FOOTNOTES:
[159] The Council of Constance condemned Wicliffe as a heretic, and issued an order that his remains should be exhumed, and burnt. "Accordingly, by order of the Bishop of Lincoln, as Diocesan of Lutterworth, his grave, which was in the chancel of the church, was opened, forty years after his death; the bones were taken out and burnt to ashes, and the ashes thrown into a neighbouring brook called the Swift." (Southey's Book of the Church, vol. i. p. 384.) "Thus this brook," says Fuller, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." (The Church History of Britain from the Birth of Christ until the year MDCXLVIII. endeavoured, book iv. p. 424.) In the note to the 11th Sonnet of Part I., Wordsworth acknowledges his obligations to Fuller in connection with this Sonnet on Wicliffe.
See Charles Lamb's comment on this passage of Fuller's, Prose Works (1876), vol. iv. p. 277.—Ed.
XVIII
CORRUPTIONS OF THE HIGHER CLERGY
"Woe to you, Prelates! rioting in ease
"And cumbrous wealth—the shame of your estate;
"You, on whose progress dazzling trains await
"Of pompous horses; whom vain titles please;
"Who will be served by others on their knees, 5
"Yet will yourselves to God no service pay;
"Pastors who neither take nor point the way
"To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities
"Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know
"And speak the word ——" Alas! of fearful things
'Tis the most fearful when the people's eye 11
Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings;
And taught the general voice to prophesy
Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.
XIX
ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER
And what is Penance with her knotted thong;
Mortification with the shirt of hair,
Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;
If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong 5
The pious, humble, useful Secular,[160]
And rob[161] the people of his daily care,
Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong?
Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives[162]
For self, and struggles with himself alone, 10
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him[163]
Who on the good of others builds his own!