Volume 3 / Part 3 — X. POEMS DEDICATED TO NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND LIBERTY.
Reading edition
[HEADED IN I.F. NOTES 'SONNETS DEDICATED TO LIBERTY.']
257. Robert Jones.
'Jones! as from Calais,' &c. [Sonnet III.] (See No. 9, Dedication to Descriptive Sketches.)
This excellent Person, one of my earliest and dearest friends, died in the year 1835. We were under-graduates together of the same year, at the same college, and companions in many a delightful ramble through his own romantic country of North Wales. Much of the latter part of his life he passed in comparative solitude; which I know was often cheered by remembrance of our youthful adventures, and of the beautiful regions which, at home and abroad, we had visited together. Our long friendship was never subject to a moment's interruption,—and, while revising these volumes for the last time, I have been so often reminded of my loss, with a not unpleasing sadness, that I trust the Reader will excuse this passing mention of a Man who well deserves from me something more than so brief a notice. Let me only add, that during the middle part of his life he resided many years (as Incumbent of the Living) at a Parsonage in Oxfordshire, which is the subject of the seventh of the 'Miscellaneous Sonnets,' Part III.
258. I grieved for Buonaparte. [Sonnet IV.]
[Note No. 183 is repeated here.]
259. The King of Sweden and Toussaint L'Ouverture.
[Sonnets VII. and VIII.]
In this and a succeeding Sonnet on the same subject, let me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles AVOWED IN HIS MANIFESTOS; as laying hold of these advantages for the purpose of embodying moral truths. This remark might, perhaps, as well have been suppressed; for to those who may be in sympathy with the course of these Poems, it will be superfluous; and will, I fear, be thrown away upon that other class, whose besotted admiration of the intoxicated despot hereafter placed in contrast with him is the most melancholy evidence of degradation in British feeling and intellect which the times have furnished.
260. September 1, 1802. [Sonnet IX.]
Among the capricious acts of tyranny that disgraced these times was the chasing of all negroes from France by decree of the Government; we had a fellow-passenger who was one of the expelled.
261. *'Two Voices are there,' &c. [Sonnet XII.]
This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the principal Farm-house of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or ten months. I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, as well as that on the Feast of Brougham Castle as mentioned [in the place], were produced on the same ground.
262. *'O Friend! I know not which Way.' [Sonnet XIII.]
This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, that the Revolution had produced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the reader may think that in this and succeeding sonnets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth.
[In pencil—Query: Sonnets relating to the expected Invasion, &c., p. 189, vol. iii. (1837) to p. 200; Ode, p. 201 to 203; Sonnets, part second, p. 204 to 215]. [After three blank pages.]
263. *War in Spain.
It would not be easy to conceive with what a depth of feeling I entered into the struggle carried on by the Spaniards for their deliverance from the usurped power of the French. Many times have I gone from Allan Bank, in Grasmere Vale, where we were then residing, to the top of the Raise-Gap, as it is called, so late as two o'clock in the morning, to meet the carrier bringing the newspaper from Keswick. Imperfect traces of the state of mind in which I then was may be found in my tract on the Convention of Cintra, as well as in these Sonnets.
264. *Zaragossa. [Sonnet XVI.]
In this sonnet I am under some obligations to one of an Italian author, to which I cannot refer.
265. *Lines on the expected Invasion, 1803. [Sonnet XXVI.]
To take their place among the political pieces.
266. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. [Sonnet XXVII.]
'Danger which they fear, and honour which they understand not.'
Words in Lord Brooke's Life of Sir Philip Sidney.
So in the 'Thanksgiving Ode' (vi. 10) on 'And discipline was passion's dire excess' is quoted, 'Discipline the rule whereof is passion.'