ADVERTISEMENT. DURING the month of December, 1820, I accompanied a much-loved and honoured Friend in a walk through different parts of his Estate, with a view to fix upon the Site of a New Church which he intended to erect. It was one of the most beautiful mornings of a mild season, our feelings were in harmony with the cherishing influences of the scene; and, such being our purpose, we were naturally led to look back upon past events with wonder and gratitude, and on the future with hope. Not long afterwards, some of the Sonnets which will be found towards the close of this Series were produced as a private memorial of that morning's occupation. The Catholic Question, which was agitated in Parliament about that time, kept my thoughts in the same course; and it struck me that certain points in the Ecclesiastical History of our Country might advantageously be presented to view in Verse. Accordingly I took up the subject, and what I now offer to the Reader was the result. When this work was far advanced, I was agreeably surprised to find that my Friend, Mr. Southey, was engaged, with similar views, in writing a concise History of the Church in England. If our Productions, thus unintentionally coinciding, shall be found to illustrate each other, it will prove a high gratification to me, which I am sure my Friend will participate. Rydal Mount, January 24th, 1822. W. WORDSWORTH. For the convenience of passing from one point of the subject to another without shocks of abruptness, this work has taken the shape of a series of Sonnets : but the Reader, it is hoped, will find that the pictures are often so closely connected as to have the effect of a poem in a form of stanza, to which there is no objection but one that bears upon the Poet only—its difficulty. ECCLESIASTICAL SKETCHES. PART I. I. INTRODUCTION. I, WHO accompanied with faithful pace Now seek upon the heights of Time the source II. CONJECTURES. If there be Prophets on whose spirits rest And with dread signs the nascent Stream invest? III. TREPIDATION OF THE DRUIDS. SCREAMS round the Arch-druid's brow the Seamew*-white That, in the lapse of ages, hath crept o'er Haughty the Bard; - can these meek doctrines blight His transports? wither his heroic strains? But all shall be fulfilled; - the Julian spear A way first opened; and, with Roman chains, The tidings come of Jesus crucified; They come they spread --the weak, the suffering, hear; Receive the faith, and in the hope abide. * This water-fowl was, among the Druids, an emblem of those traditions connected with the deluge that made an important part of their mysteries. The Cormorant was a bird of bad omen. |