ither belief is
entirely true. As Mazzini saw, the French Revolution failed because it
emphasized the rights so disproportionately in comparison with the
duties of man. Conservatism fails, on the other hand, because its
conception of duty inevitably ceases before long to be an ethical
conception: duty in the mouth of reactionaries usually means simply
obedience to one's "betters." The melancholy sort of moralist frequently
hardens into a reactionary of this sort. Burke and Carlyle and
Ruskin--all of them blasphemed the spirit of liberty in the name of
duty. Mr. Dicey contends that Burke's and Wordsworth's political
principles remained essentially consistent throughout. They assuredly
did nothing of the sort. Burke's principles during the American War and
his principles at the time of the French Revolution were divided from
each other like crabbed age and youth. Burke lost his beliefs as he did
his youth. And so did Wordsworth. It seems to me rather a waste of time
to insist at all costs on the consistency of great men. The great
question is, not whether they were consistent, but when they were right.
Wordsworth was in the main right in his enthusiasm for the French
Revolution, and he was in the main right in his hatred of Napoleonism.
But, when once the Napoleonic Wars were over, he had no creed left for
mankind. He lived on till 1850, but he ceased to be able to say anything
that had the ancient inspiration. He was at his greatest an inspired
child of the Revolution. He learned from France that love of liberty
which afterwards led him to oppose France. Speaking of those who, like
himself, had changed in their feelings towards France, he wrote:--

Though there was a shifting in temper 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.

That is a just defence. But the undeniable fact is that, after that
time, Wordsworth ceased to combat the spirit of selfish tyranny and
lawless ambition as he once had done. There is no need to blame him:
also there is no need to defend him. He was human; he was tired; he was
growing old. The chief danger of a book like Mr. Dicey's is that, in
accepting its defence of Wordsworth's maturity, we may come to disparage
his splendid youth. Mr. Dicey's book, however, is exceedingly
interesting in calling attention to the grea