It is little to say of these sonnets that they are the most permanent record in our literature of the Napoleonic war. For that distinction they have few competitors. Two magnificent songs of Campbell's, an ode of Coleridge's, a few spirited stanzas of Byron's-- strangely enough there is little besides these that lives in the national memory, till we come to the ode which summed up the long contest a generation later, when its great captain passed away. But these _Sonnets to Liberty_ are worthy of comparison with the noblest passages of patriotic verse or prose which all our history has inspired--the passages where Shakespeare brings his rays to focus on "this earth, this realm, this England,"--or where the dread of national dishonour has kindled Chatham to an iron glow,--or where Milton rises from the polemic into the prophet, and Burke from the partisan into the philosopher. The armoury of Wordsworth, indeed, was not forged with the same fire as that of these "invincible knights of old." He had not swayed senates, nor directed policies, nor gathered into one ardent bosom all the spirit of a heroic age. But he had deeply felt what it is that makes the greatness of nations; in that extremity no man was more staunch than he; no man more unwaveringly disdained unrighteous empire, or kept the might of moral forces more steadfastly in view. Not Stein could place a manlier reliance on "a few strong instincts and a few plain rules;" not Fichte could invoke more convincingly the "great allies" which work with "Man's unconquerable mind." Here and there, indeed, throughout these sonnets are scattered strokes of high poetic admiration or scorn which could hardly be overmatched in AEschylus. Such is the indignant correction-- Call not the royal Swede unfortunate, 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!