[POSTSCRIPT.

As an addition to these general remarks on the ‘Ecclesiastical Sonnets,’ it seems only right to give here from the Memoirs (vol. ii. p. 113) the following on Sonnet XL. (Pt.  II.): 

’With what entire affection did they prize
Their new-born Church!’

The invidious inferences that would be drawn from this epithet by the enemies of the English Church and Reformation are too obvious to be dilated on.  The author was aware of this, and in reply to a friend who called his attention to the misconstruction and perversion to which the passage was liable, he replied as follows: 

’Nov. 12. 1846. 
MY DEAR C——­,

’The passage which you have been so kind as to comment upon in one of the “Ecclesiastical Sonnets,” was altered several years ago by my pen, in a copy of my poems which I possess, but the correction was not printed till a place was given it in the last edition, printed last year, in one volume.  It there stands,

“Their church reformed.”

Though for my own part, as I mentioned some time since in a letter I had occasion to write to the Bishop of ——­, I do not like the term reformed; if taken in its literal sense, as a transformation, it is very objectionable.

’Yours affectionately,
‘W.  WORDSWORTH.’

Further, on the Sonnets on ‘Aspects of Christianity in America,’ Wordsworth wrote to his valued friend, Professor Reed of Philadelphia, as follows: 

’A few days ago, after a very long interval, I returned to poetical composition; and my first employment was to write a couple of sonnets upon subjects recommended by you to take place in the Ecclesiastical Series.  They are upon the Marriage Ceremony and the Funeral Service.  I have also, at the same time, added two others, one upon Visiting the Sick, and the other upon the Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, both subjects taken from the Services of our Liturgy.  To the second part of the same series, I have also added two, in order to do more justice to the Papal Church for the services which she did actually render to Christianity and humanity in the Middle Ages.  By the by, the sonnet beginning, “Men of the Western World,” &c. was slightly altered after I sent it to you, not in the hope of substituting a better verse, but merely to avoid the repetition of the same word, “book,” which occurs as a rhyme in “The Pilgrim Fathers.”  These three sonnets, I learn, from several quarters, have been well received by those of your countrymen whom they most concern.’] [5]

[5] Extract:  September 4th, 1842:  Memoirs, ii. 389-90.

PART I. FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO BRITAIN TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE PAPAL DOMINION.

334. St. Paul never in Britain.

     ‘Did holy Paul,’ &c. [Sonnet II. l. 6.]

Stillingfleet adduces many arguments in support of this opinion, but they are unconvincing.  The latter part of this Sonnet (II.  ‘Conjectures’) refers to a favourite notion of Roman Catholic writers, that Joseph of Arimathea and his companions brought Christianity into Britain, and built a rude church at Glastonbury; alluded to hereafter in a passage upon the dissolution of monasteries.