From: The Dial, Vol. III, No. I (July 1842)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1842 Boston
From London we have Mr. Wordsworth’s new volume of poems, which is not a bookseller’s book, but a poet’s book. We have read them all with great content, and very willingly forgave the poet for writing against the abolition of capital punishment, for the sake of the self-respect and truth to his own character, which the topic and the treatment evinced. We should say the same thing of his sonnet levelled at Mr. Thomas Carlyle. But the name of Wordsworth reminds us of another matter far less pleasant than poetry, namely, the profligate course recently adopted by some of the States of the Union in relation to their public debt. The following is an extract from a letter of Mr. Wordsworth to Bishop Doane of New Jersey. “The proceedings of some of the States in your country, in money concerns, and the shock which is given to the credit of the State of Pennsylvania, have caused much trouble under our roof, by the injury done to some of my most valuable connexions and friends. I am not personally and directly a sufferer; but my brother, if the State of Pennsylvania should fail to fulfil its engagements, would lose almost all the little savings of his long and generous life. My daughter, through the perfidy of the State of Mississippi, has forfeited a sum, though but small in itself, large for her means; a great portion of my most valued friends have to lament their misplaced confidence. Topics of this kind are not pleasant to dwell upon, but the more extensively the injury is made known, the more likely is it, that where any remains of integrity, honor, or even common humanity exist, efforts will be made to set and keep things right.” We have learned also with mortification that John Sterling, whose poems have been lately reprinted in this country, had invested $2000 in the worthless stock of the Morris Canal Company, and later, that Mr. Carlyle had invested $1000 in stock of the State of Illinois, which presently proved worthless. In this way the heavens have taken care that the character of our rotten public stocks and the doctrine of ‘Repudiation’ shall be damned to fame.
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