I remain, my dear Dr. Parry,
Most faithfully, your much obliged,
W. Wordsworth.[168]

112. Religion and Versified Religion.

LETTER TO THE REV.  H. (AFTERWARDS DEAN) ALFORD.

(Postmark) Ambleside, Feb. 21. 1848.

MY DEAR SIR,

Pray excuse my having been some little time in your debt.  I could plead many things in extenuation, the chief, that old one of the state of my eyes, which never leaves me at liberty either to read or write a tenth part as much as I could wish, and as otherwise I ought to do.

[168] Memoirs, ii. 362-3.

It cannot but be highly gratifying to me to learn that my writings are prized so highly by a poet and critic of your powers.  The essay upon them which you have so kindly sent me seems well qualified to promote your views in writing it.  I was particularly pleased with your distinction between religion in poetry, and versified religion.  For my own part, I have been averse to frequent mention of the mysteries of Christian faith; not from a want of a due sense of their momentous nature, but the contrary.  I felt it far too deeply to venture on handling the subject as familiarly as many scruple not to do.  I am far from blaming them, but let them not blame me, nor turn from my companionship on that account.  Besides general reasons for diffidence in treating subjects of Holy Writ, I have some especial ones.  I might err in points of faith, and I should not deem my mistakes less to be deprecated because they were expressed in metre.  Even Milton, in my humble judgment, has erred, and grievously; and what poet could hope to atone for his apprehensions[169] in the way in which that mighty mind has done?

I am not at all desirous that any one should write an elaborate critique on my poetry.[170] There is no call for it.  If they be from above, they will do their own work in course of time; if not, they will perish as they ought.  But scarcely a week passes in which I do not receive grateful acknowledgments of the good they have done to the minds of the several writers.  They speak of the relief they have received from them under affliction and in grief, and of the calmness and elevation of spirit which the poems either give or assist them in attaining.  As these benefits are not without a traceable bearing upon the good of the immortal soul, the sooner, perhaps, they are pointed out and illustrated in a work like yours, the better.

[169] Sic:  qu.  ‘Misapprehensions.’ H.A.

[170] Sic:  1.  ‘Poems.’ II.  A.

Pray excuse my talking so much about myself:  your letter and critique called me to the subject.  But I assure you it would have been more grateful to me to acknowledge the debt we owe you in this house, where we have read your poems with no common pleasure.  Your ’Abbot of Muchelnage’ also makes me curious to hear more of him.