The emotion which Wordsworth felt at
the news of Trafalgar,--the way in which he managed to intertwine
the memories of Nelson and of his own brother in his heart,--may
remind us fitly at this point of our story of the distress and
perplexity of nations which for so many years surrounded the quiet
Grasmere home, and of the strong responsive emotion with which the
poet met each shock of European fates.
When England first took up arms against the French revolution,
Wordsworth's feeling, as we have seen, had been one of unmixed
sorrow and shame. Bloody and terrible as the revolution had become,
it was still in some sort representative of human freedom; at any
rate it might still seem to contain possibilities of progress such
as the retrograde despotisms with which England allied herself could
never know. But the conditions of the contest changed before long.
France had not the wisdom, the courage, the constancy to play to the
end the part for which she had seemed chosen among the nations. It
was her conduct towards Switzerland which decisively altered
Wordsworth's view. He saw her valiant spirit of self-defence
corrupted into lust of glory; her eagerness for the abolition of
unjust privilege turned into a contentment with equality of
degradation under a despot's heel.
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