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freedom of speech. In Cicero’s time the speech of the ‘political man’ was silenced by the ‘barbarians’,the lovers of war who chose to rule by the sword. 17Books IX and X of The Prelude form a distinct unit. Their ostensible purpose was to recordthe influence of the events of the French Revolution on Wordsworth’s life and to justify hisinvolvement with the Revolution to the reader. They are an intriguing mixture of candid confessionand a carefully constructed evasion of the facts. If any section of The Prelude was going to becarefully edited before the poem was published for the reading public it would have been Book X inwhich Wordsworth admits to having been an ardent supporter of the French cause. More outrageously,he declared that he had continued to support the Revolution long after other liberal-mindedEnglishmen had made a point of distancing themselves from any involvement. But he does notextensively edit his text and, later, Macaulay famously remarked that, ‘The poem is to the last degreeJacobinical, indeed Socialist. I understand perfectly why Wordsworth did not choose to publish in hislife-time’. 18 Macaulay misses the point however. Wordsworth is not simply relating events; he is alsopresenting an argument and pleading his case with his reader. There are mitigating circumstances thatexplain his involvement in the Revolution, and he remains unrepentant because he still upholds theprinciples behind the republican ideals that he held at the time.In his pleading he excuses himself on two counts. Firstly, he argues that his actual supportwas for the ideal of a republic; and he cannot be held accountable for the actions of thoserevolutionaries who betrayed those ideals. Secondly, he also enters a plea of ‘insanity’, suggesting thathe was not in his right mind at the time; he admits to being carried away by an overzealousenthusiasm and states that he felt he had had a prophetic insight into events. And in a further, finalplea, intended to extract the greatest sympathy from his readers, he suggests that he had collapsed ‘indespair’ when he had later attempted to find some firm place of judgement in Godwin’s philosophyand then found it could offer no certain foundation on which to base his ideals. Book X concludeswith this dramatic dénouement and acknowledges that Dorothy (and in the 1805 text, Coleridge) thenhelped him regain his health.The French books are presented to the reader in the form of a defence given by someone whoknows that the onus is on him to justify his actions, and in Book X he represents himself at one pointin a state of some agitation, pleading in long orations:Before unjust tribunals, - with a voiceLabouring, a brain confounded, and senseOf treachery and desertion in the placeThe holiest that I knew of, my own soul (X 378- 381)17 When Wordsworth made a point of discussing his political opinions candidly in his letters to WilliamMatthews in 1794, expressing his concern to uphold the principle of freedom of speech, I suggest he hadCicero’s example in mind (EY 125).18 Thomas Macaulay, Journal, July 28, 1850, in NP p. 560.151