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 happiness of the greatest number, without slavery to formulas. His political ideal is, therefore, individualism, or atomism; the doctrine of liberty raised to the highest terms. Thus, for example, marriage is an absurdity. If two people agree to live together, they are 'unreasonable' to enslave themselves to a tie which may become irksome. They should be free to part at any moment. Society should be nothing but an aggregate of independent units, bound together by no rules whatever. A rule should never survive its reason, and the only reason for a rule is the calculation that it will make us happy.

The doctrine had an apparent consistency, at least, which served to show Wordsworth whither he was going. Two curious poems of this period illustrate his feelings. After leaving the Isle of Wight, Wordsworth had rambled over Salisbury Plain and been profoundly impressed by the scenery. There, too, he had apparently heard the story which is told in one of the last Ingoldsby Legends. In 1786, one Jarvis Matcham had been startled by a thunderstorm, and confessed to a companion that he had committed a murder