his breast.

That is an admirable statement of the Liberal faith. Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman was putting the same truth in a sentence when he said
that good government was no substitute for self-government. Wordsworth,
however, was not an out-and-out Nationalist. He did not regard the
principles of Nationalism as applicable to all nations alike, small and
great. He believed in the "balance of power," in which "the smaller
states must disappear, and merge in the large nations of widespread
language." He desired national unity for Germany and for Italy (which
was in accordance with the principles of Nationalism), but he also
blessed the union of Ireland with Great Britain (which was a violation
of the principles of Nationalism). He introduced "certain limitations,"
indeed, into the Nationalist creed, which enable even an Imperialist
like Mr. Dicey to look like a kind of Nationalist.

At the same time, though he acquiesced in the dishonour of the Irish
Union, his patriotism never became perverted into Jingoism. He regarded
the war between England and France, not as a war between angel and
devil, but as a war between one sinner doing his best and another sinner
doing his worst. He was gloomy as a Hebrew prophet in his summoning of
England to a change of heart in a sonnet written in 1803:--

England! the time is come when thou shouldst wean
Thy heart from its emasculating food;
The truth should now be better understood;
Old things have been unsettled; we have seen
Fair seed-time, better harvest might have been
But for thy trespasses; and, at this day,
If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa,
Aught good were destined, thou wouldst step between.
England! all nations in this charge agree:
But worse, more ignorant in love and hate,
Far, far more abject is thine Enemy:
Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight
Of thy offences be a heavy weight:
Oh grief, that Earth's best hopes rest all with Thee!

All this means merely that the older Wordsworth grew, the more he became
concerned with the duties rather than the rights of man. The
revolutionary creed seems at times to involve the belief that, if you
give men their rights, they will perform their duties as a necessary
consequence. The Conservative creed, on the other hand, appears to be
based on the theory that men, as a whole, are scarcely fit for rights
but must be kept to their duties with a strong hand. Ne