so eloquently and ably, a new system of martial policy; but England, as well as the rest of Europe, requires what is more difficult to give it,—­a new course of education, a higher tone of moral feeling, more of the grandeur of the imaginative faculties, and less of the petty processes of the unfeeling and purblind understanding, that would manage the concerns of nations in the same calculating spirit with which it would set about building a house.  Now a State ought to be governed (at least in these times), the labours of the statesman ought to advance, upon calculations and from impulses similar to those which give motion to the hand of a great artist when he is preparing a picture, or of a mighty poet when he is determining the proportions and march of a poem;—­much is to be done by rule; the great outline is previously to be conceived in distinctness, but the consummation of the work must be trusted to resources that are not tangible, though known to exist.  Much as I admire the political sagacity displayed in your work, I respect you still more for the lofty spirit that supports it; for the animation and courage with which it is replete; for the contempt, in a just cause, of death and danger by which it is ennobled; for its heroic confidence in the valour of your countrymen; and the absolute determination which it everywhere expresses to maintain in all points the honour of the soldier’s profession, and that of the noble Nation of which you are a member—­of the Land in which you were born.  No insults, no indignities, no vile stooping, will your politics admit of; and therefore, more than for any other cause, do I congratulate my country on the appearance of a book which, resting in this point our national safety upon the purity of our national character, will, I trust, lead naturally to make us, at the same time, a more powerful and a high-minded nation.

     Affectionately yours, W. WORDSWORTH.[23]

[22] ‘Totis imperii viribus consurgitur,’ says the historian, speaking of the war of the gladiators.

[23] Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 406-20.

* * * * *

Letter enclosing the Preceding to a Friend unnamed.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have taken the Liberty of addressing the enclosed to you, with a wish that you would be so kind as to send it by the twopenny Post.  The Letter, though to a personal Acquaintance and to some degree a friend, is upon a kind of Public occasion, and consists of Comments upon Captain Pasley’s lately published Essay on the Military Policy of Great Britain; a work which if you have not seen I earnestly recommend to your careful Perusal.  I have sent my Letter unsealed in order that if you think it worth while you may read it, which would oblige me.  You may begin with those words in the 1st Page, ‘Now for your Book:’  which you will see are legible, being transcribed by a Friend.  The rest, in my own hand, is only an Apology for not writing sooner; save that there are two Sonnets which if you like you may glance your eye over.  Do not forget to put a wafer on the Letter after you have done with it.