iciently firm enthusiasm to pray for the defeat of his
own countrymen in the war of 1793. He describes, in _The Prelude_, how
he felt at the time in an English country church:--

When, in the congregation bending all
To their great Father, prayers were offered up,
Or praises for our country's victories;
And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance
I only, like an uninvited guest
Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add,
Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.

The faith that survived the massacres, however, could not survive
Napoleon. Henceforth Wordsworth began to write against France in the
name of Nationalism and Liberty.

He now becomes a political thinker--a great political thinker, in the
judgment of Mr. Dicey. He sets forth a political philosophy--the
philosophy of Nationalism. He grasped the first principle of Nationalism
firmly, which is, that nations should be self-governed, even if they are
governed badly. He saw that the nation which is oppressed from within is
in a far more hopeful condition than the nation which is oppressed from
without. In his _Tract_ he wrote:--

The difference between inbred oppression and that which is from
without [i.e. imposed by foreigners] is _essential_; inasmuch as
the former does not exclude, from the minds of the 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.

And he went on:--

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