try we did not keep pace with them-if even their loyalty was such as, from our mixed constitution of Government and from other causes, we could not thoroughly sympathize with, and if lastly, their devotion to the person of their Sovereign appeared to us to have too much of the alloy of delusion,-in all these things we judged them gently; and, taught by the reverses of the French revolution, we looked upon these dispositions as more human-more social-and therefore as wiser, and of better omen, than if they had stood forth the zealots of abstract principles, out of the laboratory of unfeeling philosophists. Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, we found an earnest that they were prepared to contend to the death for as much liberty as their habits and their knowledge enabled them to receive. To assist them and their neighbors the Portuguese in the attainment of this end, we sent to them in love and in friendship a powerful army to aid-to invigorate -and to chastise:-they landed; and the first proof they afforded of their being worthy to be sent on such a service-the first pledge of amity given by them-was the victory of Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was from the hand of their Generals) was the Convention of Cintra.

2. The Relation of National Happiness to National Independence

Allowing that the "regni novitas" should either compel or tempt the usurper to do away some ancient abuses, and to accord certain insignificant privileges to the people upon the purlieus of the forest of freedom (for assuredly he will never suffer them to enter the body of it); allowing this, and much more; that the mass of the population would be placed in a condition outwardly more thriving-would be better off (as the phrase in conversation is); it is still true that in the act and consciousness of submission to an imposed lord and master, to a will not growing out of themselves, to the edicts of another people their triumphant enemy-there would be the loss of a sensation within for which nothing external, even though it should come close to the garden and the field-to the door and the fireside, can make amends. The artisan and the merchant (men of classes perhaps least attached to their native soil) would not be insensible to this loss; and the mariner, in his thoughtful mood, would sadden under it upon the

wide ocean.

The central or cardinal feeling of these thoughts may, at a future time, furnish fit matter for the genius of some patriotic Spaniard to express in his noble language as an inscription for the sword of Francis the First; if that sword, which was so ingloriously and perfidiously surrendered, should ever, by the energies of liberty, be recovered, and deposited in its ancient habitation in the Escurial. The patriot will recollect that-if the memorial, then given up by the hand of the Government, had also been abandoned by the heart of the people, and that indignity patiently subscribed to, his country would have been lost forever.

There are multitudes by whom, I know, these sentiments will not be languidly received at this day; and sure I am that, a hundred and fifty years ago, they would have been ardently welcomed by all. But, in many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country) men have been pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed by its fruitfulness; furnishing them constant employment for picking up things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and all those products of knowledge which are confined to gross-definite and tangible objects, have, with the aid of experimental philosophy, been every day putting on more brilliant colors; the splendor of the imagination has been fading: sensibility, which was formerly a generous nursling of rude nature, has been chased from its ancient range in the wide domain of patriotism and religion with the weapons of derision by a shadow calling itself good sense: calculations of presumptuous expediency-groping its way among partial and temporary consequences-have been substituted for the dictates of paramount and infallible conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences: lifeless and circumspect decencies have banished the graceful negligence and unsuspicious dignity of virtue.

The progress of these arts also, by furnishing such attractive stores of outward accommodation, has misled the higher orders of society in their more disinterested exertions for the service of the lower. Animal comforts have been rejoiced over, as if they were the end of being. A neater and more fertile garden; a greener field; implements and utensils more apt; a dwelling more commodious and better furnished;-let these

be attained, say the actively benevolent, and we are sure not only of being in the right road, but of having successfully terminated our journey. Now a country may advance, for some time, in this course with apparent profit: these accommodations, by zealous encouragement, may be attained: and still the peasant or artisan, their master, be a slave in mind; a slave rendered even more abject by the very tenure under which these possessions are held: and—if they veil from us this fact, or reconcile us to it-they are worse than worthless. The springs of emotion may be relaxed or destroyed within him; he may have little thought of the past, and less interest in the future. The great end and difficulty of life for men of all classes, and especially difficult for those who live by manual labor, is a union of peace with innocent and laudable animation. Not by bread alone is the life of man sustained; not by raiment alone is he warmed;-but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, which at once pushes forth and cherishes; by self-support and self-sufficing endeavors; by anticipations, apprehensions, and active remembrances; by elasticity under insult, and firm resistance to injury; by joy, and by love; by pride which his imagination gathers in from afar; by patience, because life wants not promises; by admiration; by gratitude which-debasing him not when his fellow-being is its object -habitually expands itself, for his elevation, in complacency towards his Creator.

Now, to the existence of these blessings, national independence is indispensable; and many of them it will itself produce and maintain. For it is some consolation to those who look back upon the history of the world to know-that, even without civil lib-| erty society may possess-diffused through its inner recesses in the minds even of its humblest members-something of dignified enjoyment. But, without national independence, this is impossible. The difference between inbred oppression and that which is from without, is essential; inasmuch as the former does not exclude, from the minds of a people, the feeling of being self-governed; does not imply (as the latter does, when patiently submitted to) an abandonment of the first duty imposed by the faculty of reason. In reality, where this feeling has no place, a people are not a society, but a herd; man being indeed distinguished among them from the brute; but only to his disgrace. I am aware that there are too many who

think that, to the bulk of the community, this independence is of no value; that it is a refinement with which they feel they have no concern; inasmuch as under the best frame of government, there is an inevitable dependence of the poor upon the rich-of the many upon the few-so unrelenting and imperious as to reduce this other, by comparison, into a force which has small influence, and is entitled to no regard. Superadd civil liberty to national independence; and this position is overthrown at once: for there is no more certain mark of a sound frame of polity than this; that, in all individual instances (and it is upon these generalized that this position is laid down), the dependence is in reality far more strict on the side of the wealthy; and the laboring man leans less upon others than any man in the community-but the case before us is of a country not internally free, yet supposed capable of repelling an external enemy who attempts its subjugation. If a country have put on chains of its own forging, in the name of virtue, let it be conscious that to itself it is accountable: let it not have cause to look beyond its own limits for reproof: and, in the name of humanity,-if it be self-depressed, let it have its pride and some hope within itself. The poorest peasant, in an unsubdued land, feels this pride. I do not appeal to the example of Britain or of Switzerland, for the one is free, and the other lately was free (and, I trust, will ere long be so again): but talk with the Swede; and you will see the joy he finds in these sensations. With him animal courage (the substitute for many and the friend of all the manly virtues) has space to move in; and is at once elevated by his imagination, and softened by his affections: it is invigorated also; for the whole courage of his country is in his breast.

In fact, the peasant, and he who lives by the fair reward of his manual labor, has ordinarily a larger proportion of his gratification dependent upon these thoughtsthan, for the most part, men in other classes have. For he is in his person attached, by stronger roots, to the soil of which he is the growth: his intellectual notices are generally confined within narrower bounds: in him no partial or antipatriotic interests counteract the force of those nobler sympathies and antipathies which he has in right of his country; and lastly the belt or girdle of his mind has never been stretched to utter relaxation by false philosophy, under a con

ceit of making it sit more easily and gracefully. These sensations are a social inheritance to him: more important, as he is precluded from luxurious-and those which are usually called refined-enjoyments.

Love and admiration must push themselves out toward some quarter: otherwise the moral man is killed. Collaterally they advance with great vigor to a certain extent -and they are checked: in that direction, limits hard to pass are perpetually encountered: they meet with gladsome help and no obstacles; the tract is interminable.-Perdition to the tyrant who would wantonly cut off an independent nation from its inheritance in past ages; turning the tombs and burial-places of the forefathers into dreaded objects of sorrow, or of shame and reproach, for the children!

3. The Grounds of Hope

Here then they, with whom I hope, take their stand. There is a spiritual community binding together the living and the dead; the good, the brave, and the wise, of all ages.

We would not be rejected from this community: and therefore do we hope. We look forward with erect mind, thinking and feeling it is an obligation of duty: take away the sense of it, and the moral being would die within us. Among the most illustrious of that fraternity, whose encouragement we participate, is an Englishman who sacrificed his life in devotion to a cause bearing a stronger likeness to this than any recorded in history. It is the elder Sidney-a deliverer and defender, whose name I have before uttered with reverence; who, treating of the war of the Netherlands against Philip the Second, thus writes: "If her Majesty," says he, "were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means whom God useth. And I know not whether I am deceived; but I am fully persuaded, that, if she should herself fail, other springs would rise to help this action. For, methinks, I see the great work indeed in hand against the abusers of the world; wherein it is not greater fault to have confidence in man's power, than it is too hastily to despair of God's work."

The pen which I am guiding has stopped in my hand, and I have scarcely power to proceed. I will lay down one principle; and then shall contentedly withdraw from the sanctuary.

When wickedness acknowledges no limit but the extent of her power, and advances with aggravated impatience like a devouring fire, the only worthy or adequate opposition is that of virtue submitting to no circumscription of her endeavors save that of her rights, and aspiring from the impulse of her own ethereal zeal. The Christian exhortation for the individual is here the precept for nations-"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect.'

SONNETS ON THE CRISIS

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1802-1811)

"Fair Star of Evening"

Fair Star of evening, Splendor of the west, Star of my Country!-on the horizon's brink

Thou hangest, stooping as might seem, to sink

On England's bosom; yet well pleased to rest,

Meanwhile, and be to her a glorious crest Conspicuous to the Nations. Thou, I think, Shouldst be my Country's emblem; and should'st wink,

Bright Star! with laughter on her banners, drest

In thy fresh beauty. There! that dusky spot Beneath thee, that is England; there she lies.

Blessings be on you both! one hope, one lot,

One life, one glory! I, with many a fear For my dear Country, many heartfelt sighs, Among men who do not love her, linger

here.

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
Once did she hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the
worth

Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a Mate,
She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final
day:

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade

Of that which once was great is passed away.

Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of
Switzerland

Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly
. striven:

Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,

Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft: Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;

For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be

That mountain floods should thunder as before,

And ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful voice be heard by thee.

Drawn almost into frightful neighborhood.
I shrunk; for verily the barrier flood
Was like a lake, or river bright and fair,
A span of waters; yet what power is there!
What mightiness for evil and for good!
Even so doth God protect us if we be
Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters
roll,

Strength to the brave, and Power, and
Deity;

Yet in themselves are nothing! One decree Spake laws to them, and said that by the soul

Only, the nations shall be great and free.

Written in London, September, 18021

O Friend! I know not which way I must look

For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,

Written just after Wordsworth's return from France, this sonnet expresses the poet's sense of the contrast between the desolation produced by the Revolution in France and the unwholesome peace of England.

To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook,

Or groom!-we must run glittering like a brook

In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
The wealthiest man among us is the best;
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more;
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.

"It Is Not to Be Thought of"

It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters unwith-
stood,"

Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and
sands

Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost forever. In our halls is hung
Armory of the invincible knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the
tongue

That Shakespeare spake: the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung

Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

"When I Have Borne in Memory"

When I have borne in memory what has tamed

Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart

When men change swords for ledgers and desert

The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed

I had, my Country!-am I to be blamed? Now when I think of thee, and what thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
For dearly must we prize thee; we who
find

In thee a bulwark for the cause of men;
And I by my affection was beguiled.
What wonder if a Poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

"There Is a Bondage Worse, Far Worse, to Bear"

There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall,

Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary Thrall: 'Tis his who walks about in the open air, One of a Nation who, henceforth, must wear Their fetters in their souls. For who could be,

Who, even the best, in such condition, free From self-reproach, reproach that he must share

With Human-nature? Never be it ours

To see the sun how brightly it will shine, And know that noble feelings, manly