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Yearbook
of International
Sports Arbitration
2016

Antoine Duval
Antonio Rigozzi Editors
Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration

Series editors
Antoine Duval, ASSER International Sports Law Centre, T.M.C. Asser Instituut,
The Hague, The Netherlands
Antonio Rigozzi, Faculté de droit, Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
The Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration is the first academic publication
aiming to offer comprehensive coverage, on a yearly basis, of the most recent and
salient developments regarding international sports arbitration, through a combi-
nation of general articles and case notes. It is a must-have for sports lawyers and
arbitrators, as well as researchers engaged in this field. It provides in-depth articles
on burning issues raised by international sports arbitration, and independent
commentaries by esteemed academics and seasoned practitioners on the most
important decisions of the CAS and national courts.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15757

Antoine Duval Antonio Rigozzi
•

Editors

Yearbook of International
Sports Arbitration 2016

123
Editors Assistant Editor
Antoine Duval Erika Hasler
ASSER International Sports Law Centre Lévy Kaufmann-Kohler
T.M.C. Asser Instituut Geneva
The Hague Switzerland
The Netherlands

Antonio Rigozzi
Faculté de droit
Université de Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel
Switzerland

ISSN 2522-8501 ISSN 2522-851X (electronic)

Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration
ISBN 978-94-6265-236-1 ISBN 978-94-6265-237-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-237-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018932167

Published by T.M.C. ASSER PRESS, The Hague, The Netherlands www.asserpress.nl

Produced and distributed for T.M.C. ASSER PRESS by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

© T.M.C. ASSER PRESS and the authors 2018

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written
permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of
being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Printed on acid-free paper

This T.M.C. Asser Press imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Editorial

The Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration (YISA) provides a unique,

comprehensive yearly review of the world of international sports arbitration. With
this second edition of the YISA, we continue our extensive coverage of the most
recent CAS awards and court decisions through various commentaries, as well as
the publication of longer analytical pieces on important aspects of international
sports arbitration.
This YISA 2016 volume opens with an exclusive interview given by the three
arbitrators who rendered the first CAS award thirty years ago. As they look back on
that historical first case, Messrs François Carrard, Hans Nater and Jean Gay in the
contribution by Erika Hasler and ourselves walk us through the transformations
of the CAS and offer some thoughts and proposals for its future shape. The
interview is followed by four general articles, where Despina Mavromati investi-
gates the role of Swiss law in anti-doping cases, while Christian Keidel and Paul
Fischer in their contribution examine the question of the standing to appeal of third
parties before the CAS, and one of us, Antoine Duval, reviews the jurisprudence
of the CAS in cases related to the Russian doping scandal. Beyond the CAS, the
Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT)’s fast-growing caseload is a further illustration
of the vitality of sports arbitration. As it approaches the 1,000 cases mark, the BAT
has partly renewed and expanded its list of arbitrators, and updated its rules. Erika
Hasler’s contribution provides an overview of the changes introduced by the new
BAT Rules, which entered into force on 1 January 2017. The central section of the
YISA features several commentaries covering the CAS’s main published decisions
of 2016 (and late 2015). As is well known to sports arbitration practitioners, the
core of the CAS caseload consists of doping and football-related disputes. The
predominance of these two types of matters is reflected in the selection of cases
commented on.
On the doping front, a number of high-profile CAS awards rendered in 2016 are
discussed. The controversial Essendon award is examined at length by two of the
most astute observers of anti-doping regulation, Marjolaine Viret and Emily
Wisnosky. The case touched upon fundamental issues linked to the burden of proof
of non-analytical doping violations and systematic doping schemes. A second

v
vi Editorial

commentary, by Howard Jacobs, deals with three anti-doping cases revolving

around the question of intent under the WADA Code. The introduction in 2015 of
intent as a criterion to determine the length of anti-doping sanctions is a funda-
mental change to the workings of the WADA Code, and the CAS has started to
develop jurisprudence on the issue. Finally, the commentary by Nina Lauber-
Thommesen and Charlotte Frey on the Sundby case considers the operation of the
principle of legal certainty in relation to WADA’s Prohibited List.
Football disputes still constitute the lion’s share of the CAS docket, which is
again apparent from the number of commentaries devoted to football-related
decisions in this YISA volume. Indeed, lawyers and researchers specialized in
‘football law’ will be happy to see that most of the cases reviewed in this edition
concern disputes connected to the governance of football, disciplinary matters in
football or the FIFA transfer system. The CAS is the final interpreter of the FIFA
Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (FIFA RSTP) and it decides the
most contentious issues arising out of their implementation. This YISA volume
includes contributions by Frans de Weger, Fabrice Robert-Tissot, Roy Levy, Jan
Kleiner, and Ornella Désirée Bellia examining different and often quite technical
aspects of the FIFA RSTP. Nicolas Bône commented on the case involving the
Moroccan Football Federation’s decision to withdraw from the organisation of the
African Cup of Nations in 2015 due to the Ebola crisis. Furthermore, the CAS has a
growing decisional practice related to match-fixing sanctions issued by UEFA, a
topic covered by both Jorge Ibarrola and Marc Cavaliero, as is the case law on
UEFA’s disciplinary sanctions for the behaviour of supporters, with a commentary
by Rosmarijn van Kleef, and the fundamental Galatasaray award finding that
UEFA’s FFP Rules are compatible with EU law is analysed by Antoine Duval. The
question of compatibility with EU law is also central to Lassana Diarra’s challenge
against the principle of joint and several liability under Article 17(2) RSTP, cur-
rently pending before the Belgian courts, as discussed in Ms Bellia’s contribution
and Antonio Rigozzi’s addendum thereto. Finally, Luca Beffa discusses the
much-awaited award partially upholding the ban on football activities imposed by
FIFA on Michel Platini over corruption allegations in connection with the gover-
nance of FIFA.
The 2016 Yearbook closes with two commentaries on decisions by national
courts related to CAS arbitration. Erika Hasler and Yann Hafner in their contri-
bution examine the 2016 decisions of the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) involving
CAS awards. It is worth recalling that the SFT plays a crucial role in the functioning
of the CAS as it is the only court with primary jurisdiction to hear challenges
against CAS awards. It is only in exceptional circumstances, such as those sur-
rounding the Pechstein ruling of the German Bundesgerichtshof, analysed by Bernd
Ehle and Ignacio Guaia, that other national courts will have the possibility to review
the work of the CAS and exercise some control over it.
The YISA series is only in its second year but has already found an avid
readership due to the demand for independent and quality scholarship on the
peculiar workings of the world of sports arbitration. The tremendous growth of
international sports arbitration since the turn of the century will not be halted in
Editorial vii

light of the ever-growing economic importance and internationalization of the

sports sector. It is therefore more than ever necessary to provide researchers,
practitioners and policy-makers with a high-quality comprehensive go-to outlet so
that they can follow the key developments in international sports law and keep up to
date with the latest debates and decisions, which will be shaping its evolution in the
years to come.

Antoine Duval
Antonio Rigozzi
Contents

Part I General Articles

Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators on CAS’s First Award
(TAS 86/1, HC X. c. LSHG) and Its Evolution Since Then . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Erika Hasler
Applicability of Swiss Law in Doping Cases Before the CAS
and the Swiss Federal Tribunal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Despina Mavromati
Standing to Appeal of Third Parties in Front of CAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Christian Keidel and Paul Fischer
The Russian Doping Scandal at the Court of Arbitration
for Sport: Lessons for the World Anti-Doping System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Antoine Duval
The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal’s 2017 Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Erika Hasler

Part II Commentaries of CAS Awards

CAS 2015/A/3920, Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football v.
Confédération Africaine de Football, Award of 17 November 2015 . . . . . 115
Nicolas Bône
CAS 2015/A/4151, Panathinaikos FC v. Union des Associations
Européennes de Football (UEFA) & Olympiakos FC, Award of 26
November 2015 (Operative Part of 24 August 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Marc Cavaliero
CAS 2015/A/3891, Kasimpasa Spor Kulübü v. Fernando Varela Ramos,
Award of 10 December 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Roy Levy

ix
x Contents

CAS 2015/A/4105, PFC CSKA Moscow v. Fédération Internationale de

Football Association (FIFA) & Football Club Midtjylland A/S,
Award of 21 December 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Jan Kleiner
CAS 2014/O/3781 & 3782, Sporting Clube de Portugal Futebol SAD v.
Doyen Sports, Award of 21 December 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Antoine Duval
CAS 2015/A/4059, WADA v. Thomas Bellchambers et al.,
Award of 11 January 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Marjolaine Viret and Emily Wisnosky
CAS 2014/A/3852, Ascoli Calcio 1898 S.p.A. v. Papa Waigo N’diaye &
Al Wahda Sports and Cultural Club, Award of 11 January 2016 . . . . . . 239
Frans de Weger
CAS 2015/A/4162, Liga Deportiva Alajuelense v. Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), Award of
3 February 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Fabrice Robert-Tissot
CAS 2016/A/4439, Thomasz Hamerlak v. International Paralympic
Committee, Award of 4 July 2016, CAS 2016/A/4676, Arijan Ademi v.
Union of European Football Associations, Award of 24 March 2017
and CAS 2016/A/4534, Mauricio Fiol Villanueva v. Fédération
Internationale de Natation, Award of 16 March 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Howard L. Jacobs
CAS 2016/A/4474, Michel Platini v. Fédération Internationale de
Football Association, Award of 9 May 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Luca Beffa
CAS 2015/A/4094, Lassana Diarra v. FC Lokomotiv Moscow,
Award of 27 May 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Ornella Desirée Bellia
CAS 2015/A/4256, Feyenoord Rotterdam N.V. v. UEFA,
Award of 24 June 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Rosmarijn van Kleef
CAS 2015/A/4233, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) v. Martin
Johnsrud Sundby & Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS),
Award of 11 July 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Nina Lauber-Thommesen and Charlotte Frey
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Contents xi

CAS 2015/A/4351, Vsl Pakruojo FK, Darius Jankauskas, Armas

Mikaitis, Sigitas Olberkis, Valdas Pocevicius, Alfredas Skroblas,
Donatas Strockis, Diogo Gouveia Miranda, C.H. Alexandru, Taras
Michailiuk v. Lithuanian Football Federation,
Award of 13 July 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Jorge Ibarrola
CAS 2016/A/4492, Galatasaray v. UEFA,
Award of 3 October 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Antoine Duval

Part III Sports Arbitration and National Courts

Sports Arbitration Cases Before the Swiss Federal Tribunal in 2016—A
Digest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Erika Hasler and Yann Hafner
Bundesgerichtshof, Az. KZR 6/15, Pechstein v. International Skating
Union (ISU), 7 June 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Bernd Ehle and Ignacio Guaia
Abbreviations

CAS Court of Arbitration for Sport

CAS Code Code of Sports‐related Arbitration and Mediation Rules
(latest edition)
CC Swiss Civil Code
CCP Swiss Code of Civil Procedure
CHF Swiss franc
CJEU Court of Justice of the European Union
CO Swiss Code of Obligations
ECHR European Convention on Human Rights
ECtHR European Court of Human Rights
EU European Union
EUR Euro
FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association
FIFA DC FIFA Disciplinary Code
FIFA DRC FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber
FIFA PSC FIFA Players’ Status Committee
FIFA RSTP FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (latest
edition)
FIFA Statutes FIFA Statutes (latest edition)
FIFA TMS FIFA Transfer Matching System
IBA Rules International Bar Association, Rules on the Taking of Evidence in
International Arbitration
ICAS International Council of Arbitration for Sport
IOC International Olympic Committee
ITC International Transfer Certificate
NYC New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of
Foreign Arbitral Awards
OJ Official Journal of the European Union
PILA Swiss Private International Law Act (LDIP; IPRG)
SFT Swiss Federal Tribunal (BGer; TF)

xiii
xiv Abbreviations

SGB Sports governing body/bodies

TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
UCI Union Cycliste Internationale
UEFA Union of European Football Associations
UEFA CFCB UEFA Club Financial Control Body
UEFA FFP UEFA Financial Fair Play
UEFA Statutes UEFA Statutes (latest edition)
USD US dollar
WADA World Anti‐Doping Agency
WADA Code World Anti‐Doping Code (latest edition)
 Part I
General Articles
Back to the Future: The First CAS
Arbitrators on CAS’s First Award (TAS
86/1, HC X. c. LSHG) and Its Evolution
Since Then

Erika Hasler

Abstract On 30 January 1987, a panel composed of arbitrators François Carrard,

Hans Nater and Jean Gay rendered an award resolving a dispute that had arisen
between Hockey Club X. and the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation (LSHG), further to
an incident during a match in the Swiss National Championship of 1985. The HC X.
c. LSHG award was the very first award rendered by the then fledgling Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS). History has shown that the establishment of the CAS
responded to a real and important need in the international sports community, but
this was far from certain at that time. Today, as the designated last-instance adju-
dicating body in most international sports regulations, and having issued more than
3,000 awards, including in the course of 11 editions of the Olympic Games, the
CAS is universally seen as the “supreme court” of world sports. Arbitrators Carrard,
Nater and Gay have kindly accepted to share their memories of that first case, their
views on the CAS’s development over the 30 years that have elapsed since the
issuance of their award, and some ideas for the future of this unique institution.

Keywords CAS
Arbitration
Ex aequo et bono
IOC
CAS list

Contents

1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 4
References .................................................................................................................................. 16

E. Hasler (&)
Lévy Kaufmann-Kohler, Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Erika.hasler@lk-k.com

© T.M.C. ASSER PRESS and the authors 2018 3

A. Duval and A. Rigozzi (eds.), Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration 2016
DOI 10.1007/978-94-6265-237-8_1
4 E. Hasler

1 Introduction

On 30 January 1987, a panel composed of arbitrators François Carrard, Hans Nater

and Jean Gay rendered an award resolving a dispute that had arisen between
Hockey Club X. and the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation (LSHG), further to an
incident during a match in the Swiss National Championship of 1985. The HC X. c.
LSHG award1 was the very first award rendered by the then fledgling Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS).2 History has shown that the establishment of the CAS
responded to a real and important need in the international sports community, but
this was far from certain at that time. Today, as the designated last-instance adju-
dicating body in most international sports regulations, and having issued more than
3,000 awards,3 including in the course of 11 editions of the Olympic Games,4 the
CAS is universally seen as the “supreme court” of world sports. Arbitrators Carrard,
Nater and Gay have kindly accepted to share their memories of that first case, their
views on the CAS’s development over the 30 years that have elapsed since the
issuance of their award, and some ideas for the future of this unique institution.

1. Thirty years ago you were a member of the arbitral panel which rendered
the very first CAS award, what do you remember about the facts and pro-
cedure of that case?
H. Nater: The case involved a Swiss hockey club and the Swiss National Hockey
League. A qualifying match was interrupted following a fight among the players
and the coach of one of the teams. In the first instance, a regional committee of the
Swiss Hockey League conducted an extensive investigation based on detailed
reports by the referees and, inter alia, imposed a fine on the coach’s club (HC X.).
We dismissed HC X.’s appeal and upheld the first instance decision. We considered
that the sanction imposed was within the Respondent’s discretion and in line with
the applicable regulations. The crux of the case was whether the club could be fined
although its coach had been discharged from any wrongdoings on the ground that
he acted without intent when he intervened personally in the fight with a hockey
stick in his hands. We also considered whether the security measures taken by the

1
TAS 86/1, HC X. v. Ligue Suisse de Hockey sur Glace (LSHG), Award of 30 January 1987
(hereinafter: the Award), rendered by a panel composed of François Carrard (President), Hans
Nater (Co-arbitrator) and Jean Gay (Co-arbitrator), available in the CAS Archives, at http://
jurisprudence.tas-cas.org/Shared%20%Documents/Forms/AllDecisions.aspx.
2
The CAS officially started its operations in June 1984, when the first edition of the CAS Statutes
and Regulations, which were adopted by the IOC in 1983, came into force. See the “Important
dates” section on the CAS website at http://www.tas-cas.org/en/general-information/statistics.html.
3
See CAS Statistics, 1986–2016, available at http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_
statistics_2016_.pdf.
4
CAS ad hoc divisions have been operating at major international sports events, starting with the
Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. Since 1998, ad hoc divisions have also been set up to
deal with disputes at the Commonwealth Games, and since 2000 to deal with football disputes,
first at the European Football Championships, and, since 2006, also at the FIFA World Cup.
Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators … 5

Fig. 1 Gilbert Schwaar (Source Musée Olympique)

Fig. 2 Villa le Centenaire (Source Musée Olympique)

6 E. Hasler

Fig. 3 Messrs Mbaye, Samaranch and Schwaar (Source Musée Olympique)

club hosting the game met the regulatory requirements. Without answering the
question, which had not been submitted to us, we noted that even if the organizing
club were found to have fallen short of its obligations in that regard, that would not
have sufficed to justify the lifting of the sanction against the coach’s club.
As to the procedure, no hearing was held, and thus we decided solely on the
basis of the parties’ written submissions. In hindsight, the importance of the
decision (which was rendered ex aequo et bono)5 resides in its ‘political’ message:
hockey (and all sports) games must not degenerate into war zones, and it is
incumbent upon the federations to see to it that this doesn’t happen.
F. Carrard: On a more personal level, I still recall that, given that this was the
first case ever, the then Secretary General of the CAS (the late Gilbert Schwaar)6
was very happy to have us. He extended a wonderful hospitality, and had a
sumptuous buffet lunch set up for us arbitrators as we met at the CAS.

5
See page 2 of the Award, third paragraph from the bottom: “[t]he parties agreed that only Swiss
law would apply, and have expressly authorized the CAS to decide their dispute ex aequo et bono”
(free translation), with a reference to Article 31(3) of the Concordat intercantonal sur l’arbitrage
of 1969, the inter-cantonal treaty which at the time governed both domestic and international
arbitration in Switzerland. Article 31(3) of the Concordat provided that “[t]he arbitral tribunal shall
make its determination according to the rules of the applicable law, unless the parties have, in the
arbitration agreement, authorized it to make its determination ex aequo et bono” (free translation).
6
Dr. Gilbert Schwaar was Secretary General of the CAS from 1984 to 1994 (see Fig. 1).
Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators … 7

J. Gay: Yes, I too remember Secretary General Schwaar’s radiant smile in

welcoming us! Another thing I remember is that we had a breathtaking view of Lac
Léman from the windows of the meeting room in the Villa du Centenaire…7
2. How did it feel to be sitting as arbitrators in the first ever CAS case?
F. Carrard: As I had already been involved in a number of arbitrations, both ad hoc
and institutional, at the time I had no particular feeling with respect to this one,
other than the satisfaction of seeing the idea of the CAS becoming a reality.
H. Nater: For my part, I remember that, having become acquainted with alter-
native dispute resolution concepts in my time at Harvard Law School just a few
years earlier, I was persuaded that the mechanisms developed in commercial
arbitration could be transferred to sports disputes. As chairman of the internal
dispute resolution chamber of the Swiss Ski Federation I felt that we needed an
independent arbitral tribunal to adjudicate legal disputes between athletes, clubs and
federations. Hence, I was very proud that we were involved from the outset in an
exemplary case, which (i) demonstrated the necessity of introducing sports arbi-
tration at a professional level, and (ii) helped convince the federations to include a
CAS arbitration clause in their regulations.
J. Gay: I was aware that ours was one of the very first cases before the CAS, but
I did not realize that it would result in the institution’s first award ever. I cannot
deny that, retrospectively, I feel some pride at this idea!
3. The award indicates that the CAS was seized of the dispute on the basis of
an ad hoc submission agreement concluded by the parties.8 In your view, did
the CAS’s availability and ability to deal with that type of dispute play a role in
encouraging federations to provide for CAS arbitration in their regulations?
F. Carrard: In order to answer this question, it might be useful to recall the actual
origins of the CAS. In 1979, the National Olympic Committee of Taiwan sued the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) before a civil court in Lausanne, chal-
lenging the IOC’s decision on the status of the athletes of the People’s Republic of
China at the upcoming 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. In the wake of these
court proceedings, Juan Antonio Samaranch, the then President of the IOC,
expressed a strong desire to avoid returning in front of any local state courts, which
did not appear to have an adequate understanding of the international sports world.9

7
Until it moved to its current location in the Château de Béthusy (in 2005), the CAS was seated at
the Villa du Centenaire, between the Beau Rivage Palace hotel and the Olympic Museum, on the
Quai d’Ouchy in Lausanne (see Fig. 2).
8
See page 2 of the Award, in medio: “[t]he parties agreed to submit their dispute to the CAS in
accordance with a submission agreement signed in Lausanne on 10 November 1986” (free
translation).
9
A follow up suit—including a motion for an order enjoining the Lake Placid Games from going
forward unless the Taiwan delegation was authorized to represent China—was also brought by a
Taiwanese athlete before the courts of New York, and that motion was granted in the first instance,
before being dismissed on appeal (see, e.g., Rigozzi 2005, para 216).
8 E. Hasler

At the time I was external Counsel to the IOC, and Mr. Samaranch asked me to
suggest some alternative forms of dispute resolution. As I had experience with the
arbitral procedures of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), I suggested
that the Olympic movement could launch an institution which could be comparable
to the ICC Court of arbitration. Mr. Samaranch accepted my proposal and passed it
on to his closest advisor and friend, Judge Kéba Mbaye, who was then
Vice-president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The initial
concept developed by Judge Mbaye, which was adopted in 1983,10 was that of an
institution available for resolving disputes between the constituents of the Olympic
movement. Originally, the CAS was not conceived nor designed to deal with
appeals against lower instance disciplinary decisions.11 The culture of the Olympic
and sports movement at that time was still based on fair play, consensus and
acceptance of the decisions rendered by sports juries and disciplinary commissions.
Hence, until CAS arbitration clauses started to be inserted in the sports federations’
statutes,12 its jurisdiction to deal with a particular dispute could only be based on a
specific agreement between the parties.
H. Nater: Indeed, in this case an ad hoc agreement to arbitrate the dispute was
the only way for the parties to access justice, given that: (i) the High Court of the
Canton of Zurich had refused to entertain an application for annulment filed by HC.
X against the Swiss Hockey League’s decision,13 and (ii) the Statutes of the Swiss
Hockey League did not yet contain an arbitration clause in favour of the CAS. The
Zurich High Court had dismissed HC X.’s application mainly for procedural

10
See Reeb 1998, p. XXIII, noting that the CAS Statutes were officially ratified by the IOC in
1983 and came into force on 30 June 1984 (see Fig. 3).
11
The provisions governing jurisdiction and the conclusion of a CAS arbitration agreement were
contained in Articles 19 et seq. and 24 et seq. of the CAS’s then Statute and Regulations
respectively, which essentially provided for the possibility of concluding an ex ante arbitration
agreement (to be notified to the CAS upon conclusion and completed later, in case of dispute, with
certain particulars), or an ex post submission agreement with regard to a specific dispute, providing
for its referral to the CAS.
12
In 1991, the CAS published a “Guide to arbitration”, featuring several model arbitration clauses.
Among these, there was one suggested for inclusion in the statutes or regulations of federations,
which read as follows: “[a]ny dispute arising from the present Statutes and Regulations of the…
Federation which cannot be settled amicably shall be settled finally by a tribunal composed in
accordance with the Statute and Regulations of the [CAS] to the exclusion of any recourse to the
ordinary courts. The parties undertake to comply with the said Statute and Regulations and to
accept in good faith the award rendered and in no way hinder its execution”. The International
Equestrian Federation (FEI) was the first sports-governing body to adopt that model clause. As
noted by Mavromati and Reeb 2015, p. 2, “[t]his was the starting point for several ‘appeals’
procedures even if, in formal terms such a procedure did not yet exist. After that, other national and
international sports federations adopted the appeals arbitration clause, which led to a significant
increase in the workload of the CAS”.
13
See page 2 of the Award, in medio “HC X. brought an application for annulment against the
LSHG’s Appeals Chamber’s decision before the Obergericht [Higher Cantonal Court] in Zurich,
which declared the application inadmissible […] on 15 August 1985” (free translation).
Obergericht des Kantons Zürich, 3rd Civil Chamber, Erledigungsbeschluss of 15 August 1985.
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Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators … 9

reasons. Most importantly, its ruling stated in an obiter dictum that the match result
that had been imposed as a sanction—defeat by forfait—was to be considered a
field of play decision, lying outside the jurisdiction of a state court.14 Thus, the HC
X. v. LSHG case provided a perfect illustration of the need for establishing a sports
arbitration institution like the CAS.
J. Gay: Exactly. At the time, no federation provided for appeals before the CAS,
meaning that a submission agreement (compromis arbitral), whereby the parties
agreed to bring a particular dispute before the CAS, was necessary to ground the
tribunal’s jurisdiction. In this case, the parties agreed to do so after the Zurich court
had declared the claimant’s action inadmissible before it. I am also certain that the
issuance of this first award, resolving the dispute between a club and its national
federation, and the few others that followed it shortly afterwards15 helped convince
international sports federations to include express clauses in their regulations pro-
viding for CAS jurisdiction.
4. You are all still involved in CAS and sports arbitration nowadays. How has
it changed, from your (insiders’) point of view?
F. Carrard: The CAS itself and sports arbitration more generally have immensely
changed and evolved since those early days. The CAS now more and more operates
as an institutional chamber of appeal against disciplinary decisions issued by sports
bodies.
J. Gay: Particularly after the 1994 reforms and the adoption of the Paris
Agreement,16 we have seen the CAS grow, from one success to the next, always
under the scrutiny of the Swiss Supreme Court, to become the world’s central
institution for international sports disputes. The magnitude of that growth is
reflected in the most recent statistics.17 This evolution is certainly due to the quality
of CAS awards and to its efficient organisation.

14
Ibid., para 4.1. For an overview of the evolution of the case law on the judicial (or arbitral)
review of field of play decisions, see in particular CAS OG 96/006, Mendy v. AIBA, Award of 1
August 1996, with reference to the SFT’s case law and Prof. M. Baddeley’s analysis in point.
15
In 1987, 8 new cases were filed with the CAS (both in “ordinary” and in what was then known
as the “consultation procedure” [note by the editors: this procedure was abrogated in 2012]), and
from there onwards, until the adoption of the Paris Agreement establishing the CAS appeals
procedure in 1994, that number gradually grew from one year to the next, reaching a total of 131
proceedings initiated (see CAS Statistics, 1986–2016, available at http://www.tas-cas.org/
fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_statistics_2016_.pdf).
16
The Paris Agreement, adopted in June 1994, established the International Council of Arbitration
for Sport (ICAS), provided that the CAS would be financed by international federations and
national Olympic committees in addition to the IOC (until then the sole provider of funds), and
reorganized and streamlined CAS proceedings, introducing the distinction between ordinary and
appeals arbitrations, each governed by a specific set of rules within the newly drafted CAS Code of
Sports-related Arbitration, which entered into force in November 1994.
17
CAS Statistics, 1986–2016, available at http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_
statistics_2016_.pdf.
10 E. Hasler

H. Nater: No question, the CAS has become the most reputable organisation
worldwide to resolve sports disputes. It is true that the quality of its proceedings and
decisions has significantly improved and has reached a level equal to commercial
arbitration. Highly qualified international (commercial) arbitrators have joined the
CAS over the years and contributed to its success as the leading institution of sports
arbitration. In a recent article, Professor Jan Paulsson, one of the most reputed
experts in international sports arbitration (and in international arbitration), spoke of
the interim CAS award in the hyperandrogenism case of Dutee Chand18 as “an
exceptionally thorough award”, adding that it would no doubt be the “road to
chaos”, if, instead of the CAS, the courts of 200 different states were to get involved
in resolving disputes arising from the issue of hyperandrogenism (or similarly
complex and sensitive questions), applying their own public policy to resolve such
disputes.19
5. Did you expect, back then, that the CAS would become such a central
institution in global sport?
J. Gay: Not really. I reckoned that the CAS could eventually play a significant role
in purely sporting disputes, in particular between athletes and their federations
(once the latter started to include CAS arbitration in their regulations). What I did
not anticipate was that a similar development would take place also with regard to
sports disputes involving commercial and/or pecuniary issues.
H. Nater: Frankly, no, I did not expect things to go this far. That said, back then,
I did realize that the CAS had significant potential for development. First, many of
the major sports federations had their domicile in Switzerland and were subject to
Swiss law. Moreover, I considered Switzerland, thanks to its liberal concept of
arbitration (which was soon to be anchored in Chapter 12 of the Swiss Private
International Law Statute),20 to be a leading hub for international arbitration. Thus,
the necessary elements for the CAS to become what it is today were already in
place.
F. Carrard: I am not sure I recall exactly what I expected then. I guess that I had
hoped that the CAS would become an important institution for the Olympic and
sports movement, but I had no specific idea as to its evolution. Having said this, I
do now have a more precise view of where the institution should go from here,
perhaps for its next thirty years, as I explain in my answer to question 7 below.

18
CAS 2014/A/3759, Dutee Chand v. Athletics Federation of India & The International
Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), Award of 24 July 2015.
19
Paulsson 2015.
20
Enacted in 1987, Chapter 12 of the Swiss Private International Law Act, which entered into
force in 1989, replaced the Concordat (see footnote 5 above) as the statute governing international
arbitration in Switzerland.
Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators … 11

6. Why do you think the CAS became such a go-to dispute resolution body?
What are the specific institutional features that make it so attractive?
F. Carrard: The fact that the arbitrators on the CAS list are required to have both
legal training and a sports background21 has certainly been an incentive for sports
persons and clubs to submit their disputes to the CAS rather than to the ordinary
state courts.
J. Gay: As I said earlier, in my view the quality of the awards and the excellent
administrative organization of the CAS are the keys to its success. Today, the CAS
has a list of more than 350 arbitrators who, at the same time, are competent and
reputed from a legal point of view, but also benefit from in-depth knowledge and
understanding of the sports world. This double requirement definitely gives CAS
the edge over other fora for international sports disputes.
H. Nater: True. In short, the CAS has been able to attract experts in arbitration
who are also familiar with sports, and who found in Switzerland an ideal legal
environment to shape the CAS into what it is today. Professor Riemer, one of the
leading scholars on the Swiss law of associations was making this point when he
entitled one of his articles on sports law “World Sports Law Power Switzerland”
(“Sportrechts-Weltmacht Schweiz”).22
7. If you could change something in the functioning or institutional set-up of
the CAS, what would it be?
H. Nater: In my view, the CAS should strive for operational excellence and
intensify the training and continuous education of arbitrators and CAS counsel on
the operational level. A few practical ideas to improve the CAS’s operational
excellence could be: providing for recourse to court reporters in complex cases;23
scrutiny of awards; introducing a mandatory requirement for the arbitrators to
establish, at an early stage, a procedural calendar in cooperation with the parties.
J. Gay: To me, it is obvious that ADR methods other than arbitration, in par-
ticular mediation, should be reinforced before the CAS. There is in fact a set of
CAS Mediation Rules,24 but I believe they should be reviewed and updated to

21
The CAS Code provides, in Article S14 (last amended in 2016), that: “[t]he ICAS shall appoint
personalities to the list of CAS arbitrators with appropriate legal training, recognized competence
with regard to sports law and/or international arbitration, [and] a good knowledge of sport in
general […]”.
22
Riemer 2004.
23
At present, the CAS Code provides that “Minutes of the hearing may be taken” (Article R44.2).
In practice, the CAS takes an audio recording of the hearing which may be provided to the parties
upon request. Obviously, this is a much less practical working tool than a proper transcript. Several
other examples that may provide inspiration also for CAS proceedings, where appropriate, can be
found, for instance, in the ICC Techniques for Controlling Time and Costs in Arbitration
(available at https://iccwbo.org/publication/icc-arbitration-commission-report-on-techniques-for-
controlling-time-and-costs-in-arbitration/).
24
CAS Mediation Rules adopted in 2013 (amended in 2016), available at http://www.tas-cas.org/
fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Mediation_Rules_2016__clean_.pdf.
12 E. Hasler

reflect the more recent developments and current standards of practice in the field.
Moreover, even if most CAS mediators are highly competent, only a minority of
them have in-depth knowledge of the sports world. As just seen, this is key
advantage of CAS arbitrators, and I fail to see why it should not be the same for
CAS mediators.
CAS proceedings tend to become longer and costlier nowadays. While there
certainly are procedural mechanisms available to counter this trend, one should not
forget that all disputes, including in sports, have a strong emotional component.
Indeed, the psychological dimension often plays a particularly important role in
sports disputes. Many jurisdictions have recently encouraged and developed the use
of mediation to resolve disputes efficiently by taking this psychological element
into adequate account. I believe the CAS should also follow this fruitful approach,
by improving its mediation rules and promoting their use where appropriate.
F. Carrard: Personally, I would go farther than these proposals, at least as far as
the CAS appeals division is concerned. It seems to me that few are those who
remember that most of the decisions brought before the CAS are not civil or
criminal rulings (the CAS has no authority in criminal matters), but rather disci-
plinary decisions. True, such decisions may well affect not only the sports career of
the persons concerned, but also their professional life, reputation and financial
situation. In that context, the CAS has developed a rather peculiar and specific legal
culture.
As an institution based in Switzerland, the CAS was meant to resolve disputes
by means of simple, quick and hopefully cheap proceedings. However, the current
situation is different: under the clear influence of the Anglo-American legal culture,
the CAS’s disciplinary procedures have been transformed into long, heavy and
costly proceedings, far from the type of proceedings that were originally envisaged.
The increasingly complex procedures that have developed tend, in turn, to demand
more and more resources, with a parallel increase in costs. I am convinced that the
time has come for a serious reconsideration of many aspects of these disciplinary
procedures, towards a simplification and acceleration. If properly applied, Swiss
law offers such possibilities. These are currently not used enough for fear of appeals
to the Swiss Supreme Court. However, that fear is excessive in view of the usually
good quality of the decisions rendered by CAS panels and arbitrators.
More specifically, I am convinced that the time has come to strengthen and
‘upgrade’ the CAS into a new form of International Sports Court of Justice, directly
recognized by the international community. In other words, I believe the CAS
should be maintained, but should benefit from further direct support and recognition
from governments. I am aware that such views are not easily accepted by those who
consider that sport must at all costs proclaim and defend its autonomy. I remember
the times—which are not so far away—when most sports leaders considered that
doping matters should never be dealt with by governments. But, as history has
shown, times are changing and so is the legal order in which sport operates, both at
the domestic and at the international level. Based on a rather long experience,
taking into account the extraordinary increase of litigation in sport and the changes
in the legal culture affecting sport, I consider that, unfortunately, dispute resolution
Back to the Future: The First CAS Arbitrators … 13

based on consent—which is a core concept of arbitration—is probably not sufficient

any more to resolve all sports disputes. In essence, I consider that one solution
could be the integration of the CAS into the international institutional community,
in a format to be carefully prepared, studied, tested and implemented most likely
(and logically) through a treaty or an international convention.
8. In your opinion, which is/are the most important decision(s) rendered by the
CAS to date?
J. Gay: I find it difficult and would even feel a bit foolhardy to try and single out
one particular decision as the “most important” one. It seems to me that what is
more important is the general overall quality of the awards rendered by the CAS, as
well as the legal framework from which they arise. These are the elements one
should concentrate on, and which make the CAS stand out as a dispute resolution
body.
F. Carrard: It goes without saying that the most important decisions rendered by
the CAS to date are those which have been issued in favour of my clients! Seriously
speaking, I have seen so many cases that I am not in a position to identify decisions
which I would consider as “most important”. In spite of my deep involvement in the
Olympic and sports movement for the last 40 years or so, I still consider that the
most important decisions are those rendered by state supreme courts on CAS
decisions.
H. Nater: Speaking of court decisions, for me, historically, the most important
one for the CAS was Raguz v. Sullivan.25 A dispute arose between Australian
women judokas Angela Raguz and Rebecca Sullivan as to who of the two should
represent Australia for the under 52 kg category at the upcoming Olympic Games
in Sydney. Ms. Sullivan appealed before the CAS against the Judo Federation’s
decision to nominate Ms. Raguz as Australian representative. A CAS panel com-
posed of Australian arbitrators held a hearing in Sydney and upheld Ms. Sullivan’s
appeal, whereupon Ms. Raguz sought the annulment of the CAS award before the
Australian courts. By declining jurisdiction to hear the annulment action, the New
South Wales Court of Appeal confirmed that, by virtue of the CAS arbitration
agreement in the relevant regulations, even if the proceedings were entirely con-
ducted in Australia, the “agreed juridical seat or place of arbitration was
Switzerland”. This strong precedent had the effect of “sealing” the CAS global
system of dispute resolution, based in Switzerland, against interference by national
courts elsewhere in the world, thereby marking the breakthrough for the CAS to
become the most important sports arbitration tribunal in the world. Suddenly, top
lawyers and arbitrators from all over the world, English barristers, QCs from
Canada, Australia and England joined the CAS as arbitrators or came to plead as
counsel before it. This rendered the proceedings more professionalized by applying
common law procedural standards.

25
Raguz v. Sullivan [2000] NSWCA 240; http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/
nsw/NSWCA/2000/240.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=raguz&nocontext=1.
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 Southey and his family did not occupy the whole of the Hall, but shared
it with Coleridge and his family, and with Mrs. Lovell and her son. There
was no absolute partition, but an amicable distribution of the rooms.
Coleridge had a study to himself, in which was a grand organ, about the
only piece of furniture it could boast of. To atone for this, the windows
looked out upon a magnificent sweep of country, and objects of sublimity
and beauty met the eye wherever it wandered. Southey’s library—already
described as the best room of the house—was open to all the ladies alike.
The books in it were chiefly English, Spanish, and Portuguese, well
selected, being the best cardinal classics of the three literatures; fine copies,
and decorated externally with a reasonable elegance, so as to make them in
harmony with the other embellishments of the room. This was aided by the
horizontal arrangement, upon brackets, of many rare manuscripts, Spanish
or Portuguese. The two families always met at dinner, in a common
drawing-room.
The scenery around Greta Hall was grand beyond all power of
description. “The lake of Derwent Water, in one direction, with its lovely
islands—a lake about ten miles in circuit, and shaped pretty much like a
boy’s kite; the lake of Bassinthwaite in another; the mountains of
Newlands, arranging themselves like pavilions; the gorgeous confusion of
Borrowdale, just revealing its sublime chaos through the narrow vista of its
gorge; whilst the sullen rear, not fully visible on this side of the house, was
closed for many a league by the vast and towering masses of Skiddaw and
Blencathara—mountains which are rather to be considered as frontier
barriers, and chains of hilly ground, cutting the county of Cumberland into
great chambers, and different climates, than as insulated eminences; so vast
is the area which they occupy; though there are, also, rich, separate, and
insulated heights, and nearly amongst the highest in the county.”
Such, then, is the description of Southey’s house and neighbourhood, as
given by De Quincy. The first visit of the Opium Eater to Wordsworth—
including these visits to Greta Hall, and wanderings through the lake
districts—extended over a week; and at the conclusion of that time, when it
was necessary for him to return to Oxford, to save his Michaelmas term, he
witnessed, and has described one of the most extraordinary scenes, at the
table of the woman with the “Saracen’s Head,” in company with
Wordsworth and his sister, that has, perhaps, ever been enacted at any
supper table in the kingdoms of this world. I can give no account of it here,
and refer the reader once more to the “Reminiscences:” all I will say, in
conclusion is, that in the following November (1808), De Quincy returned
to Grasmere, and took possession of the late cottage of the poet; who, with
his family, had removed to a house, called Allan Bank, about three-quarters
of a mile off, which had recently been built by a Liverpool merchant, at a
cost of £1,500; a damp, cold, and incurably smoky house, which defects the
poet set forth so eloquently to the proprietor, that he allowed him to live in
it for a merely nominal rent.
The reason for Wordsworth’s removal, was the increasing number of his
family. And here I may as well give a list of this family, adding to it the
only one who was born after the period to which I now allude. They are as
follow:—
John, born 18th June, 1803.
Dorothy, called, and generally known as, Dora, born 16th August, 1804.
Thomas, born 16th June, 1806.
Catharine, born 6th September, 1808.
William, born 12th May, 1810.
Thomas and Catharine, died in their childhood; John and William are
still living; and Dora, “My own Dora,” as the poet loved to call her, after a
wedded life, more or less happy (she married Edward Quillinan, Esq.), she
died in 1847, just three years before her venerable father.
Wordsworth was singularly fortunate in his family. There was no jars nor
discords in the sacred temple of his home; but beauty, love, and all the
virtues and the graces dwelt with him, and ministered to his happiness and
repose. He loved his children with an intense affection; and sweet Dora, his
best beloved, exercised an influence over him, more beautiful and
harmonising perhaps, even than that which his sister exercised in his early
life, and still continued to exercise, because it was deeper, and struck deeper
into the very being of the poet. This child threw a sacred halo round his
soul, and inspired one of the sweetest of his lyrics. Only a month after her
birth he wrote:—
 “Hast thou then survived
Mild offspring of infirm humanity?
.... Hail to thee!
Frail, feeble monthling.... On thy face
Smiles are beginning, like the beams of dawn,
To shoot, and circulate. Smiles have there been seen;
Tranquil assurances that heaven supports
The feeble motions of thy life, and cheers
Thy loveliness; or shall those smiles be called
Feelers of love, put forth as if to explore
This untried world, and to prepare thy way
Through a strait passage intricate and dim?”

In the autumn of the same year we find him writing the lines “The Kitten
and the Falling Leaves,” suggested by the delight of his dear Dora at the
pretty frolics of a kitten on the wall, playing with the leaves of autumn.

“Such a light of gladness breaks

Pretty kitten! from thy freaks;
Spreads with such a living grace,
O’er my little Dora’s face.”

then the poet resolves that he will have his glee out of life:—
“I will have my careless season,
Spite of melancholy reason;
Will walk thro’ life in such a way,
That, when time brings on decay,
Now and then, I may possess
Hours of perfect gladsomeness;
Keep the sprightly soul awake,
And have faculties to take,
Even from things by sorrow wrought,
Matter for a jocund thought;
Spite of care and spite of grief,
To gambol with life’s falling leaf.”

He likewise addresses “The Longest Day” to her; and what a contrast to

the last poem! Instead of gambolling with the falling leaves, and making
life a grand holiday, he exhorts his child, now grown older, to think of
higher matters:—
 “Summer ebbs; each day that follows
Is a reflex from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows,
Where the frosts of winter lie.
Now, even now, e’er wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea,
That absorbs time, space, and number,—
Look thou to eternity!”

And a little later, when the possibility of blindness came like a gloomy
shadow to darken his more thoughtful moments; he anticipates the time
when his own Dora shall guide his lonely steps. Poor Dora! she died of
consumption, after trying, in vain, the warm south of Portugal. And yet she
is not dead, and cannot die. In Dr. Wordsworth’s Memoirs, second volume,
there is a fine portrait of her, and a sweet, mild, gentle, and spiritual girl she
is; the eye singularly beautiful, and full of deep mystic fire. The poet has
also drawn a portrait of her:—

“Open, ye thickets! let her fly,

Swift as a Thracian nymph, o’er field or height!
For she, to all but those who love her, shy,
Would gladly vanish from a stranger’s sight;
Tho’ where she is beloved, and loves
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves;
Her happy spirit as a bird is free,
That rifles blossoms on a tree,
Turning them inside out, with rich audacity.”

And all this sweet surfeit of painting is true to the spirit of the beautiful girl;
the spirit which stirs her thoughts, and makes all her movements an
impulsive comminglement of music and poetry. A more airy, celestial form
could not be imagined than hers. It seems to float on the atmosphere. And
then she is so happy, and loving to those who love her.

“Alas! how little can a moment show

Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;
A face o’er which a thousand shadows go!—
She stops—is fastened to that rivulet’s side;
And these (while, with sedater mien
O’ ti id t th t h l l ft
O’er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birthplace in the rocky cleft,
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified—
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth;
The bland composure of eternal youth!

What more changeful than the sea?

But over his great tides
Fidelity presides;
And this light-hearted maiden constant is as he.
High is her aim, as heaven above,
And wide as ether her good will;
And like the lowly reed, her love
Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill;
Insight as keen as frosty star
Is to her charity no bar,
Nor interrupts her frolic graces
When she is far from those wild places,
Encircled by familiar faces.

O the charms that manners draw,

Nature, from thy genuine law!
If from what her hand would do
Her voice would utter, aught ensue
Untoward or unfit;
She in benign affections pure
In self-forgetfulness, secure,
Sheds round the transient harm, or vague mischance
A light unknown to tutored elegance:
Hers is not a cheek shame-stricken,
But her blushes, are joy-flushes;
And the fault, if fault it be,
Only ministers to quicken
Laughter-loving gaiety,
And kindly sportive wit,
Leaving this daughter of the mountains free
As if she knew that Oberon, king of faery
Had crossed her purpose with some quaint vagary,
And heard his viewless bands
Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands.”
A fairer drawn portrait—a more beautiful poem, as a whole—does not, I
think, exist. Alas! sweet Dora.
To return, however, to the narrative. When Wordsworth was living at
Allan Bank, and during the time that Coleridge sojourned with him, two
prose works appeared, by these two poets, which are memorable to all
scholars. The former wrote his famous “Essay on the Convention of
Cintra,” and the latter dictated (for he did not write it) his still more famous
work entitled “The Friend.” Notwithstanding Wordsworth’s devotion,
therefore, to poetry, it will be seen that he was not indifferent to the passing
events which were writing their history in the blood of nations. Speaking of
his “Convention of Cintra,” in a letter to Southey, he says, “My detestation,
I may say abhorrence, of that event, is not at all diminished by your account
of it. Bonaparte had committed a capital blunder in supposing that when he
had intimidated the Sovereigns of Europe, he had conquered the several
nations. Yet it was natural for a wiser than he was to have fallen into this
mistake; for the old despotisms had deprived the body of the people of all
practical knowledge in the management, and of necessity of all interest in
the course of affairs. The French themselves were astonished at the apathy
and ignorance of the people whom they had supposed they had utterly
subdued, when they had taken their fortresses, scattered their armies,
entered their capital cities, and struck their cabinets with dismay. There was
no hope for the deliverance of Europe till the nations had suffered enough
to be driven to a passionate recollection of all that was honourable in their
past history, and to make appeal to the principles of universal and
everlasting justice. These sentiments the authors of that Convention most
unfeelingly violated; and as to the principals, they seemed to be as little
aware even of the existence of such powers, for powers emphatically may
they be called, as the tyrant himself. As far, therefore, as these men could,
they put an extinguisher upon the star that was then rising! It is in vain to
say that after the first burst of indignation was over, the Portuguese
themselves were reconciled to the event, and rejoiced in their deliverance.
We may infer from that, the horror which they must have felt in the
presence of their oppressors; and we may see in it to what a state of
helplessness their bad government had reduced them. Our duty was to have
treated them with respect, as the representatives of suffering humanity,
beyond what they were likely to look for themselves, and as deserving
greatly, in common with their Spanish brethren, for having been the first to
rise against that tremendous oppression, and to show how, and how only, it
could be put an end to.” The poet apologises for the seeming inconsistency
of his conduct in opposing the war against France at its commencement,
and in urging the necessity of it in the later affairs of Spain and Portugal, by
showing that he, and those who thought with him, “proved that they kept
their eyes steadily fixed upon principles; for though there was a shifting or
transfer of hostility in their minds, as far as regarded persons, they only
combated the same enemy opposed to them under a different shape; and
that enemy was the spirit of selfish tyranny and lawless ambition.”
So far, then, the “Essay on the Convention of Cintra.” Coleridge’s prose
work, “The Friend,” was a serial, composed of papers upon various
subjects, written mostly by Coleridge himself, with occasional assistance
from Wordsworth, Professor Wilson, and others. In the seventeenth number
of “The Friend,” the latter writer, in a letter to the Editor, speaks of
Wordsworth as a “great teacher,” and a “mighty voice not poured out in
vain.” “There are hearts,” he says, “that have received into their inmost
depths all its varying tones; and even now there are many to whom the
name of Wordsworth calls up the recollection of their weakness and the
consciousness of their strength.” The letter was signed “Mathetes,” and
might be called a warning voice to the young upon the illusions and popular
fallacies of the age. It insisted likewise upon the dues belonging to
antiquity; combated the notion that human nature is gradually advancing to
perfection, and that the present time is wiser than the past. “Mathetes”
maintained that reliance on contemporary judgment had grown into
contempt for antiquity, and argued that the youth of his time could only be
rescued from this perilous condition by the warning voice of some
contemporary teacher; and that this teacher he imagined Wordsworth to be.
Wordsworth replied, in numbers seventeen and twenty, acknowledging
that we are too apt to value contemporary opinion, to the neglect of
antiquity; but denying that the doctrine of progress is injurious; and
exhorting the young to rely upon themselves, and their own independent
efforts; cherishing along with this, an abiding sense of personal
responsibility. I cannot, however, analyse the fine treatise which follows,
and must refer the reader to the treatise itself; merely adding, that a sounder
or more philosophical discourse—so practical withal—has rarely been
written. An “Essay on Epitaphs,” was subsequently written by Wordsworth
in “The Friend,” February 22nd, 1810, and was afterwards republished by
him, as a note to “The Excursion.” Wordsworth regarded epitaphs as holy
memorials, and censured the epigramatic efforts of Pope, and other writers
of this species of composition. A bad man, he says, should have no epitaph;
and that which the poet wrote over his own child, in the churchyard of
Grasmere, may be instanced as illustrating his own idea of what epitaphs
should be.
In the year 1810, Wordsworth wrote an introduction to, and edited the
text of, a folio volume entitled, “Select Views in Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Lancashire;” by the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson, which were
afterwards printed in his volume of “Sonnets on the River Duddon,” and
still later, as a separate publication. This introduction and text consisted of a
description of the Lake Country, which is finer than anything of the kind
existing, if we except the delicate and beautiful picture-writing of Gray, the
poet, who visited this district in October 1767. And here end the chief
incidents in the personal and literary life of Wordsworth, up to the time of
his removal to Rydal Mount.
 RYDAL MOUNT.
I must here borrow the only picture which I find in Dr. Wordsworth’s
“Memoirs,”—viz., that of the poet’s residence, which I transcribe from vol.
I., p. 19.
“The house stands on the sloping summit of a rocky hill, called Nab’s
Scar. It has a southern aspect. In front of it is a small semicircular area of
grey gravel, fringed with shrubs and flowers, the house forming the
diameter of the circle. From this area is a descent of a few stone steps
southward, and then a gentle ascent to a grassy mound. Here let us rest a
little.—At your back is the house; in front, a little to the left of the horizon,
is Wansfell, on which the light of the evening sun rests, and to which the
poet has paid a grateful tribute in two of his sonnets:—

‘Wansfell! this household has a favoured lot,

Living with liberty on thee to gaze.’

Beneath it the blue smoke shews the place of the town of Ambleside. In
front is the lake Windermere, shining in the sun; also in front, but more to
the right, are the fells of Loughrigg, on which the poet’s imagination
pleased to plant a solitary castle:

‘Ærial rock, whose solitary brow

From this low threshold daily meets the sight.’

Looking to the right, in the garden, is a beautiful glade, overhung with

rhododendrons, in beautiful leaf and bloom. Near them is a tall ash-tree, in
which a thrush has sung for hours together, during many years. Not far from
it is a laburnum, in which the osier cage of the doves was hung. Below, to
the west, is the vegetable garden, not planted off from the rest, but blended
with it by parterres of flowers and shrubs.
Returning to the platform of grey gravel before the house, we pass under
the shade of a fine sycamore, and ascend to the westward by fourteen steps
of stones, about nine feet long, in the interstices of which grow the yellow
flowering poppy, and the wild geranium, or Poor Robin,
 ‘Gay
With his red stalks, upon a sunny day,’

a favourite with the poet, as his verses show.—The steps above, northward,
lead to an upward sloping terrace, about two hundred and fifty feet long.
On the right side it is shaded by laburnums, Portugal laurels, mountain-ash,
and fine walnut-trees and cherries; on the left it is flanked by a low stone
wall, coped with rude slates, and covered with lichens, mosses, and wild-
flowers. The fern waves on the walls, and at its base grows the wild-
strawberry and foxglove. Beneath this wall, and parallel to it, on the left, is
a level terrace, constructed by the poet for a friend most dear to him and
his,—who, for the last twenty years of Mr. Wordsworth’s life, was often a
visitor at Rydal Mount. The terrace was a favourite resort of the poet, being
more easy for pacing to and fro, when old age began to make him feel the
acclivity of the other terrace to be toilsome. Both these terraces command
beautiful views of the vale of the Rothsay, and the banks of the lake of
Windermere.”
Then we have a description of Rydal Lake, and of the “long, wooded,
and rocky hill of Loughrigg beyond, and above it,” as seen from an orifice
on the ascending terrace; of the beautiful sycamore close to the arbour, the
fine firs in the foreground, and the dark woods of fir, ash, oak, hazel, holly,
and birch, on the right and left; of the “Far Ferrdel on the mountain’s
side,” a little to the right of the “ascending terrace”—which, after a
serpentine course of one hundred and fifty feet, terminates at a little gate,
close to the “Nab Well,” where the poet was wont to quaff his daily
libations. Another walk from the arbour leads to a field, sloping down to the
valley, called “Dora’s field,” and on the right is a rude stone, bearing this
inscription—
 “In these fair vales hath many a tree
At Wordsworth’s suit been spared;
And from the builder’s hand this stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the bard.
So let it rest, and time will come,
When here, the tender-hearted,
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.”

A pond containing gold fish, underneath a large oak, close to the gate which
leads to this “Dora’s field,” completes the inventory of the external features
of Rydal Mount.
It was in the spring of 1811 that Wordsworth left Allan Bank, and took
up his temporary residence at the Parsonage, Grasmere. But the death of his
children, Catharine and Thomas, which occurred in 1812, threw so
melancholy a gloom over the neighbourhood, that he resolved to quit it
altogether. It was not, however, without many painful feelings of regret that
he bade adieu to the beautiful scenery in the vale of Grasmere—scenery
which he had so long loved—every feature of which was as familiar to him
as the faces of the dear children whom he had committed for ever to its
quiet keeping. The step, however, was absolutely necessary, as he himself
says in a letter to the Earl of Lonsdale, for the recurrence of that tranquillity
of mind which it was his duty, and that of his surviving family, to strive for.
Accordingly he removed to Rydal Mount, in 1813, where he resided until
his death, in 1850. It was in that year—1813—that he received the
appointment of Distributor of Stamps in the County of Westmoreland,
which has already been alluded to, in the extracts made from the
“Reminiscences” of De Quincy.
This appointment, for which he was mainly indebted to Lord Lonsdale,
placed the poet in easy if not affluent circumstances, and enabled him to
follow his art without anxiety respecting worldly matters,—a condition
which the poet improved to his own honour, and to the public advantage.
Some time after this good fortune had befallen him, he was offered the
collectorship of the town of Whitehaven, an office far more lucrative than
the other; but the poet declined it. He had now sufficient for his necessities,
and no pecuniary inducement could avail with him to quit the sweet
retirement of the lakes. He was fortunate, also—and De Quincy was right in
saying that he was always fortunate, for Good Luck “threw her old shoe
after him” wherever he went—in securing about this time the services of
Mr. John Carter, as coadjutor in the stamp-office. Dr. Wordsworth speaks in
the highest terms of this gentleman, who, for thirty-seven years, served the
poet “faithfully and zealously, and who added to his business qualifications,
those of sound scholarship and judicious criticism.”
Thus happily circumstanced, Wordsworth continued to write poetry, and
to make more tours, as his fancy dictated. In 1814, he again visited
Scotland, in company with his wife, his wife’s sister, and Miss Mary
Hutchinson. The poems produced on this tour were “The Brownie’s Cell,”
“Cora Linn,” “Effusions on the Banks of the Bran, near Dunkeld,” and
“Sonnet to Mr. Gillies.” The following note, upon the poem “Yarrow
Visited,” is of great interest. It is Wordsworth who writes.
“As mentioned in my verses on the death of the Ettrick Shepherd, my
first visit to Yarrow was in his company. We had lodged the night before at
Traquhar, where Hogg had joined us, and also Dr. Anderson, the editor of
‘The British Poets,’ who was on a visit at the manse. Dr. Anderson walked
with us till we came in view of the Vale of Yarrow, and being advanced in
life he then turned back. The old man was passionately fond of poetry,
though with not much of a discriminating judgment, as the volumes he
edited sufficiently shows; but I was much pleased to meet with him, and to
acknowledge my obligation to his collection, which had been my brother
John’s companion in more than one voyage to India, and which he gave me
before his departure from Grasmere—never to return. Through these
volumes I became first familiar with Chaucer; and so little money had I
then to spare for books, that in all probability, but for this same work, I
should have known little of Drayton, Daniel, and other distinguished poets
of the Elizabethan age, and their immediate successors, till a much later
period of my life. I am glad to record this, not for any importance of its
own, but as a tribute of gratitude to this simple-hearted old man, whom I
never again had the pleasure of meeting. I seldom read or think of this poem
without regretting that my dear sister was not of the party, as she would
have been so much delighted in recalling the time when, travelling together
in Scotland, we declined going in search of this celebrated stream, not
altogether, I will frankly confess, for the reasons assigned in the poem on
the occasion.”
 At last, in 1814, the great poem was published upon which
Wordsworth’s fame is built, viz., “The Excursion.” It was met, as usual,
with tremendous and most indiscriminate abuse, especially by Jeffrey, in his
“This won’t do” article. But despite all this, the poem grew deeply into the
public mind, and is still growing there; and ranks, at last, with our highest
poetry. All the characters and scenes in it are drawn from life, and there are
few more interesting papers than the memoranda which the poet has left
respecting these characters and their localities. “The Wanderer,” he
acknowledges, is chiefly an embodied idea of what he fancied his own
character might have become in the said Wanderer’s circumstances. His
sister, with her gentle love and sweet remonstrances,—although ready to
follow him to the ends of the earth—did in reality save him from this wild
nomadic life, by fixing his thoughts upon a home, and the genial influences
which domestic life would produce and exercise upon his poetic genius.
And then his wife, children, and the rich harvests of fortune, which were
reaped without any sowing of his, and dropped into his lap, finished the
work his sister had begun, and finally settled him as a citizen and a family
man. Otherwise, being strong in body, I should, he says, very probably,
have “taken to the way of life such as that in which my ‘Wanderer’ passed
the greater part of his days.” Much, however, of what the “Wanderer” says
and does, was the result, in verse, of the poet’s experience; was what he had
actually heard and seen, although refined, of course, as it passed through his
imagination. He was fond of talking to all kinds of strange characters;—
now treading on the outskirts of social life, or wandering with a wild,
vagabond independence amongst the highways of towns and cities.
Whatever of romance and adventure they had known, he wormed out of
them, or charmed out of them; and he partially instances, as an illustration
of this prying curiosity—this insatiable longing after experience, and the
history of men—an old Scotchman, who married finally a relation of his
wife’s, and settled down at Kendal, and a travelling packman, from whom
he learned much, and whose adventures and wisdom are embodied in the
character of the “Wanderer.” “The Solitary,” “The Pastor,” “Pedlar,”
“Margaret,” “Miser,” and all the dramatis personæ of the poem, are made
up of veritable human materials, and had their architypes in the great world
of humanity. The reader, however, must go to Dr. Wordsworth for a full
relation respecting these matters. All I can add here, respecting the
“Excursion,” is that only 500 copies were disposed of in six years; and
when, in 1827, another edition, of the same number of copies, was printed,
it took seven years more to exhaust it. The poet, however, was not daunted
by this culpable neglect of his immortal lines; but conscious of his own
greatness, he wrote, in a letter to Southey,—“Let the age continue to love its
own darkness; I shall continue to write, with, I trust, the light of heaven
upon me.” Jeffrey, in the pride and arrogance of his position, as Executioner
General of the Courts of Critical Assize, boasted that HE—poor devil!—had
crushed the “Excursion;” and the boast was repeated to Southey:—“Tell
him,” said he, Southey “that he could as soon crush Skiddaw!” Bernard
Barton,—a writer whose chief merit consists in a letter written to
Wordsworth, expressive of his homage and reverence for the Bard of Rydal
—alludes, in the said letter, to Jeffrey: “He has taken,” says Wordsworth, in
reply, “a perpetual retainer, from his own incapacity, to plead against my
claims to public approbation.” So, we see, that the good poet could hit hard
if he liked; although he rarely descended to this literary pugilism, thinking it
beneath the dignity of his art and character.
It was Wordsworth’s custom to compose in the open air; and as his
servant once said to a visitor, “This, sir, is my master’s library—his study is
out of doors.” He had a great and sickening dread of writing; and his sister,
or some other member of his family was always at hand to perform for him
the office of amanuensis. In the year 1807, when on a visit to his wife’s
brother at Stockton-on-Tees, the weather being very boisterous, and the
winds rough, he used to pace up and down under the lee of a row of corn-
stacks in a field near that town—and it was here that he composed the
earlier part of “White Doe of Ryletone,” chaunting his verses aloud to the
astonished stacks. The poem was not published until 1815, and has been
much misinterpreted, and consequently abused. The truth is, that
Wordsworth wrote always upon principle, and a carefully premeditated
plan; there was always a high purpose in his poems, both moral and
intellectual. His poetical canons were likewise his own, and his mode of
treating a subject was always in conformity with them, or illustrations of
them. Superficial readers, who had been accustomed to the objective poetry
of Scott, could not understand Wordsworth, therefore; for he was studiously
subjective, and the interest of his poems hangs nearly always upon the
development of mere spiritual forces, and their progress, if I may so speak,
outwards, in the subjugation of the external world or in the strengthening of
the soul to bear the ills and mishaps of life with a sublime fortitude. “The
White Doe” is a memorable example of this spiritual aim. “Every thing,”
says Wordsworth, ‘attempted by the principal personages in this poem fails,
so far as its object is external and substantial; so far as it is moral and
spiritual it succeeds. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to
interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them; but

“To abide
The shock, and finally secure
O’er pain and grief a triumph pure.”

This she does in obedience to her brother’s injunction, as most suitable to a

mind and character that, under previous trials, had been proved to accord
with his. She achieves this, not without aid from the communication with
the inferior creature which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past
with a tender and humanising influence that exalts rather than depresses her.
Her anticipated beatification of the mind, and the apotheosis of the
companion of her solitude, are the points at which the poem aims, and
constitutes its legitimate catastrophe.” All this is widely different from the
usual mode of conducting dramatic action, and yet the action of the poem in
question is complete and satisfactory, and is artistically developed from its
own spiritual germ, or starting point.
Whilst walking, and composing “The White Doe,” Wordsworth received
a wound in his foot; and it is curious to remark that, even when he ceased
walking, the act of composition increased the irritation of the wound, whilst
a mental holiday produced a rapid cure. “Poetic excitement,” he says,
“when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout
my life brought on more or less of bodily derangement. Nevertheless I am,
at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent
health. But I ought to add, that my intellectual labour has generally been
carried on out of doors.”
The next group of poems—and two of them certainly amongst the
grandest triumphs of poetic art, were composed respectively as follows:
—“Laodamia,” in 1814; “Dion,” in 1816; and the “Ode to Lycoris,” in
1817. The first and second of these poems were entirely Greek in their
character and form, and Keates’ “Hyperion” is the only modern poem (and
this a fragment) which is worthy to be placed in comparison with them. It is
singular how the idea of these poems originated in the mind of the poet. He
had been preparing his son for the University, and had to read up his old
classics for this purpose. Hence the Classic Spirit took up its abode with
him, and urged him to these beautiful and plastic productions. About this
time, and with the same object in view—viz., the education of his son—he
translated one of the earlier books of the “Æneid” into rhyme. Coleridge, in
writing to the author respecting this translation, says, he has attempted an
impossibility, and regrets he should have wasted his time on a work (viz., of
translation) so much below him. Wordsworth was always attached to the
classics; and before he read Virgil, he was so fond of Ovid, that he
invariably got into a passion when he found this author placed below Virgil.
He was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which Homer led
him. “Classical literature,” he says, “affected me by its own beauty.”
“Peter Bell” appeared in 1819. It was composed twenty years before, as
already related; and sold better than any of Wordsworth’s previous poems,
notwithstanding the abuse of the critics. Five hundred copies were
exhausted before one month, between April and May of this one year
(1819). “The Waggoner” was published at the same time, but was not so
successful, perhaps on account of its mere local interest. The “Sonnets on
the River Duddon” appeared about the same time, and were dedicated to the
Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, the poet’s brother, who was at that time Rector of
Lambeth. “The river Duddon has its main source[J] in the mountain range
near the “Three Shire Stones,” as they were called, where the three
counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet. It flows to the
south through Seathwaite, by Broughton, to the Duddon Sands, and into the
Irish Sea.”—Wordsworth’s first acquaintance with this stream commenced
in his boyhood, during the time that he was so passionately fond of angling:
upon one of his fishing excursions he joined an old weather-beaten man,
and went far away from home, seduced by the dear delight of his art. On
their return, the embryo poet was so wearied, that the old man had to carry
him on his back. He says that his earliest recollections of this stream were
full of distress and disappointment; but in later times he visited it with so
many beloved persons, that its waters flowed through him in streams of
music—in anthems of affectionate song.
In 1820 Wordsworth made another tour to the Continent, in company
with his wife and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Monkhonse, then just married, and
Miss Herricks. They left these two ladies at Berne, while Mr. Monkhouse
went with the poet and his retinue, on an excursion amongst the Alps, as far
as Milan. They were joined at Lucerne by Mr. H. C. Robinson; and the two
ladies, whom they had left at Berne, rejoined them at Geneva, when the
whole party went to Paris, where they remained five weeks.
In 1822 Wordsworth published a volume of Sonnets, and other Poems,
as the result of this tour, entitled, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent.”
In two letters to Lord Lonsdale—one dated from Lucerne, August 19th,
1820, and the other from Paris, dated October 7, 1820,—the poet has given
a general outline of this tour and its incidents.[K] I ought to add that
Wordsworth visited Waterloo, amongst other places of interest, at this time.
The party returned by way of Boulogne, November 2nd, and had a narrow
escape of shipwreck,—the vessel striking upon a sand-bank, and being then
driven with violence on a rocky road in the harbour, where she was battered
about until the ebbing of the tide set her at liberty—at least from the
violence of the sea; “and, blessed be God,” says Wordsworth, in his Journal,
“for our preservation!”
They arrived at Dover on the 7th, and at London on the 9th, where they
met Rogers, Lamb, and Talfourd, amongst other noted persons and friends.
Wordsworth walked on to visit Coleridge, from Hampstead Heath, on the
18th, and then went down to Cambridge, to congratulate his brother, Dr.
Wordsworth, on his appointment to the Mastership of Trinity College.
They returned to Rydal Mount on Christmas Eve, visiting Sir George
and Lady Beaumont, at Coleorton, by the way. Sir George was then about to
build a church on his estate, and this fact led to conversation on Church
History, and eventually to the production of the “Ecclesiastical Sonnets.” In
the third part of the first of these Sonnets occurs the following line:—

“I saw the figure of a lovely maid.”

And the note attached to it, by the poet, is so interesting, that I must
transcribe it:—
“When I came to this part of the series, I had the dream described in this
sonnet. The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as
here represented. The sonnet was composed on the middle road leading
from Grasmere to Ambleside; it was began as I left the last house in the
vale, and finished, word for word, as it now stands, before I came in view of
Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written;
most of them were frequently retouched, in the course of composition, and
not a few laboriously.”
Here is the sonnet in question:—

“I saw the figure of a lovely maid,

Seated, alone, beneath a darksome tree,
Whose fondly-overhanging canopy
Set off her brightness with a pleasing shade.
No spirit was she; that my heart betrayed,
For she was one I loved exceedingly;
But while I gazed in tender reverie
(Or was it sleep that with my fancy played?),
The bright corporeal presence—form and face—
Remaining still distinct, grew thin and rare,
Like sunny mists; at length the golden hair,
Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace,
Each with the other, in a lingering race
Of dissolution, melted into air.”

In 1823, Wordsworth again visited the Continent, making a short tour,

with his wife, in Belgium and Holland. As usual, a journal of travel was
kept by the poet, and is printed, partly at least, in the “Memoirs.” At the
close of the summer, in the next year, he made a short excursion in North
Wales, the records of which are contained in a letter to Sir George
Beaumont, dated Hindwell, Radnor, September 20, 1824.[L] Again, in 1828,
the poet, accompanied by his daughter, Dora, made an excursion to see
Coleridge, through Belgium, and up the Rhine. And it was at this time that
the “Incident at Bruges” was written, concerning which the poet says:
—“Dora and I, while taking a walk along a retired part of the town, heard
the voice as here described, and were afterwards informed that it was a
Convent, in which were many English. We were both much touched, I may
say, affected, and Dora moved, as appears in the verses.” The “Lines on a
Jewish Family,” were likewise written on this tour. The poet, his daughter,
and Coleridge were at St. Goar, when they first saw this family. They had
provided themselves with a basket of provisions for the day, and offered the
poor people a share of them. The mother refused for the rest, because it was
a fast-day, adding, that whether such observances were right or wrong, it
was her duty to keep them. They were all poor, ragged, and hungry, but
exceedingly beautiful, and the self-command, self-respect, and self-sacrifice
of the woman is the moral of this little story, I think, although no allusion is
made to it in the poem.
In 1829, Wordsworth made a tour in Ireland, with J. Marshall, Esq., M.P.
of Leeds. All through his life Wordsworth had a horror of Popery; and this
journey, with his Continental tours, tended to confirm it with still greater
intensity. He hated Popery because it was the avowed enemy of freedom,
and he would not sanction the Catholic Emancipation Bill, because he
thought that by giving freedom to the Catholic religion, the Government
were but paving the way for a frightful domination over the souls and
bodies of men. Still he loved freedom—as his sonnets to “Liberty,” and his
enthusiastic sympathies with republican France, at the outbreak of the first
revolution sufficiently show. He was a Churchman, however, devotedly
attached to the traditions, forms, and doctrines of the Church, and there was
no moving him from these foundations. He attributed the distress and
misery of Ireland to the priests—Catholic, of course—and to the false
tenures of the land. The country, he said, had never been fully conquered,
and this was another and a chief cause of the degradation of Ireland. The
people were under the control—absolute control—of the priests, ready to do
their bidding, let that bidding be what it might. And he trembled—as well
he might—for the power of the Irish Church! God forgive us, we are all at
the best but short-sighted mortals, and few can see the truth, save through
the medium of prejudice. The Irish Church, if my vision be clear, is one of
the many stumbling blocks, and rubbish heaps in the way of Irish
civilization; and certainly the Roman Catholic Church is another.
This tour supplied Wordsworth with very few materials for poetry. The
lines, however, in the fine poem on the “Power of Sound,” one of the finest
poems which Wordsworth has written, commencing

“Thou too be heard, lone eagle!”

were, he says, suggested near the Giant’s Causeway, where he saw a pair of
eagles wheel over his head, and then dart off “as if to hide themselves in a
blaze of sky made by the setting sun.”
It was about this time also that the sweet poem, entitled “The Triad,”
was written, in which the daughters of Southey, Wordsworth, and
Coleridge, are bound together in the most musical and flowery forms, as the
three Graces. Wordsworth often promised these fair children to send them
down to immortality in his verses, but it was long before the mood seized
him, and the modus operandi was made plain to him. At last the ideas
embodied in “The Triad” struck him, and the result is something finer than
the most vivid sculpture. The poet commences—

“Shew me the noblest youth of present time,

Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some god or hero from the Olympian clime
Returned to seek a consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect let me see,
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.”

So confident is he of the beauty and virtue of the three fair girls hidden
amongst the recesses of the hills, that he boasts of their worthiness to match
even the noblest of gods or heroes. And then he invokes them to appear,
whilst a youth expectant at his side, and breathless as they,

“Looks to the earth and to the vacant air;

And with a wandering air that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide.”

And now the poet will fulfil his promise, and show the golden youth this
beautiful triad of Graces.