Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
Note 1. This bitter attack, famous for its invective, was made by Browning (1845) on Wordsworth, after the latter had accepted the post of Poet Laureate (1843), thus, in Browning’s view, deserting the people and selling himself to the government. Wordsworth’s only official poem, however, was on the installation of Albert, Prince Consort, as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847; and in 1850 he died: so that the protest of Browning was not justified. Indeed, in 1875, Browning himself wrote: “I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter’s model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended more … I should not have talked about ’handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.’ These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless … was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to be deplored.” [back]
