WM. WORDSWORTH.[124]

77. Of the Reform Bill.

EXTRACT OF LETTER TO LORD LONSDALE.

Rydal Mount, Feb. 17. 1832.

MY LORD,

* * * * *

If, after all, I should be asked how I would myself vote, if it had been my fortune to have a seat in the House of Lords, I must say that I should oppose the second reading, though with my eyes open to the great hazard of doing so.  My support, however, would be found in standing by a great principle; for, without being unbecomingly personal, I may state to your Lordship, that it has ever been the habit of my mind to trust that expediency will come out of fidelity to principles, rather than to seek my principles of action in calculations of expediency.

[124] Memoirs, ii. 255-7, with important additions from the original.  G.

With this observation I conclude, trusting your Lordship will excuse my having detained you so long.

I have the honour to be, most faithfully,
Your much obliged,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[125]

78. Of Political Affairs.

EXTRACT OF LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.

You were not mistaken in supposing that the state of public affairs has troubled me much.  I cannot see how the government is to be carried on, but by such sacrifices to the democracy as will, sooner or later, upset everything.  Whoever governs, it will be by out-bidding for popular favour those who went before them.  Sir Robert Peel was obliged to give way in his government to the spirit of Reform, as it is falsely called; these men are going beyond him; and if ever he shall come back, it will only, I fear, be to carry on the movement, in a shape somewhat less objectionable than it will take from the Whigs.  In the mean while the Radicals or Republicans are cunningly content to have this work done ostensibly by the Whigs, while in fact they themselves are the Whigs’ masters, as the Whigs well know; but they hope to be preserved from destruction by throwing themselves back upon the Tories when measures shall be urged upon them by their masters which they may think too desperate.  What I am most afraid of is, alterations in the constituency, and in the duration of Parliament, which will bring it more and more under the dominion of the lower and lowest classes.  On this account I fear the proposed Corporation Reform, as a step towards household suffrage, vote by ballot, &c.  As to a union of the Tories and Whigs in Parliament, I see no prospect of it whatever.  To the great Whig lords may be truly applied the expression in Macbeth,

’They have eaten of the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner.’

* * * * *

I ordered two copies of my new volume to be sent to Cottesmere.  And now farewell; and believe me,

Dear Lady Frederick, ever faithfully yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.[126]