He united the religion of the
philosopher with the religion of the churchman; one rarer thing he
could not do; he could not unite the religion of the philosopher
with the religion of the saint. It is, indeed, evident that the most
inspiring feeling which breathes through Wordsworth's ecclesiastical
pieces is not of a doctrinal, not even of a spiritual kind. The
ecclesiastical as well as the political sentiments of his later
years are prompted mainly by the admiring love with which he
regarded the structure of English society--seen as that society was
by him in its simplest and most poetic aspect. This concrete
attachment to the scenes about him had always formed an important
element in his character. Ideal politics, whether in Church or State,
had never occupied his mind, which sought rather to find its
informing principles embodied in the England of his own day. The
sonnet _On a Parsonage in Oxfordshire_ well illustrates the loving
minuteness with which he draws out the beauty and fitness of the
established scheme of things,--the power of English country life to
satisfy so many moods of feeling.
The country-seat of the English squire or nobleman has become--may
we not say?--one of the world's chosen types of a happy and a
stately home.
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