by men of all political creeds. If a man tells us that morality is, on the whole, a good thing, we cannot infer whether he thinks this or that political institution moral. Between the general truth and the particular application there are certain 'middle axioms' which Wordsworth leaves us to supply for ourselves. And, in fact, to follow his sentiments about the Revolution, we must fill in a good deal that is not directly stated. The generalities have to be clothed in circumstance.
To understand Wordsworth himself we must seek to reproduce him in the concrete. What manner of man was this youth in the first flush of enthusiasm? Wordsworth tells us how he came to Cambridge, 'and at The Hoop alighted, famous inn!' We can guess pretty well how the freshman then impressed his tutor, or the 'chattering popinjays' whom men called fellow-commoners. He was, he says, a 'stripling of the hills, a Northern villager,' and probably uncouth enough, even in the powdered hair and silk stockings which he commemorates. The type is familiar to all Cambridge men. Paley and Bishop Watson had represented it in the previous generation. A long procession of hard-headed
