Who never did to Fortune bend the knee!

or the stern touch which closes a description of Flamininus'
proclamation at the Isthmian games, according liberty to Greece,--

A gift of that which is not to be given
By all the blended powers of Earth and Heaven!

Space forbids me to dwell in detail on these noble poems,--on the
well-known sonnets to Venice, to Milton, &c.; on the generous
tributes to the heroes of the contest,--Schill, Hoffer, Toussaint,
Palafox; or on the series which contrast the instinctive greatness
of the Spanish people at bay, with Napoleon's lying promises and
inhuman pride. But if Napoleon's career afforded to Wordsworth a
poetic example, impressive as that of Xerxes to the Greeks, of
lawless and intoxicated power, there was need of some contrasted
figure more notable than Hoffer or Palafox from which to draw the
lessons which great contests can teach of unselfish valour. Was
there then any man, by land or sea, who might serve as the poet's
type of the ideal hero? To an Englishman, at least, this question
carries its own reply. For by a singular destiny England, with a
thousand years of noble history behind her, has chosen for her
best-loved, for her national hero, not an Arminius from the age of
legend, not a Henri Quatro from the age of chivalry, but a man whom
men still living have seen and known. For indeed England and all the
world as to this man were of one accord; and when in victory, on his
ship _Victory_, Nelson passed away, the thrill which shook mankind
was of a nature such as perhaps was never felt at any other death,--
so unanimous was the feeling of friends and foes that earth had lost
her crowning example of impassioned self-devotedness and of heroic