evening breeze, and the road from ---- to ----, by which I first set out
on my journey through life, stares me in the face as plain, but from
time and change not less visionary and mysterious, than the pictures in
the _Pilgrim's Progress_. I should notice, that at this time the
light of the French Revolution circled my head like a glory, though
dabbled with drops of crimson gore: I walked confident and cheerful
by its side--

"And by the vision splendid
Was on my way attended."


It rose then in the east: it has again risen in the west. Two suns in
one day, two triumphs of liberty in one age, is a miracle which I hope
the laureate will hail in appropriate verse. Or may not Mr. Wordsworth
give a different turn to the fine passage, beginning--

"What, though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever vanished from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?"


For is it not brought back, "like morn risen on mid-_night_;" and
may he not yet greet the yellow light shining on the evening bank with
eyes of youth, of genius, and freedom, as of yore? No, never! But what
would not these persons give for the unbroken integrity of their early
opinions--for one unshackled, uncontaminated strain--one _Io paean_
to Liberty--one burst of indignation against tyrants and sycophants,
who subject other countries to slavery by force, and prepare their own