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.

W. WORDSWORTH.
Rydal Mount, January 24, 1822.

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 to be hoped, will find that the
pictures are often so closely connected as to have jointly the effect of
passages of a poem in a form of stanza to which there is no objection
but one that bears upon the Poet only--its difficulty.

333. *_Introductory Remarks_.

My purpose in writing this Series was, as much as possible, to confine
my view to the 'introduction, progress, and operation of the CHURCH in
ENGLAND, both previous and subsequent to the Reformation. The Sonnets
were written long before Ecclesiastical History and points of doctrine
had excited the interest with which they have been recently enquired
into and discussed. The former particular is mentioned as an excuse for
my having fallen into error in respect to an incident which had been
selected as setting forth the height to which the power of the Popedom
over temporal sovereignty had attained, and the arrogance with which it
was displayed. I allude to the last sonnet but one in the first series,
where Pope Alexander the Third, at Venice, is described as setting his
foot on the neck of the Emperor Barbarossa. Though this is related as a
fact in history, I am told it is a mere legend of no authority.
Substitute for it an undeniable truth, not less fitted for my purpose,
namely, the penance inflicted by Gregory the Seventh upon the Emperor
Henry the Fourth, at [Canosa].[4]

[4] ('According to Baronius the humiliation of the Emperor was a
voluntary act of prostration on his part. _Ann. Eccl. ad Ann_. 1177.'
_Memoirs_, ii. 111.)

Before I conclude my notice of these Sonnets, let me observe that the
opinion I pronounced in favour of Laud (long before the Oxford Tract
movement), and which had brought censure upon me from several quarters,
is not in the least changed. Omitting here to examine into his conduct
in respect to the persecuting spirit with which he has been charged, I
am persuaded that most of his aims to restore ritual practices which had
been abandoned, were good and wise, whatever errors he might commit in
the manner he