n duty
by alternate watches, and generally are as profoundly separated as if
living leagues apart.

_XIII._ _WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES._

(_An Early Paper._)

Of late the two names of Wordsworth and Southey have been coupled
chiefly in the frantic philippics of Jacobins, out of revenge for that
sublime crusade which, among the intellectual powers of Europe, these
two eminent men were foremost (and for a time alone) in awakening
against the brutalizing tyranny of France and its chief agent, Napoleon
Bonaparte: a crusade which they, to their immortal honour, unceasingly
advocated--not (as others did) at a time when the Peninsular victories,
the Russian campaign, and the battle of Leipsic, had broken the charm by
which France fascinated the world and had made Bonaparte mean even in
the eyes of the mean--but (be it remembered!) when by far the major part
of this nation looked upon the cause of liberty as hopeless upon the
Continent, as committed for many ages to the guardianship of England, in
which (or not at all) it was to be saved as in an Ark from the universal
deluge. Painful such remembrances may be to those who are now ashamed of
their idolatry, it must not be forgotten that, from the year 1803 to
1808, Bonaparte was an idol to the greater part of this nation; at no
time, God be thanked! an idol of love, but, to most among us, an idol
of fear. The war was looked upon as essentially a _defensive_ war: many
doubted whether Bonaparte could be successfully opposed: almost all
would have treated it as lunacy to say that he could be conquered. Yet,
even at that period, these two eminent patriots constantly treated it as
a feasible project to march an English army triumphantly into Paris.
Their conversations with various friends--the dates of their own
works--and the dates of some composed under influences emanating from
them (as, for example, the unfinished work of Colonel Pasley of the
Engineers)--are all so many vouchers for this fact. We know not whether
(with the exception of some few Germans such as Arndt, for whose book
Palm was shot) there was at that time in Europe another man of any
eminence who shared in that Machiavellian sagacity which revealed to
them, as with the power and clear insight of the prophetic spirit, the
craziness of the French military despotism when to vulgar politicians it
seemed strongest. For this sagacity, and for the strength of patriotism
to which in part