrast that, where'er we move,2
To the mind's eye Religion doth present;
Now with her own deep quietness content;
Then, like the mountain, thundering from above
Against the ancient pine-trees of the grove

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Such is the contrast, which where'er we move,

1822.

1827.

This Sonnet was included among the Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1822.

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The following extracts from Mrs Wordsworth's Journal of the Continental Tour in 1820 will 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 Jungfrau (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.

And the land's humblest comforts.

69

Now her mood

Recals the transformation of the flood,

Whose rage the gentle skies in vain reprove,

Earth cannot check.

Of headstrong will!

O terrible excess

Can this be Piety?

No some fierce Maniac hath usurped her name,
And scourges England struggling to be free:
Her peace destroyed! her hopes a wilderness!
Her blessings cursed-her glory turned to shame!

1

XLV.

LAUD.*

PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,1
An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside,
Laud,2 in the painful art of dying' tried,
(Like a poor bird entangled in a snare

1827.

2 1827.

Pursued by Hate, debarred from friendly care;

Long,

* See the Fenwick note preceding the Series.-Ed.

1822.

1822.

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 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.,

70

AFFLICTIONS OF ENGLAND.

Whose heart still flutters, though his wings forbear
To stir in useless struggle) hath relied

On hope that conscious innocence supplied,1

2

And in his prison breathes celestial air.

Why tarries then thy chariot?* Wherefore stay,

O Death! the ensanguined yet triumphant wheels,
Which thou prepar'st, full often, to convey

(What time a State with madding faction reels)
The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals
All wounds, all perturbations doth allay?

XLVI.

AFFLICTIONS OF ENGLAND.

HARP could'st thou venture, on thy boldest string,
The faintest note to echo which the blast
Caught from the hand of Moses as it pass'd
O'er Sinai's top, or from the Shepherd-king,
Early awake, by Siloa's brook, to sing

Of dread Jehovah; then, should wood and waste
Hear also of that Name, and mercy cast

Off to the mountains, like a covering

Of which the Lord was weary. Weep, oh! weep,

Weep with the good,3 beholding King and Priest

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* In his address, before his execution, 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.

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