To return, however, to the narrative. When Wordsworth was living at Allan Bank, and during the time that Coleridge sojourned with him, two prose works appeared, by these two poets, which are memorable to all scholars. The former wrote his famous “Essay on the Convention of Cintra,” and the latter dictated (for he did not write it) his still more famous work entitled “The Friend.” Notwithstanding Wordsworth’s devotion, therefore, to poetry, it will be seen that he was not indifferent to the passing events which were writing their history in the blood of nations. Speaking of his “Convention of Cintra,” in a letter to Southey, he says, “My detestation, I may say abhorrence, of that event, is not at all diminished by your account of it. Bonaparte had committed a capital blunder in supposing that when he had _intimidated_ the _Sovereigns_ of Europe, he had _conquered_ the several nations. Yet it was natural for a wiser than he was to have fallen into this mistake; for the old despotisms had deprived the body of the people of all practical knowledge in the management, and of necessity of all interest in the course of affairs. The French themselves were astonished at the apathy and ignorance of the people whom they had supposed they had utterly subdued, when they had taken their fortresses, scattered their armies, entered their capital cities, and struck their cabinets with dismay. There was no hope for the deliverance of Europe till the nations had suffered enough to be driven to a passionate recollection of all that was honourable in their past history, and to make appeal to the principles of universal and everlasting justice. These sentiments the authors of that Convention most unfeelingly violated; and as to the principals, they seemed to be as little aware even of the existence of such powers, for powers emphatically may they be called, as the tyrant himself. As far, therefore, as these men could, they put an extinguisher upon the star that was then rising! It is in vain to say that after the first burst of indignation was over, the Portuguese themselves were reconciled to the event, and rejoiced in their deliverance. We may infer from that, the horror which they must have felt in the presence of their oppressors; and we may see in it to what a state of helplessness their bad government had reduced them. Our duty was to have treated them with respect, as the representatives of suffering humanity, beyond what they were likely to look for themselves, and as deserving greatly, in common with their Spanish brethren, for having been the first to rise against that tremendous oppression, and to show how, and how only, it could be put an end to.” The poet apologises for the seeming inconsistency of his conduct in opposing the war against France at its commencement, and in urging the necessity of it in the later affairs of Spain and Portugal, by showing that he, and those who thought with him, “proved that they