Believe me, very faithfully, yours,
                                WM. WORDSWORTH.

There is no probability of my being in town this season.  I have a horror of smoking; and nothing but a necessity for health’s sake could reconcile me to it in William.[74]

[74] Memoirs, ii. 22.

44. Of alleged Changes in Political Opinions.

LETTER TO A FRIEND, 1821.

In the year 1821 (October 7) an old friend of Wordsworth thus writes to him:  ’They tell me you have changed your opinions upon many subjects respecting which we used to think alike; but I am persuaded we shall neither of us change those great principles which ought to guide us in our conduct, and lead us to do all the good we can to others.  And I am much mistaken if we should not find many things to talk about without disturbing ourselves with political or party disputes.’

To this Wordsworth answered as follows: 

Rydal Mount, Dec. 4. 1821.

MY DEAR L——­,

Your letter ought to have been much earlier acknowledged, and would have been so, had I not been sure you would ascribe my silence to its true cause, viz. procrastination, and not to indifference to your kind attention.  There was another feeling which both urged and indisposed me to write to you,—­I mean the allusion which, in so friendly a manner, you make to a supposed change in my political opinions.  To the scribblers in pamphlets and periodical publications who have heaped so much obloquy upon myself and my friends Coleridge and Southey, I have not condescended to reply, nor ever shall; but to you, my candid and enlightened friend, I will say a few words on this subject, which, if we have the good fortune to meet again, as I hope we may, will probably be further dwelt upon.

I should think that I had lived to little purpose if my notions on the subject of government had undergone no modification:  my youth must, in that case, have been without enthusiasm, and my manhood endued with small capability of profiting by reflection.  If I were addressing those who have dealt so liberally with the words renegade, apostate, &c., I should retort the charge upon them, and say, you have been deluded by places and persons, while I have stuck to principles. I abandoned France and her rulers when they abandoned the struggle for liberty, gave themselves up to tyranny, and endeavoured to enslave the world.  I disapproved of the war against France at its commencement, thinking, which was, perhaps, an error, that it might have been avoided; but after Buonaparte had violated the independence of Switzerland, my heart turned against him, and against the nation that could submit to be the instrument of such an outrage.  Here it was that I parted, in feeling, from the Whigs, and to a certain degree united with their adversaries, who were free from the delusion (such I must ever regard it) of Mr. Fox and his party, that a safe and honourable peace was practicable with the French nation, and that an ambitious conqueror like Buonaparte could be softened down into a commercial rival.