POLITICAL ESSAYS,
WITH
'feetcfjes of H^nUit CJaractem
c.
BY
WILLIAM HAZLITT.
" Come, draw the curtain, shew the picture."
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM HONE,
45, LuDGATE Hill.
1819.
J. M'Creery, Printer,
Rlack-Horse-Court, London.
DA
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
Dedication v
Preface vii
The Marquis Wellesley 1
^ Mr. Southey, Poet Laureat 2
' Mr. Southey's New Year's Ode 4
Dottrel-catching 6
The Bourbons and Buonaparte 8
Vetus 14
On the Courier and Times Newspapers 16
Illustrations of Vetus 22, 27, 34, 50, 57
On the late War 65
Prince Maurice's Parrot . 71
Whether the Friends of Freedom can entertain any sanguine
hopes of the Favorable Results of the ensuing Congress . 74
5 The Lay of the Laureate 82, 89
Mr. Owen's " New View of Society," &c 97
Speeches of Charles C. Western, Esq. M. P. and Henry
Brougham, Esq. M. P 104,111
Mr, Coleridge's Lay Sermon 118
Statesman's Manual 125
Lay Sermon 137
Buonaparte and MuUer ; 139
Illustrations of the Times Newspaper .... 141,149,159
Mr. Macirone's " Interesting Facts relating to the Fall and
Death of Joachim Murat, King of Naples." . . . 169,178
Wat Tyler and the Quarterly Review . 190
The Courier and Wat Tyler 200
•\ /'' .O -O*
Page
' ' Mr. Southcy*s Letter to William Smith, Esq. . 213, 223, 231
On the Spy-System 342
On the same subject 244
On the Treatment of the State Prisoners ....... 249
The Opposition and the Courier 253
England in 1798, by S. T. Coleridge 253
On the Effects of War and Taxes . 256
Character of Mr. Burke 264
On Court Influence 269, 276
On the Clerical Character 285, 291, 299
What is the People ? • • • 307,319
On the Regal Character 335
" The Fudge Family in Paris" 343
Character of Lord Chatham 356
of Mr. Burke 361
— of Mr. Fox 377
of Mr. Pitt 388
" Pitt and Buonaparte" 394
An Examination of Mr. Malthus's Doctrines 401
On the Originality of Mr. Malthus's Essay 407
On the Principles of Population as affecting the Schemes of
Utopian Improvement 415
On the Application of Mr. Malthus's Principle to the Poor
Laws 424
Queries relating to the Essay on Population 433
To JOHN HUNT, Esq.
THE tried, steady, zealous, and conscientious
advocate of the liberty of his country, and the rights
of mankind ;
One of those few persons who are what they would
he thought to be; sincere without offence, firm hut
temperate ; uniting private worth to public principle ,
a friend in need, a patriot without an eye to himself;
who never betrayed an individual or a cause he pre-
tended to serve — in short, that rare character, a man
of common sense and common honesty.
This volume is respectfully and gratefully
inscribed by
The Author^
PREFACE.
I AM no politician, and still less can I be said to be
a party-man : but I have a hatred of tyranny, and
a contempt for its tools ; and this feeling I have ex-
pressed as often and as strongly as I could. I cannot
sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power,
and I have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry
by which they are defended. I have no mind to
have my person made a property of, nor my under-
standing made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and
slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong,
truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts
or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect
indifference. That is all I know of the matter j but
on these points I am likely to remain incorrigible, in
spite of any arguments that I have seen used to
the contrary. It needs no sagacity to discover that
two and two make four j but to persist in maintain-
ing this obvious position, if all the fashion, authority,
hypocrisy, and venality of mankind were arrayed
against it, would require a considerable effort of
personal courage, and would soon leave a man in a
viii PREFACE.
very formidable minority. Again, I am no believer
in the doctrine of divme right, either as it regards
the Stuarts or the Bourbons ; nor can I bring myself
to approve of the enormous waste of blood and
treasure wilfully incurred by a family that supplanted
the one in this country to restore the others in France.
It is to my mind a piece of sheer impudence. The
question between natural liberty and hereditary sla-
very, whether men are born free or slaves, whether
kings are the servants of the people, or the people
the property of kings (whatever we may think of it
in the abstract, or debate about it in the schools) —
in this country, in Old England, and under the suc-
cession of the House of Hanover, is not a question
of theory, but has been long since decided by certain
facts and feelings, to call which in question would
be equally inconsistent with proper respect to the
people, or common decency towards the throne. An
English subject cannot call this principle in question
without renouncing his country ; an English prince
cannot call it in question without disclaiming his
title to the crown, which was placed by our ancestors
on the head of his ancestors, on no other ground and
for no other possible purpose than to vindicate this
sacred principle in their own persons, and to hold it
out as an example to posterity and to the world. An
Elector of Hanover, called over here to be made king
of England, in contempt and to the exclusion of the
claims of the old, hereditary possessors and pretenders
to the throne, on any other plea except that of his
PREFACE. IX
being the chosen representative and appointed guar-
dian of the rights and liberties of the people (the
consequent pledge and guarantee of the rights and
liberties of other nations) would indeed be a solecism
more absurd and contemptible than any to be found
in history. What I Send for a petty Elector of a
petty foreign state to reign over us from respect to
his right to the throne of these realms, in defiance of
the legitimate heir to the crown, and " in contempt
of the choice of the people ! " Oh monstrous fiction !
Miss Flora Mac Ivor would not have heard of such a
thing : the author of Waverley has well answered Mr.
Burke's " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs."*
* Mr. Burke pretends in this Jesuitical Appeal, that a nation has
at right to insist upon and revert to old establishments and prescrip-
tive privileges, but not to lay claim to new ones ; in a word, to change
its governors, if refractory, but not its form of government, however
bad. Thus he says we had a right to cashier James II., because he
wished to alter the laws and religion as they were then established.
By what right did we emancipate ourselves from popery and arbitrary
power a century before ? He defends his consistency in advocating
the American Revolution, though the rebels, in getting rid of the
reigning branch of the Royal Family, did not send for the next of
kin to rule over them " in contempt of their choice," but prevented
all such equivocations by passing at once from a viceroyalty to a
republic. He also extols the Polish Revolution as a monument of
wisdom and virtue (I suppose because it had not succeeded), though
this also was a total and absolute change in the frame and principles
of the government, to which the people were in this case bound by
no feudal tenure or divine right. But he insists that the French Re-
volution was stark-naught, because the people here did the same
thing, passed from slavery to liberty, from an arbitrary to a consti-
tutional government, to which they had, it seems, no prescriptive
right, and therefore, according to the appellant, no right at all. Ob
X PREFACE.
Let not our respect for our ancestors, who fought and
bled for their own freedom, and to aid (not to stifle)
the cause of freedom in other nations, suffer us to be-
lieve this poor ideot calumny of them. Let not our
shame at having been inveigled into crusades and
Holy Alliances against the freedom of mankind, suf-
fer us to be made the dupes of it ourselves, in thought,
in word, or deed. The question of genuine liberty or
of naked slavery, if put in words, should be answered
by Englishmen with scorn : if put in any other shape
than words, it must be answered in a different way,
unless they would lose the name of Englishmen !
An Englishman has no distinguishing virtue butlio-
nesty : he has and can have no privilege or advan-
tage over other nations but liberty. If he is not free,
he is the worst of slaves, for he is nothing else. If
he feels that he has wrongs and dare not say so, he
is the meanest of hypocrites ; for it is certain that he
cannot be contented under them. — This was once a
free, a proud, and happy country, when under a
constitutional monarchy and a Whig king, it had
just broken the chains of tyranny that were prepared
for it, and successfully set at defiance the menaces
nice professor of humanity! We had a right to turn off James II.
because he broke a compact with the people. The French had no
right to turn off Louis XVI. because he broke no compact with
them, for he had none to break ; in other words, because he was an
arbitrary despot, tied to no laws, and they a herd of slaves, and
therefore they were bound, by every law divine and human, always
to remain so, in perpetuity and by the grace of God! Oh unan-
swerable logician !
PREFACE. xi
of an hereditary pretender ; when the monarch still
felt what he owed to himself and the people, and in
the opposite claims which were set up to it, saw the
real tenure on which he held his crown ; when civil
and religious liberty were the watch-words by which
good men and true subjects were known to one ano-
ther, not by the cant of legitimacy ; when the reigning
sovereign stood between you and the polluted touch
of a bigot and a despot who stood ready to seize upon
you and yours as his lawful prey; when liberty and
loyalty went hand in hand, and the Tory principles
of passive obedience and non-resistance were more
unfashionable at court than in the country; when to
uphold the authority of the throne, it was not thought
necessary to undermine the privileges or break the
spirit of the nation; when an Englishman felt that
his name was another name for independence, " the
envy of less happier lands," when it was his pride to
be born, and his wish that other nations might be-
come free; before a sophist and an apostate had
dared to tell him that he had no share, no merit, no
free agency, in the glorious Revolution of 1688, and
that he was bound to lend a helping hand to crush
all others, that implied a right in the people to chuse
their own form of government; before he was become
sworn brother to the Pope, familiar to the Holy In-
quisition, an encourager of the massacres of his Pro-
testant brethren, a patron of the Bourbons, and jailor
to the liberties of mankind! Ah, John Bull! John
Bull ! thou art not what thou wert in the days of thy
xii PREFACE.
friend, Arbuthnot ! Thou wert an honest fellow
then : now thou art turned bully and coward.
This is the only politics I know; the only patriot-
ism I feel. The question with me is, whether I
and all mankind are born slaves or free. That is the
one thing necessary to know and to make good : the
rest \sJlocciy nauci, nihili, pili. Secure this point, and
all is safe : lose this, and all is lost. There are peo-
ple who cannot understand a principle ; nor perceive
how a cause can be connected with an individual,
even in spite of himself, nor how the salvation of
mankind can be bound up with the success of one
man. It is in vain that I address to them what fol-
lows. — " One fate attends the altar and the throne."
So sings Mr. Southey. I say, that one fate attends the
people and the assertor of the people's rights against
those who say they have no rights, that they are their
property, their goods, their chattels, the live-stock on
the estate of Legitimacy. This is what kings at present
tell us with their swords, and poets with their pens.
He who tells me this deprives me not only of the
right, but of the very heart and will to be free, takes
the breath out of the body of liberty, and leaves it a
dead and helpless corse, destroys " at one fell swoop"
the dearest hopes, and blasts the fairest prospects of
mankind through all ages and nations, sanctifies
slavery, binds it as a spell on the understanding,
and makes freedom a mockery, and the name a bye-
word. The poor wretch immured in the dungeons of
the Inquisition may breathe a sigh to liberty, may
PREFACE. Xm
repeat its name, may think of it as a blessing, if not
to himself, to others ; but the wretch imprisoned in
the dungeon of Legitimacy, the very tomb of free-
dom, that " painted sepulchre, white without, but
full of ravening and all uncleanness within," must
not even think of it, must not so much as dream of
it, but as a thing forbid : it is a profanation to his
lips, an impiety to his thoughts; his very imagination
is enthralled, and he can only look forward to the
never-ending flight of future years, and see the same
gloomy prospect of abject wretchedness and hopeless
desolation spread out for himself and his species.
They who bow to thrones and hate mankind may
here feast their eyes with blight, mildew, the blue
pestilence and glittering poison of slavery, " bogs,
dens, and shades of death — a universe of death."
This is that true moral atheism, the equal blasphemy
against God and man, the sin against the Holy Ghost,
that lowest deep of debasement and despair to which
there is no lower deep. He who saves me from this
conclusion, who makes a mock of this doctrine, and
sets at nought its power, is to me not less than the
God of my idolatry, for he has left one drop of com-
fort in my soul. The plague-spot has not tainted mef
quite; I am not leprous all over, the lie of Legitimacy
does not fix its mortal sting in my inmost soul, nor,
like an ugly spider, entangle me in its slimy folds 5
but is kept off from me, and broods on its own poison.
He who did this for me, and for the rest of the world,
and who alone could do it, was Buonaparte, He
XIV PREFACE.
withstood the inroads of this new Jaggernaut, this foul
Blatant Beast, as it strode forward to its prey over the
bodies and n\inds of a whole people, and put a ring in
its nostrils, breathing flame and blood, and led it in
triumph, and played with its crowns and sceptres, and
wore them in its stead, and tamed its crested pride,
and made it a laughing-stock and a mockery to the
nations. He, one man, did this, and as long as he
did this, (how, or for what end, is nothing to the
-magnitude of this mighty question) he saved the
human race from the last ignominy, and that foul
.stain that had so long been intended, and was at last,
in an evil hour and by evil hands, inflicted on it.
He put his foot upon the neck of kings, who would
have put their yoke upon the necks of the people : he
scattered before him with fiery execution, millions of
hired slaves, who came at the bidding of their masters
to deny the right of others to be free. The monument
of greatness and of glory he erected, was raised on
ground forfeited again and again to humanity— it
'reared its majestic front on the ruins of the shattered
hopes and broken faith of the common enemies of
mankind. If he could not secure the freedom, peace,
and happiness of his country, he made her a terrof
to those who by sowing civil dissension and exciting
foreign wars, would not let her enjoy those blessings.
They who had trampled upon Liberty could not at
least triumph in her shame and her despair, but them-
selves became objects of pity and derision. Their
determination to persist in extremity of wrong only
PREFACE. XV
brought on themselves repeated defeat, disaster, and
dismay : the accumulated aggressions their infuriated
pride and disappointed malice meditated against
others, returned in just and aggravated punishment
upon themselves: they heaped coals of fire upon
their own heads j they drank deep and long, in gall
and bitterness, of the poisoned chalice they had pre-
pared for others : the destruction with which they had
threatened a people daring to call itself free, hung sus-
pended over their heads, like a precipice, ready to fall
upon and crush them. " Awhile they stood abashed,'*
abstracted from their evil purposes, and felt how awful
freedom is, its power how dreadful. Shrunk from the
boasted pomp of royal state into their littleness as
men, defeated of their revenge, baulked of their prey,
their schemes stripped of their bloated pride, and
with nothing left but the deformity of their malice,
not daring to utter a syllable or move a finger, the
lords of the earth, who had looked upon men as of
an inferior species, born for their use, and devoted to
be their slaves, turned an imploring eye to the people,
and with coward hearts and hollow tongues invoked
the name of Liberty, thus to get the people once more
within their unhallowed gripe, and to stifle the name of
Liberty for ever. I never joined the vile and treacher-
ous cry of spurious humanity in favour of those who
have from the beginning of time, and will to the end
of it, make a butt of humanity, and its distresses
their sport. I knew that shameful was this new alli-
ance between kings and people ; fatal this pretended
XVI PREFACE.
league: that " never can true reconcilement grow
where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep."
I was right in this respect. I knew my friends from
my foes. So did Lord Castlereagh : so did not
Benjamin Constant. Did any of the Princes of
Europe ever regard Buonaparte as any thing more
than the child and champion of Jacobinism ? Why
then should I : for on that point I bow to their
judgments as infallible. Passion speaks truer than
reason. If Buonaparte was a conqueror, he con-
quered the grand conspiracy of kings against the
abstract right of the human race to be free; and I,
as a man, could not be indifferent which side to take.
If he was ambitious, his greatness was not founded on
the unconditional, avowed surrender of the rights of
human nature. But with him, the state of man rose
exalted too. If he was arbitrary and a tyrant, first,
France as a country was in a state of military blockade,
on garrison-duty, and not to be defended by mere paper
bullets of the brain ; secondly, but chief, he was not,
nor he could not become, a tyrant by right divine.
Tyranny in him was not sacred : it was not eternal :
it was not instinctively bound in league of amity
with other tyrannies ; it was not sanctioned by all
the laws of religion and morality. There was an end
of it with the individual : there was an end of it with
the temporary causes, which gave it birth, and of which
it was only the too necessary reaction. But there
are persons of that low and inordinate appetite for
servility, that they cannot be satisfied with any thing
PREFACE. XVU
short of that sort of tyranny that has lasted for ever,
and is likely to last for ever; that is strengthened and
made desperate by the superstitions and prejudices
of ages; that is enshrined in traditions, inlaws, in
usages, in the outward symbols of power, in the very
idioms of language; that has struck its roots into the
human heart, and clung round the human under-
standing like a nightshade ; that overawes the imagi-
nation, and disarms the will to resist it, by the very
enormity of the evil ; that is cemented with gold and
blood; guarded by reverence, guarded by power;
linked in endless succession to the principle by which
life is transmitted to the generations of tyrants and
slaves, and destroying liberty with the first breath
of life; that is absolute, unceasing, unerring, fatal,
unutterable, abominable, monstrous. These true
devotees of superstition and despotism cried out
Liberty and Humanity in their desperate phrenzy at
Buonaparte's sudden elevation and incredible suc-
cesses against their favourite idol, " that Harlot old,
the same that is, that was, and is to be," but we have
heard no more of their triumph of Liberty and their
douce huma?iite, since they clapped down the hatches
upon us again, like wretches in a slave-ship who
have had their chains struck off and pardon promised
them to fight the common enemy ; and the poor
Reformers who were taken in to join the cry, because
they are as fastidious in their love of liberty as their
opponents are inveterate in their devotion to despot-
ism, continue in vain to reproach them with their
b
XVlll PREFACE.
temporary professions, woeful grimaces, and vows
made in pain, which ease has recanted ; but to these
reproaches the legitimate professors of Liberty and
Humanity do not even deign to return the answer of
a smile at their credulity and folly. Those who did
not see this result at the time were, I think, weak ;
those who do not acknowledge it now are, I am sure,
hypocrites. — To this pass have we been brought by
the joint endeavours of Tories, Whigs, and Reformers}
and as they have all had a hand in it, I shall here
endeavour to ascribe to each their share of merit in
this goodly piece of work. It is, perhaps, a delicate
point, but it is of no inconsiderable importance, that
the friends of Freedom should know the strength of
their enemies, and their own weakness as well ; for
" At this day.
When a Tartarean darkness overspreads
The groaning nations ; when the impious rule.
By will or by established ordinance.
Their own dire agents, and constrain the good
To acts which they abhor; though I bewail
This triumph, yet the pity of my heart
Prevents me not from owning that the law
By which mankind now suffers, is most just.
For by superior energies ; more strict
Affiance to each other ; faith more firm
In their unhallowed principles ; the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak.
The vacillating, inconsistent good."
A Reformer is not a gregarious animal. Specula-
tive opinion leads men different ways, each according
PREFACE. XIX
to his particular fancy : — it is prejudice or interest
that drives before it the herd of mankind. That
which is, with all its confirmed abuses and " tickling
commodities," is alone solid and certain : that tvhich
may be or oii^ht to be, has a thousand shapes and
colours, according to the eye that sees it, is infinitely
variable and evanescent in its effects. Talk of mobs
as we will, the only true mob is that incorrigible mass
of knaves and fools in every country, who never think
at all, and who never feel for any one but themselves.
I call any assembly of people a mob (be it the
House of Lords or House of Commons) where each
person's opinion on any question is governed by what '
others say of it, and by what he can get by it*
The only instance of successful resistance in the
House of Commons to Ministers for many years was
in the case of the Income-Tax ; which touched their
own pockets nearly. This was " a feeling disputa-
tion," in which selfishness got the better of servility,
while reason and humanity might have pleaded in
vain. The exception proved the rule ; and this evi-
dence was alone wanting to establish their character
for independence and disinterestedness. When some
years ago Mr. Robson brought forward in the House
the case of an Exchequer Bill for 31. \Qs. which
had been refused payment at the Bank, the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer (then Mr. Addington, now
Lord Sidmouth) rose, and in a tone of indignation,
severely reprimanded Mr. Robson for having prema-
turely brought forward a fact which he knew to be
b 2
XX PREFACE.
impossible ; and the House cheered the Minister,
and scouted Mr. Robson and his motion for inquiry.
The next day, Mr. Robson repeated his charge, and
Mr. Addington rose, and in the same tone of official
authority, brow-beat Mr. Robson for having brought
forward, as something reprehensible and extraordinary,
what he said happened every day, though the day
before he had undertaken of his own accord to pro-
nounce it impossible; and the House cheered the
Minister, and scouted Mr. Robson and his motion for
inquiry. What was it to them whether Mr. Robson
was right or wrong ? It was their cue (I speak this
of the House of Commons of 1803) to support the
Minister, whether right or wrong ! Every corporate
body, or casual concourse of people, is nothing more
than a collection of prejudices, and the only argu-
ments current with them, a collection of watch-words.
You may ring the changes for ever on the terms
Bribery and Corruption with the people in Palace-
yard, as they do in the Room over the way on Re-
ligion, Loyalty, Public Credit, and Social Order.
There is no difference whatever in this respect be-
tween the Great Vulgar and the Small, who are
managed just in the same way by their different
leaders. To procure unanimity, to get men to act
in corps y we must appeal for the most part to gross
and obvious motives, to authority and passion, to
their vices, not their virtues : we must discard plain
truth and abstract justice as doubtful and inefficient
pleas, retaining only the names and the pretext as a
PREFACE. XXI
convenient salvo for hypocrisy ! He is the best
leader of a party who can find out the greatest num-
ber of common-places faced with the public good;
and he will be the stoutest partisan who can best turn
the lining to account. — Tory sticks to Tory : Whig
sticks to Whig: the Reformer sticks neither to him-
self nor to any body else. It is no wonder he comes
to the ground with all his schemes and castle-
building. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. A Reformer is
necessarily and naturally a Marplot, for the foregoing
and the following reasons. First, he does not very-
well know what he would be at. Secondly, if he did,
he does not care very much about it. Thirdly, he is
governed habitually by a spirit of contradiction, and
is always wise beyond what is practicable. He is a
bad tool to work with ; a part of a machine that
never fits its place; he cannot be trained to discipline,
for he follows his own idle humours, or drilled into
an obedience to orders, for the first principle of his
mind is the supremacy of conscience, and the inde-
pendent right of private judgment. A man to be a
Reformer must be more influenced by imagination
and reason than by received opinions or sensible im-
pressions. With him ideas bear sway over things;
the possible is of more value than the real; that
which is not, is better than that which is. He is by
the supposition a speculative (and somewhat fantas-
tical) character; but there is no end of possible
speculations, of imaginary questions, and nice dis-
XXU PREFACE.
tinctionsj or if there were, he would not wilhnglj
come to it ; he would still prefer living in the world
of his own ideas, be for raising some new objection,
and starting some new chimera, and never be satisfied
with any plan that he found he could realise. Bring
him to a fixed point, and his occupation would be
gone. A Reformer never is — but always to be blest,
in the accomplishment of his airy hopes and shifting
schemes of progressive perfectibility. Let him have
the plaything of his fancy, and he will spoil it, like
the child that makes a hole in its drum : set some
brilliant illusion before his streaming eyes, and he
will lay violent hands upon it, like little wanton boys
that play with air-bubbles. Give him one thing, and
he asks for another j like the dog in the fable, he loses
the substance for the shadow : offer him a great good,
and he will not stretch out his hand to take it, unless
it were the greatest possible good. And then who is
to determine what is the greatest possible good }
Among a thousand pragmatical speculators, there
will be a thousand opinions on this subject j and the
more they differ, the less will they be inclined to give
way or compromise the matter. With each of these,
his self-opinion is the first thing to be attended to ;
his understanding must be satisfied in the first place,
or he will not budge an inch ; he cannot for the
world give up a principle to a party. He would
rather have slavery than liberty, unless it is a liberty
precisely after his own fashion : he would sooner have
the Bourbons than Buonaparte 5 for he truly is for a
PREFACE. XXin
Republic, and if he cannot have that, is indifferent
about the rest. So (to compare great things with
small) Mr. Place, of Charing-Cross, chose rather
that Mr. Hobhouse should lose his Election than
that it should not be accompanied with his Reso-
lutions; so he published his Resolutions, and lost
Mr. Hobhouse his Election. That is, a patriot of
this stamp is really indifferent about every thing but
what he cannot have ; instead of making his option
between two things, a good or an evil, within his
reach, our exquisite Sir sets up a third thing as the
object of his choice, with some impossible condition
annexed to it, — to dream, to talk, to write, to be
meddlesome and troublesome about, to serve him for
a topic of captious discontent or vague declamation,
and which if he saw any hopes of cordial agreement
or practical co-operation to carry it into effect, he
would instantly contrive to mar, and split it into a
thousand fractions, doubts, and scruples, to make it
an impossibility for any thing ever to be done for the
good of mankind, which is merely the plaything of
his theoretical imbecility and active impertinence !
The Goddess of his idolatry is and will always remain
a cloud, instead of a Juno. One of these virtuosos,
these Nicolas Gimcracks of Reform, full of intolerable
and vain conceit, sits smiling in the baby-house of
his imagination, " pleased with a feather, tickled
with a straw," trimming the balance of power in
the looking-glass of his own self-complacency, having
every thing his own way at a word's speaking, making
XXIV PREFACE.
the "giant-mass" of things only a reflection of his
personal pretensions, approving every thing that is right,
condemning every thing that is wrong, in compliment
to his own character, considering how what he says
will affect not the cause, but himself j keeping him-
self aloof from party-spirit, and from every thing that
can cast a shade on the fancied delicacy of his own
breast, and thus letting the cause of Liberty slip
through his fingers, and be spilt like water on the
ground :— while another, more bold than he, in a
spirit of envy and ignorance, quarrels with all those
•who are labouring at the same oar, lays about him
like mad, runs a-muck at every one who has done,
or is likely to do, any thing to promote the common
object, and with his desperate club dashes out his
neighbour's brains, and thinks he has done a good
piece of service to the cause, because he has glutted
his own ill-humour and self-will, which he mistakes
for the love of liberty and a zeal for truth ! Others,
not able to do mischief enough singly, club their
senseless contradictions and unmanageable humours
together, turn their attention to cabal and chicane,
get into committees, make speeches, move or second
resolutions, dictate to their followers, set up for the
heads of a party, in opposition to another party;
abuse, vilify, expose, betray, counteract and under-
mine each other in every way, and throw the game
into the hands of the common enemy, who laughs in
his sleeve, and watches them and their little perverse,
pettifogging passions at work for him, from the high
PREFACE. XXY
tower of his pride and strength ! If an honest and
able man arises among them, they grow jealous of
him, and would rather, in the petty ostracism of their
minds, that their cause should fail, than that another
should have the credit of bringing it to a triumphant
conclusion. They criticise his conduct, carp at his
talents, denounce his friends, suspect his motives,
and do not rest, till by completely disgusting him
with the name of Reform and Reformers, they have
made him what they wish, a traitor and deserter from
a cause that no man can serve ! This is just what
they like — they satisfy their malice, they have to find
out a new leader, and the cause is to begin again !
So it was, and so it will be, while man remains the
little, busy, mischievous animal described in Gulli-
ver's Travels ! — A pretty hopeful set to make head
against their opponents — a rope of sand against a
rock of marble — with no centre of gravity, but a
collection of atoms whirled about in empty space by
their own levity, or jostling together by numberless
points of repulsion, and tossed with all their officious
projects and airy predictions, by the first breath
of caprice or shock of power, into that Limbo of
Vanity, where embryo statesmen and drivelling legis-
lators dance the hays of Reform, " perpetual circle,
multiform and mix, and hinder all things," proud of
the exclusive purity of their own motives, and the
unattainable perfection of their own plans ! — How
different from the self-centred, well-knit, inseparable
phalanx of power and authority opposed to their
XXVI PREFACE.
impotent and abortive designs ! A Tory is one
who is governed by sense and habit alone. He
considers not what is possible, but what is real ; he
gives might the preference over right. He cries Long
Life to the conqueror, and is ever strong upon the
stronger side — the side of corruption and prerogative.
He says what others say ; he does as he is prompted
by his own advantage. He knows on which side his
bread is buttered, and that St. Peter is well at Rome.
He is for going with Sancho to Camacho's wedding,
and not for wandering with Don Quixote in the de-
sert, after the mad lover. Strait is the gate and nar-
row is the way that leadeth to Reform, but broad is
the way that leadeth to Corruption, and multitudes
there are that walk therein. The Tory is sure to be
in the thickest of them. His principle is to follow
the leader; and this is the infallible rule to have
numbers and success on your side, to be on the side
of success and numbers. Power is the rock of his
salvation -, priestcraft is the second article of his im-
plicit creed. He does not trouble himself to inquire
which is the best form of government — but he knows
that the reigning monarch is " the best of kings."
He does not, like a fool, contest for modes of faith ;
but like a wise man, swears by that which is by law
established. He has no principles himself, nor does
he profess to have any, but will cut your throat for
differing with any of his bigotted dogmas, or for ob-
jecting to any act of power that he supposes neces-
sary to his interest. He will take his Bible-oath that
PREFACE. XXVll
black is white, and that whatever is, is right, if it is
for his convenience. He is for having a shoe in the
loan, a share in a borough, a situation in the church
or state, or for standing well with those who have.
He is not for empty speculations, but for full pockets.
He is for having plenty of beef and pudding, a good
coat to his back, a good house over his head, and for
cutting a respectable figure in the world. He is
Epicuri de grege porcus — not a man but a beast. He
is styed in his prejudices — he wallows in the mire
of his senses — he cannot get beyond the trough of
his sordid appetites, whether it is of gold or wood.
Truth and falsehood are, to him, something to buy
and sell ; principle and conscience, something to
eat and drink. He tramples on the plea of Huma-
nity, and lives, like a caterpillar, on the decay of
public good. Beast as he is, he knows that the King
is the fountain of honour, that there are good things
to be had in the Church, treats the cloth with re-
spect, bows to a magistrate, lies to the tax-gatherer,
nicknames the Reformers, and " blesses the Regent
and the Duke of York." He treads the primrose path
of preferment; " when a great wheel goes up a hill,
holds fast by it, and when it rolls down, lets it go."
He is not an enthusiast, a Utopian philosopher or a
Theophilanthropist, but a man of business and the
world, who minds the main chance, does as other
people do, and takes his wife's advice to get on in
the world, and set up a coach for her to ride in, as
fast as possible. This fellow is in the right, and
XXVlll PREFACE.
" wiser in his generation than the children of the
light." The " servile slaves" of v\^ealth and power
have a considerable advantage over the independent
and the free. How much easier is it to smell out a
job than to hit upon a scheme for the good of man-
kind ! How much safer is it to be the tool of the
oppressor than the advocate of the oppressed ! How
much more fashionable to fall in with the opinion of
the world, to bow the knee to Baal, than to seek for
obscure and obnoxious truth ! How strong are the
ties that bind men together for their own advantage,
compared with those that bind them to the good of
their country or of their kind ! For as the Reformer
has no guide to his conclusions but speculative
reason, which is a source not of unanimity or cer-
tainty, but of endless doubt and disagreement, so he
has no ground of attachment to them but a specu-
lative interest, which is too often liable to be warped
by sinister motives, and is a flimsy barrier against
the whole weight of worldly and practical interests
opposed to it. He either tires and grows lukewarm
after the first gloss of novelty is over, and is thrown
into the hands of the adverse party, or to keep alive
an interest in it, he makes it the stalking-horse of his
ambition, of his personal enmity, of his conceit or
love of gossippingj as we have seen. An opinion
backed by power and prejudice, ri vetted and mor-
tised to the throne, is of more force and validity than
all the abstract reason in the world, without power
and prejudice. A cause centred in an individual.
PREFACE. XXIX
which is strengthened by all the ties of passion and
self-interest, as in the case of a king against a whole
people, is more likely to prevail than that of a
scattered multitude, who have only a common and
divided interest to hold them together, and '* screw
their courage to the sticking-place," against an in-
fluence, that is never distracted or dissipated ; that
neither slumbers nor sleeps ; that is never lulled into
security, nor tamed by adversity ; that is intoxicated
with the insolence of success, and infuriated with the
rage of disappointment; that eyes its one sole object
of personal aggrandisement, moves unremittingly to
it, and carries after it millions of its slaves and train-
bearers. Can you persuade a king to hear reason,
to submit his pretensions to the tribunal of the people,
to give up the most absurd and mischievous of his
prerogatives? No: he is always true to himself, he
grasps at power and hugs it close, as it is exorbitant
or invidious, or likely to be torn from him; and his
followers stick to him, and never boggle at any
lengths they are forced to go, because they know
what they have to trust to in the good faith of kings
to themselves and one another. Power then is
fixed and immoveable, for this reason, because it
is lodged in an individual who is driven to madness
by the undisputed possession, or apprehended loss of
it; his self-will is the key-stone that supports the
tottering arch of corruption, steadfast as it leans on
him : — liberty is vacillating, transient, and hunted
through the world, because it is entrusted to the
XXX PREFACE.
breasts of many, who care little about it, and
quarrel in the execution of their trust. Too many
cooks spoil the broth. The principle of tyranny is
in fact identified with a man's pride and the servility
of others in the highest degree; the principle of
liberty abstracts him from himself, and has to con-
tend in its feeble course with all his own passions,
prejudices, interests, and those of the world and of
his own party; the cavils of Reformers, the threats
of Tories, and the sneers of Whigs.*
A modern Whig is but the fag-end of a Tory. The
old Whigs were in principle what the modern Jaco-
bins are, Anti-Jacobites, that is, opposers of the
doctrine of divine right, the one in the soil of Eng-
land, the other by parity of reasoning in the soil
of France. But the Opposition have pressed so long
against the Ministry without effect, that being the
* There is none of this perplexity and jarring of different ob-
jects in the tools of power. Their jealousies, heart-burnings, love
of precedence, or scruples of conscience, are made subservient to
the great cause in which they are embarked ; they leave the ami-
cable division of the spoil to the powers that be ; all angry disputes
are hushed in the presence of the throne, and the corrosive, fret-
ful particles of human nature fly off, and are softened by the
influence of a court atmosphere. Courtiers hang together like a
swarm of bees about a honeycomb. Not so the Reformers ; for
they have no honey-comb to attract them. It has been said that
Reformers are often indifferent characters. The reason is, that the
ties which bind most men to their duties — habit, example, regard to
appearances — are relaxed in them ; and other and better principles
are, as yet, weak and unconfirmed.
PREFACE. XXXI
softer substance, and made of more yielding materials,
they have been moulded into their image and super-
scription, spelt backwards, or they differ as concave
and convex, or they go together like substantive and
adjective, or like man and wife, they two have be-
come one flesh. A Tory is the indispensable prop to
the doubtful sense of self-importance, and peevish
irritability of negative success, which mark the life of
a Whig leader or underling. They " are subdued
even to the very quality " of the Lords of the Trea-
sury Bench, and have quarrelled so long that they
would be quite at a loss without the ordinary food of
political contention. To interfere between them is
as dangerous as to interfere in a matrimonial squabble.
To overturn the one is to trip up the heels of the
other. Their hostility is not directed against things
at all, nor to effectual and decisive opposition to men,
but to that sort of petty warfare and parliamentary
tracassericy of which there is neither end nor use,
except making the parties concerned of consequence
in their own eyes, and contemptible in those of the
nation. They will not allow Ministers to be severely
handled by any one but themselves, nor even that :
but they say civil things of them in the House of
Commons, and whisper scandal against them at
Holland House. This shews gentlemanly refinement
and good breeding ; while my Lord Erskine " calls us
untaught knaves, unmannerly to come betwixt the
wind and his nobility." But the leaden bullets and
steel bayonets, the ultima ratio regm/i, by which
XXXli PREFACE.
these questions are practically decided, do their busi-
ness in another-guess manner ; they do not stand on
the same ceremony. Soft words and hard blows are
a losing game to play at : and this, one would think,
the Opposition, if they were sincere, must have
found out long ago. But they rather wish to screen
the Ministry, as their locum tenens in the receipt of
the perquisites of office and the abuse of power, of
which they themselves expect the reversion.
" Strange that such difference should be
Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
The distinction between a great Whig and Tory
Lord is laughable. For Whigs to Tories " nearly
are allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide."
So I cannot find out the different drift (as far as
politics are concerned) of the ********* and
********* Reviews, which remind one of Oppo-
sition coaches, that raise a great dust or spatter one
another with mud, but both travel the same road and
arrive at the same destination. When the Editor of a
respectable Morning Paper reproached me with having
called Mr. GifTord a cat's-paw, I did not tell him that
he was a glove upon that cat's-paw. I might have
done so. There is a difference between a sword and a
foil. The Whigs do not at all relish that ugly thing,
a knock-down blow j which is so different from their
endless see-saw way of going about a question.
They are alarmed, " lest the courtiers offended
should be :" for they are so afraid of their adversaries,
PREFACE. XXxiii
that they dread the reaction even of successful oppo-
sition to them, and will neither attempt it themselves,
nor stand by any one that does. Any writer who is
not agreeable to the Tories, becomes obnoxious to the
Whigs ; he is disclaimed by them as a dangerous
colleague, merely for having ** done the cause some
service;" is considered as having the malicious design
to make a breach of the peace, and to interrupt with
most admired disorder the harmony and mutual good
understanding which subsists between Ministers and
the Opposition, and on the adherence to which they
are alone suffered to exist, or to have a shadow of
importance in the state. They are, in fact, a conve-
nient medium to break the force of popular feeling,
and to transmit the rays of popular indignation
against the influence and power of the crown,
blunted and neutralized by as many qualifications
and refractions as possible. A Whig is properly what
is called a Trimmer — that is, a coward to both sides
of a question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest
man, but is a sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning,
silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.
He is a poor purblind creature, who halts between two
opinions, and complains that he cannot get any two
people to think alike. He is a cloak for corruption,
and a mar- plot to freedom. He will neither do any
thing himself, nor let any one else do it. He is on
bad terms with the Government, and not on good
ones with the people. He is an impertinence and
a contradiction in the state. If he has a casting
c
XXX IV PREFACE.
weight, for fear of overdoing the mark, he throws it
into the wrong scale. He is a person of equally
feeble understanding and passions. He has some
notion of what is right, just enough to hinder him
from pursuing his own interest; he has selfish and
worldly prudence enough, not to let him embark in
any bold or decided measure for the advancement of
truth and justice. He is afraid of his own conscience,
which will not let him lend his unqualified support
to arbitrary measures; he stands in awe of the opinion
of the world, which will not let him express his op-
position to those measures with warmth and effect.
His politics are a strange mixture of cross-purposes.
He is wedded to forms and appearances, impeded
by every petty obstacle and pretext of difficulty,
more tenacious of the means than the end — anxious
to secure all suffrages, by which he secures none — ■
hampered not only by the ties of friendship to his
actual associates, but to all those that he thinks may
become so ; and unwilling to offer arguments to con-
vince the reason of his opponents lest he should offend
their prejudices, by shewing them how much they
are in the wrong; " letting I dare not wait upon I
would, like the poor cat in the adage;" stickling for
the letter of the Constitution, with the affectation of
a prude, and abandoning its principles with the
effrontery of a prostitute to any shabby Coalition he
can patch up with its deadly enemies. This is very
pitiful work; and, I believe, the public with me are
tolerably sick of the character. At the, same time, he
PREFACE. XXXV
hurls up his cap with a foohsh face of wonder and
incredulity at the restoration of the Bourbons, and
affects to chuckle with secret satisfaction over the last
act of the Revolution, which reduced him to perfect
insignificance. We need not wonder at the results,
when it comes to the push between parties so differ-
ently constituted and unequally matched. We have
seen what those results are. I cannot do justice to
the picture, but I find it done to my hands in those
prophetic lines of Pope, where he describes the last
Triumph of Corruption : —
" But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore :
Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more.
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess ;
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless :
In golden chains the willing world she draws.
And her's the Gospel is, and her's the Laws ;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head.
And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.
Lo ! at the wheels of her triumphal car.
Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg'd in the dust ! his arms hang idly round.
His flag inverted trails along the ground ;
Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold.
Before her dance, behind her crawl the old !
See thronging millions to the Pagod run.
And offer country, parent, wife, or son !
Hear her black trumpet thro' the land proclaim.
That not to he corrupted is the shame.
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more !
See all our nobles begging to be slaves !
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves !
XXXVl PREFACE.
All, all look up with reverential awe
At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law ;
While truth, worth, wisdom daily they decry :
' Nothing is sacred now but villainy/
Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Shew there was one who held it in disdain."
POLITICAL ESSAYS, &c.
THE MARSVIS WEtLESLEY.
" And such other gambol faculties he bath, as shew a weak mind, and an able
body."
Jpril 13, 1813.
The Marquis Wellesley's opening speech on India aflfairs was
chiefly remarkable for its length, and the manner in which it was
delivered. This nobleman seems to have formed himself on those
lines in Pope : —
" All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
" Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long."
He aspires with infinite alacrity to the character of a great orator;
and, if we were disposed to take the will for the deed, we should
give him full credit for it. We confess, those of his speeches
which we have heard, appear to us prodigies of physical prowess
and intellectual imbecility. The ardour of his natural tempera-
ment, stimulating and irritating the ordinary faculties of his mind,
the exuberance of his animal spirits, contending with the barren-
ness of his genius, produce a degree of dull vivacity, of pointed
insignificance, and impotent energy, which is without any parallel
but itself. It is curious, though somewhat painful, to see this
lively little lord always in the full career of his subject, and never
advancing a jot the nearer ; seeming to utter volumes in every
B
2
word, and yet saying nothing ; retaining the same unabated vehe-
mence of voice and action without any thing to excite it ; still
keeping alive the promise and the expectation of genius without
once satisfying it — soaring into mediocrity with adventurous en-
thusiasm, harrowed up by some plain matter-of-fact, writhing
with agony under a truism, and launching a common-place with
all the fury of a thunderbolt !*
MR. SOUTHEY, POET LAUREJT.
Sept. IS, 1813.
The laurel is at length destined, unexpectedly, to circle the
brows of this gentleman, where it will look almost like a civic
crown. The patriot and the poet (two venerable names, which
we should wish never to see disunited) is said to owe his intended
elevation to the intercession of Mr. Croker, to whom, it will be
recollected, he has dedicated his Life of Lord Nelson, with an
appropriate motto in the title-page, from the poem of Ulm and
Trafalgar. Mr. Croker having applied to the Regent in favour
of his friend, the Prince is understood to have given his ready
assent, observing, that Mr. Southey's efforts in the Spanish cause
alone, rendered him highly worthy of the situation. As Mr.
Croker, however, was taking his leave, he was met by Lord
* The above criticism first appeared in the Courier newspaper, and was
copied the next day in the Chronicle with the following remarks:—" The trea-
sury journals complain of the harsh treatment shewn to ministers,— let us see
how they treat their opponents. If the following does not come from the poe-
tical pen of the Admiralty Croaker, it is a close imitation of his style."
' Strange that such difference should be
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee!"*
Whether it was from the fear of this supposed formidable critic, the noble
Marquis ceased from this time nightly to " fillip the ears of his auditors with a
three-man beetle!"
3
Liverpool and the Marquis of Hertford, the latter of whom, as
chamberlain, had, it seems, made an offer of the place to Mr.
Walter Scott, who had signified his acceptance of it. Some little
difficulty naturally arose on the occasion, but it was agreed that
the two poets should settle the point of precedence between them-
selves. A friendly altercation, unlike that of the shepherds in
Virgil, now took place between Mr. Scott and Mr. Southey,
each waving his own pretensions, and giving the palm of victory
to the other. But it was finally determined, that as Mr. Scott,
though he would not allow himself to be the greatest, was at least
the richest poet of the two, Mr. Southey, who had most need of
this post of honour and of profit, should have it. So ends this
important affair; and, without any ill-will to Mr. Southey, we
should not have been disappointed if it had ended differently.
Whatever may be the balance of poetical merit, Mr. Scott, we
are quite sure, has always been a much better courtier than Mr.
Southey ; and we are of opinion that the honours of a Court can
no where be so gracefully or deservedly bestowed as on its fol-
lowers. His acceptance of this mark of court favour would not
have broken in upon that uniformity of character, which we think
no less beautiful and becoming in life than in a poem. But, per-
haps, a passion for new faces extends to the intrigues of politics
as well as of love ; and a triumph over the scruples of delicacy
enhances the value of the conquest in both cases. To have been
the poet of the people, may not render Mr. Southey less a court
favourite ; and one of his old Sonnets to Liberty must give a
peculiar zest to his new Birth-day Odes. His flaming patriotism
will easily subside into the gentle glow of grateful loyalty ; and
the most extravagant of his plans of reform end in building castles
in Spain !
B 2
MR. SOUTHErS NEW-YEAR'S ODE.
Jan. 8, 1814.
Mr. South ey's Ode has at length appeared — not as was
announced, under the title of " Carmen Annuum," but under that
of "Carmen Triumphale, ybr the Commencement of the
Year 1814." We see no reason why the author might not have
adopted the title of Horace's Ode entire, and have called it Car-
men Seculare, which would have been the best account he could
give of it. We fear Mr. Southey will not form a splendid excep-
tion to the numberless instances which prove that there is something
in the air of a court, not favourable to the genius of poetry. He
has not deprived himself of the excuse made by one of his prede-
cessors, of versatile memory, in extenuation of the degeneracy of
his courtly lays, — " That poets succeed best in fiction." The
Ode is in the ballad style, peculiar to Mr. Southey and his poeti-
cal friends. It has something of the rustic simplicity of a country
virgin on her first introduction at Duke's Place, or of Pamela on
the day of her marriage with Mr. B. Or rather it resembles a
fancy birth-day suit, a fashionable livery worn inside out, a prince's
feather with a sprig of the tree of liberty added to it, — the academy
of compliments turned into quaint Pindarics, — is a sort of me-
thodistical rhapsody, chaunted by a gentleman-usher, and exhibits
the irregular vigour of Jacobin enthusiasm suffering strange emas-
culation under the hands of a finical lord-chamberlain. It is
romantic without interest, and tame without elegance. It is ex-
actly such an ode as we expected Mr. Southey to compose on this
occasion. We say this from our respect for the talents and charac-
ter of this eminent writer. He is the last man whom we should
expect to see graceful in fetters, or from whom we should look
for the soul of freedom within the liberties of a court ! — ^The
commencement of the Ode is as follows, and it continues through-
out much as it begins : —
" In happy hour doth he receive
The Laurel, meed of fanious bards of yore,
Which Dryden and diviner Speuser wore,
In happy hour, and well may he rejoice,
Whose earliest task must be
To raise tlie exultant liymn for victory,
And join a nation's Joy with harp and voice,
Pouring tlie strain of triumph on the wind.
Glory to God, his song — dehverance to mankind!
Wake, lute and harp ! &c. &c."
Mr. Southey has not exactly followed the suggestion of an in-
genious friend, to begin his poem with the appropriate allusion,
" Awake, my sack-but!"
The following rhymes are the lamest we observed. He says,
speaking of the conflict between the Moors and Spaniards,
" Age after age, from sire to son,
The hallowed sword was handed down;
Nor did they from that warfare cease,
And sheath that hallowed sword in peace,
Until the work was done."
Indeed, if Mr. S. can do no better than this, in his drawing-
room verses, he should get some contributor to the Lady's Maga-
zine to polish them for him.
We have turned over the Ode again, which extends to twenty
pages, in the hope of finding some one vigorous or striking pas-
sage for selection, but in vain. The following is the most
likely to please in a certain quarter : —
" Open thy gates, O Hanover! display
Thy loyal banners to the day !
Receive thy old illustrious line once more!
Beneath an upstart's yoke oppress'd,
Long has it been thy fortune to deplore
That line, whose fostering and paternal sway
So many an age thy grateful children blest.
6
The yoke is broken now ! — a mightier hand
Hath dasli'd — in pieces dash'd — the iron rod.
To meet her princes, the delivered land
Pours her rejoicing multitudes abroad ;
The happy bells, from every town and tower,
Roll their glad peals upon the joyful wind ;
And from all hearts and tongues, with one consent,
The high thanksgiving strain is sent —
Glory to God ! Deliverance to mankind !"
In various stanzas, Bonaparte is called an upstart, a ruffian,
&c. We confess, we wish to see Mr. Southey, like Virgil, in
his Georgics, " scatter his dung with a grace."
We do not intend to quarrel with our Laureat's poetical poli-
tics, but the conclusion is one which we did not anticipate from
the author. We have always understood that the Muses were the
daughters of Memory !
*' And France, restored and shaking off her chain,
Shall join the Avengers in the joyful strain —
Glory to God ! Deliverance for mankind!"
The poem has a few notes added to it, the object of which
seems to be to criticise the political opinions of the Edinburgh
Reviewers with respect to Spain, and to prove that the author is
wiser after the event than they were before it, in which he has
very nearly succeeded.
Mr. Southey announces a new volume of Inscriptions, which
must furnish some curious parallelisms.
DOTTREL-CJTCHJNG.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
SIR, Jan. 27, 1814.
The method of taking this bird is somewhat singular, and is
described in an old book in the following terms :
" The Dottrel is a foolish bird of the crane species, very tall,
awkward, and conceited. The Dottrel-catcher, when he has got
near enough, turns his head round sideways, and makes a leg to-
wards him : the bird, seeing this, returns the civility, and makes
the same sidelong movement. These advances are repeated with
mutual satisfaction, till the man approaches near enough, and
then the bird is taken."
A poet-laureat or a treasury sophist is often taken much in the
same way. Your Opposionist, Sir, was ever a true gull. From
the general want of sympathy, he sets more store by it than it is
worth ; and for the smallest concession, is prevailed upon to give
up every principle, and to surrender himself, bound hand and
foot, the slave of a party, who get all they want of him, and then
— " Spunge, you are dry again !"
A striking illustration of the common treatment of political
drudges has lately occurred in the instance of a celebrated writer,
whose lucubrations are withheld from the public, because he has
declared against the project of restoring the Bourbons. As the
court and city politicians have spoken out on this subject, permit
me, Sir, to say a word in behalf of the country. I have no
dislike whatever, private or public, to the Bourbons, except as
they may be made the pretext for mischievous and impracticable
schemes. At the same time I have not the slightest enthusiasm
in their favour. I would not sacrifice the life or limb of a single
individual to restore them. 1 have very nearly the same feelings
towards them which Swift has expressed in his account of the
ancient and venerable race of the Struldbruggs. It is true, they
might in some respects present a direct contrast to Bonaparte.
A tortoise placed on the throne of France would do the same
thing. The literary sycophants of the day, Sir, are greatly en-
amoured (from some cause or other) with hereditary imbecility
and native want of talent. They are angry, not without reason,
that a Corsican upstart has made the princes of Europe look like
wax-work figures, and given a shock to the still life of kings.
They wish to punish this unpardonable presumption, by establish-
ing an artificial balance of weakness throughout Europe, and by
reducing humanity to the level of thrones. We may perhaps in
8
time improve this principle of ricketty admiration to Eastern per-
fection, where every changeling is held sacred, and that which is
the disgrace of human intellect is hailed as the image of the
Divinity !
It is said that in France the old royalists and the revolutionary
republicans are agreed in the same point. Bonaparte is the point
of union between these opposite extremes, the common object of
their hate and fear. 1 can conceive this very possible from what
I have observed among ourselves. He has certainly done a great
deal to mortify the pride of birth in the one, and the vanity of
personal talents in the others. This is a very sufficient ground of
private pique and resentment, but not of national calamity or
eternal war. I am, Sir, your humble servant,
EICONOCLASTES SATYRANE.
THE BOURBONS AND BONAPARTE.
Dec. 6, 1813.
The following paragraph in a daily paper is equally worthy
of notice for magnificence of expression iand magnanimity of sen-
timent: —
" When or under what circumstances the great Commander
may think fit to carry his forces against the large military or com-
mercial depots of the south of France, we do not pretend to form
conjectures. We are confident, that as nothing will disturb the
calm and meditative prudence of his plans, so nothing will arrest
the rapidity of their execution. We trust alike in his caution and
in his resolution : but, perhaps, there may be in store for him a
higher destination than the capture of a town or the reduction of
a province. What if the army opposed to him should resolve to
avenge the cause of humanity, and to exchange the bloody and
brutal tyranny of a Bonaparte for the mild paternal sway of a
Bourbon? Could a popular French general open to himself a
more glorious career at the present moment, than that which
Providence seemed to have destined to the virtuous Moreau ? Or
is it possible that any power now existing in France could stop
such a general and such an army, supported by the unconquered
Wellington and his formidable legions, if they were to resolve
boldly to march to Paris, and bring the usurper to the block !
Every disposable soldier in France is on the Adour, or on the
Rhine. In the case we are supposing, there would be no enemy
to encounter, unless the northern frontier were at once denuded
of troops, and the road to Paris on that side laid open to the al-
lies. This is no question of the attachment of the French nation
to one dynasty or to another : it is a question of military enter-
prise, in the minds of military adventurers. The simple possi-
bility, not to say the high moral probability, that in a moment of
general defection, an army which has so much in its hands may
run with the stream of popular feeling throughout Europe, is
enough to make the Tyrant tremble on his throne. Lord Wel-
lington is doubtless prepared to take advantage of so desirable an
occurrence, in case it should happen without his previous inter-
ference : but we wish him to interfere ; we wish that he were
authorised plainly and openly to offer his mighty co-operation to
any body of men who would shake off the Tyrant's yoke in France,
as has been done in Italy, in Germany, and in Holland !"
This is a fair specimen of that kind of declamation which has
for a long time swayed the affairs of Europe, and which, if the
powers of Europe are wise by experience, will not influence them
much longer. It is this spirit of treating the French people as of
a different species from ourselves — as a monster or a non-entity —
of disposing of their government at the will of every paragraph-
monger — of arming our hatred against them by ridiculous menaces
and incessant reproaches — of supposing that their power was either
so tremendous as to threaten the existence of all nations, or so
contemptible that we could crush it by a word, — it is this uniform
system, practised by the incendiaries of the press, of inflaming
our prejudices and irritating our passions, that has so often made
10
us rush upon disaster, and submit to every extremity rather than
forego the rancorous and headstrong desire of revenge.
The writer of the paragraph talks famiharly of marching to
Paris, and bringing Bonaparte to the block. He seems to won-
der at the delay which has already taken place. This is the very
style of ancient Pistol, " Bid him prepare, for 1 will cut his
throat." This high tone of impotent menace and premature tri-
umph always " reverbs i'ts own hollowness." It is the echo of
fear. Instead of a proud repose on our own strength and courage,
these writers only feel secure in the destruction of an adversary.
The natural intoxication of success is heightened into a sort of
delirium by the recollection of the panic into which they had been
thrown. The Times' editor thinks that nothing can be so easy
as for an army '' to run with the stream of popular feeling" from
one end of Europe to the other. Strange that these persons, like
desperate adventurers, are incorrigible to experience. They are
always setting out on the same forlorn hope. The tide of for-
tune, while it sets in strong against us, they prove to be the most
variable of all things ; but it no sooner changes in our favour,
than it straight
" Flows on to the Propontic,
And knows no ebb."
To encourage themselves in the extravagance of their voluntary
delusions, they are as prodigal of titles of honour as the college
of heralds, and erect a standard of military fame, with all the
authority, but not with the impartiality of history. Lord Wel-
lington is " the great commander," and " the unconquered gene-
ral," while " the little captain," and " the hero" or " the deserter
of Smorgonne," are the only qualifications of Bonaparte. If such
are the true denominations and relative proportions of these two
generals, then it is quite right to give to each of them the honour
due ; — if they are not, then it is quite wrong to stake the w elfare
of nations on a turn of expression — to put little equivocal scraps
©f paper into false scales, and decide the fiate of Europe by nick-
11
names. The scales in which Sir Humphrey Davy weighs the
500th part of a drachm, are not so slight nor insignificant as
those in which his vilifiers, The Times, balance the destinies of
the world.
" What," it is asked with a certain air of profundity and mys-
tery, " What if the army opposed to him [Lord Wellington]
should resolve to exchange the bloody tyranny of Bonaparte for
the paternal sway of a Bourbon !"
Why, if the French wish to shake off the galling yoke of a
military Usurper, we say, let them do it in God's name. Let
them, whenever they please, imitate us in our recal of the
Stuarts ; and, whenever they please, in our banishment of them
thirty years afterwards. But let them not, in the name of honour
or of manhood, receive the royal boon of liberty at the point of
the bayonet. It would be setting a bad precedent — it would be
breaking in upon a great principle — it would be making a gap in
the general feeling of national independence. For we are to
observe, that this rational, popular, patriotic preference of the
mild paternal sway of the Bourbons is to be enforced upon them
by the powerful co-operation of the unconquered Wellington and
his formidable legions. This is, in fact, returning to the original
ground of the whole quarrel, and the question for them to con-
sider, is whether all the evils and miseries which they may have
endured in resisting these forcible appeals from foreign powers,
are the strongest reasons why they should at length gratefully
resign themselves to that tender concern for their sufferings, which
so much persevering kindness, and disinterested preference of
their interests to our own unequivocally proves. The impression
produced by these formidable emissaries of mild paternity must,
indeed, be only that of filial love and reverence. The constant
role of these same Bourbons, now recognized, now disowned by
the surrounding states, now held up as bugbears to frighten, and
now brought forward as decoys to allure them, for awhile kept
entirely in the back-ground, and then again set over them like
puppets, in every reverse of fortune, must excite, one would
12
suppose, some very pleasant associations, and give them some
little insight into the nature of the machinery which is played off
against them. In other nations, at least, these sort of tentatives
would lead not to submission, but to indignation. It cannot be
denied, however, that the French character has peculiar suscep-
tibilities. France, like a modern coquet, may be fascinated once
more by the courtly graces of discarded royalty ; or, on the other
hand, recollecting the malice and the impotence of which she
was so long the victim, like Hellenore, entertained by the jolly
satyrs, may wisely refuse to return to the cold and irksome em-
braces of the drivelling Malbecco. But our politician wishes all
this not to be left to their own free will, but that we should
interfere. We can easily believe it,- " it was ever the fault of
our English nation" to wish to interfere with what did not con-
cern them, for the very reason that they could interfere with
comparative impunity. What is sport to them is death to others.
The writer also draws a parallel, as if it were a feasible case,
between Holland, Spain, and Germany throwing off a foreign
yoke, and the French throwing off their own ; in other words,
submitting to a foreign one. We beg pardon of these acute dis-
criminators. We know they have an answer. We leave them in
possession of the nice distinction — between a foreign yoke, and a
yoke imposed by foreigners !
" This," says the writer in The Times, " is not a question of
attachment to one dynasty or another, but a question of mih-
tary enterprize between military adventurers." Does our specu-
lator mean by this to confer the privileges of military adventurers,
en phin droit, on the Emperor Alexander and the Crown Prince
of Sweden ^ But whatever he means, it is clear that he is not
consistent in what he says ; for he has said just before, that the
object of this so often repeated march to Paris is •' to bring the
Usurper to the block !" Here, then, it is a question, not be-
tween contending generals, but between a usurper and a lawful
monarch. So true it is that those who have most need of their
assistance have the worst memories ! " What," exclaims our
13
eiuluisiast, " woiild there be to oppose such a general and such
tin army, aided by the unconquered Wellington," &,c. First,
" this is the very coinage of his brain." There's no such general
and no such army.
But granting the supposition to be true, the patriotic general,
who should open to himself a glorious passage through the heart of
his country, and attempt to make it the vassal of England, under the
monstrous pretence of allegiance to his Sovereign, might perhaps
meet the fate which Providence destined for the virtuous Moreau.
Perhaps the French may think that as their affected loyalty could
be only a cover for the most dastardly submission, so their hypo-
crisy and treachery to themselves might be justly retaliated upon
them, by making the restoration of thrones a mask for the dis-
memberment of kingdoms. They may have acquired by expe-
rience some knowledge of that enlargement of view and boldness
of nerve, which is inspired by the elevation of success. They
may consider, that " when the wild and savage passions are set
afloat, they are not so easily regulated" according to the dictates
of justice or generosity. Some of them may even go so far as
to think that all the respect of the Emperor of Russia for the
talents and virtues of Moreau might be insufficient to deter him
from memorizing another Warsaw at Paris! Of this we are
tolerably certain, that there are not wanting staunch friends of
order and civilization in this country who would advise and ap-
plaud such a catastrophe " to the very echo," as a masterpiece
of political justice, chaunt Te Deum over the ruins, and very
seriously invite the good people of France to join iu the chorus !
But we are not " the echo that shall applaud again." We shall
not hail such a catastrophe, nor such a triumph. For out of the
desolation would arise a poisoned stench that would choak almost
the breath of life, and one low, creephig fog of universal des-
potism, that would confound the Eastern and the Western world
together in darkness that might he felt. We do not wish for
this final consummation, because we do not wish the pulse of
liberty to be quite destroyed, or that the mass of our common
14
nature should become a lifeless corpse, unable to rouse itself
against never-ending wrongs, or that the last spark of generous
enthusiasm should be extinguished in that moral atheism, which
defaces and mangles the image of God in man. We do not wish
that liberty should ever have a deer's heart given her, to live in con-
stant fear of the fatal, inevitable venal pack behind her ; but that
she may still have the heart of a lioness, whose mighty roar keeps
the hunters at bay, and whose whelps revenge their parent's death !
Rather than such an event should take place, if such an ex-
tremity were possible, we should even wish that a general and an
army of our own, devoted by The Times to a far different service,
might be empowered to make a firm stand against it : to stop the
tide of barbarous despotism as they had already rolled back that of
ungovernable ambition, and to say. Hitherto shalt thou come, and
no further. Such an interference in such a cause would indeed
give to Great Britain the character which she claims of being the
Vindicator of the World. It would be to assume an attitude and
a port indeed, loftier than she ever yet presented to the admiration
of mankind ; and would create a bulwark of strength round her,
that would encircle her as with " impaling fire !"
VETUS.
Nov. 19, 1813.
This patriot and logician in a letter in The Times of Friday,
labours to stifle the most distant hope of peace in its birth. He
lays down certain general principles which must for ever render
all attempts to restore it vain and abortive. With the watch-
word of Eternal war with Bonaparte blazoned on his fore-
head, in the piety of his pacific zeal, he challenges Bonaparte
as the wanton, unprovoked, implacable enemy of the peace of
mankind. We will also venture to lay down a maxim, which
IS— That from the moment that one party declares and acts upon
15
the avowed principle that peace can never be made with an
enemy, it renders war on the part of that enemy a matter of
necessary self-defence, and holds out a plea for every excess of
ambition or revenge. If we are to limit our hostility to others
only with their destruction, we impose the adoption of the same
principle on them as their only means of safety. There is no
alternative. But this is probably the issue to which Vetus wishes
to bring the question. This writer not only outlaws Bonaparte,
but in a summary way, disfranchises the French nation at large of
the right of making peace or war. " Who," he exclaims in
wanton defiance of common sense, " are the French nation ?
To us a rank non-entity. We have only to do with Napoleon
Bonaparte — with his rights, his interests, his honour. Who are
to be the sole judges of his rights ? We and our Allies!" Ad-
mirable politician !
The events which have lately taken place on the Continent,
and the moderate and manly tone in which those events have been
received by Ministers, have excited the utmost degree of uneasi-
ness and alarm in the minds of certain persons, who redouble the
eagerness of their cries for war. The cold blooded fury and
mercenary malice of these panders to mischief, can only be ap-
peased by the prospect of lasting desolation. They rave, foam
at the mouth, and make frantic gestures at the name of peace.
These high-priests of Moloch daily offer up to their grim idol
the same nauseous banquet of abuse and lies. Round them " a
cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark," that with greedy appetite
devour the offal. Every day they act over the same foul im-
posture, and repeat their monstrous masque. These mighty
soothsayers look forward to another restoration of Europe after
another twenty years of havoc and destruction. After urging her
to the very edge of the precipice from which she has only just
recovered, breathless and affrighted, they wish to goad her on
once more to the same mad career. The storm is for the
moment over-past, but they will not suffer the vessel of the state
to enter the harbour, in the hope that they may still plunder the
wreclf, and prey upon the carcases. The serpent's hiss, the
assassin's yell, the mowing and chattering of apes, drown the
voice of peace ; and Vetus, Hke the solemn owl, joins in the
distance, and prolongs the dreary note of death !
ON THE COURIER AND TIMES NEWSPAPERS.
Jan. 9A, 1814.
The following passage, among others of the same calibre, has
lately appeared in The Courier : —
" The party call upon us to speak out. We thought it not very easy for any
charge of not speaking out to be urged against us. However, we obey their
call most willingly. ' Does The Courier, they ask, mean to insinuate, that be-
cause the South of France is more inclined to favour their pretensioiis, the
Bourbons ought to have frigates allotted them to traverse the Bay of Biscay,
and join the standard of Lord Wellington ?' To this we reply, yes ; decisively
yes! — We say we would have a Bourbon proceed to the South of France. We
hope we have spoken out on this point. One more remains j — Would we ' set
up some new obstacle to the progress of the negociation that is on foot?' Fes,
jf we thought there was any negociation on foot with Bonaparte. But we trust
there is not — we trust there never will be."
And this at a time when it has been formally signified from the
throne that there was no objection on the pajt of England to
treat with the French Ruler; when Lord Liverpool has said
publicly that no conditions of peace would be insisted on, which
we, placed in the situation of France, should not think it rea-
sonable to grant ; when we, in concert with the Allies, have
announced to France, that it is neither our intention nor our
wish to interfere with their internal government, but to secure
the independence and safety of the continent ; and when Lord
Castlereagh has gone from this country for the purpose, avowed
and understood, of giving effect to that declaration, and of fixing
the basis of a peace to be recognized by the common powers of
Europe. To produce such a passage, at such a moment, re-
17
quired that union of impudence and folly which has no parallel
elsewhere. From the quarter from which it comes, it could not
surprize us ; it is consistent ; it is in keeping ; it is of a piece with
the rest. It is worthy of those harpies of the press, whose busi-
ness is to scare away the approach of peace by their obscene and
dissonant noises, and to tear asunder the olive-branch, whenever
it is held out to us, with their well-practised beaks ; who fill their
hearts with malice, and their mouths with falsehood ; who strive to
soothe the dastard passion of their employers by inflaming those
of the multitude ; creatures that would sell the lives of millions
for a nod of greatness, and make their country a by -word in
history, to please some punk of quality.
We are to understand from no less an authority than that of
The Courier, that Lord Castlereagh is sent out professedly to
make peace, but in reality to hinder it : and we learn from an
authority equally respectable {The Times) that nothing can prevent
the destruction of Bonaparte but this country's untimely con-
senting to make peace with him. And yet we are told in the
same breath, that the charge of eternal war which we bring against
these writers, is the echo of the French war-faction, who, at the
commencement of every series of hostilities, and at the conclusion
of every treaty, have accused this country of a want of good
faith and sincere disposition to peace. We are told, that if the
French do not force Bonaparte to make peace now, which yet
these writers are determined to prevent him from doing, *' they
are sunk beneath the worshippers of cats and onions." These
" knavish but keen" politicians tell the French people in so many
words — " We will not make peace with your government, and
yet, if it does not make peace with us, we will force what Go-
vernment we please upon you." What effect this monstrous and
palpable insult must have upon the French nation, will de-
pend upon the degree of sense and spirit they have left among
them. But with respect to ourselves, if the line of policy pointed
out by these juggling fiends is really meant to be pursued, if a
pretended proposal to treat for peace on certain grounds is only
o
18
to be converted into an insidious ground of renewed war for other
purposes, if this offensive and unmanly imposture is to be avowed
and practised upon us in the face of day, then we know what
will be the duty of Parliament and of the country. The wars, in
which die Governments of Europe have been engaged, have not
succeeded the worse when the people took an effective share in
them. We should hope that the interference of the people will
not be necessary to effect the restoration of peace.
It is curious to hear these systematic opponents of peace, (with
infuriate and insensate looks scattering firebrands and death,) at
the same time affecting the most tender concern for the miseries
of war ; or like that good-natured reconciler of differences, lago,
hypocritically shifting the blame from themselves — '' What, stab
men in the dark !" They ask with grave faces, with vei-i/ grave
faces, " Who are the authors, the propagators, and practisers of
this dreadful war system ? who the aggressors ? who the unre-
lenting persecutors of peace?" War is their everlasting cry,
" one note day and night ;" during war, during peace, during
negociation, in success, in adversity ; and yet they dare to tax
others as the sole authors of the calamities which they would
render eternal, sooner than abate one jot of their rancorous pre-
judices. One of these writers (the Editor of The Times) asserts
with an air of great confidence, while he himself is hallooing as
loud as he can among the indefatigable war-pack, that Bonaparte
is the cause, the sole author of all the calamities of Europe for
the last fourteen years ; and what is remarkable, he brings as a
proof of this sweeping assertion, a state paper, written under the
Pitt Administration of pacific memory, deprecating all concilia-
tion with the French at the very period from which the writer
dates the wanton, unprovoked aggressions of Bonaparte, and
which paper he quotes at length, as an admirable description of
the mode by which we are to avert the calamities of Europe for
the next fourteen years, as we have done for the last. Better
late than never. So industrious an inquirer need not despair of
effectually averting our future miseries, and pacifying the world,
19
if it is to be done by referring back to state papers of this de-
scription, or by resuming the principles of those good oki anti-
jacobin times, or by finishing the war as it was begun. There
would be no end of precedents and documents for prosecuting the
war with vigour under every variety of circumstances, in order
never to bring it to a conclusion. As a proof of the aggressions
and implacable hatred of France, he might cite that monument of
romantic and disinterested generosity " of heroic sentiment and
manly enterprise," on the part of the Allies, the treaty of Pilnitz.*
He might proceed to those pacific manifestations — Lord Hawkes-
bury's march to Paris — the Bellum internecinum of Mr. Wind-
ham, and his consistent phrenzy at the treaty of Amiens — Mr.
Pitt's abstract impossibility of maintaining the relations of peace
and amity with the French Republic, or with the child and cham-
pion of Jacobinism — Mr. Burke's Regicide Peace — the project
of starving France in 1796 — of hurling her down the gulph of
bankruptcy in 1797 — the coalitions of different periods in which
England saved herself and Europe from peace by her energy, or
her example — the contemptuous rejection of every offer of nego-
ciation in every situation, the unwearied prosecution of the war
on the avowed principle that we were never to leave it off as long
as we could carry it on, or get any one to carry it on for us, or
till we had buried ourselves under the ruins of the civilized world
(a prediction which we narrowly escaped verifying) — all these un-
deniable proofs and substantial demonstrations of our fond desires,
our longings after peace, and of the determination of France to
aggrandize herself by war and conquest, would, indeed, with the
ingenious glosses of our well-meaning commentator form a very
entertaining volume, and would at least teach us, if not what to
follow, what we ought to shun, in our future advances to this first
of earthly blessings, so long and studiously and systematically
* As he is fond of tlie good old times before the Revohition, the writer
might go still farther back to that magnanimous undertaking, concerted and
executed by the same persons of honour, the partition of Poland.
C '2
20
withheld from us — only to render its attainment more certain and
more precious!
To the other solid grounds of an indefinite prolongation of this
war, religious, moral, political, commercial, constitutional, con-
tinental, Jacobinical, Revolutionary, Corsican, foreign or do-
mestic — our apologist, in the true spirit of the French petit
maitre in Koderic Random, has now added a ground of his own,
of equal efficacy and validity with the former, viz. that we are to
carry it on in the character of gentlemen and men of honour.
We are to fight for the restoration of the Bourbons, say The
Times, " that we may have gentlemen and men of honour to fight
with." There is some prudence in this resolution ; it goes on the
old principle, that we are not to fight except with our match.
Don Quixote, after he had been soundly drubbed by the Yangue-
sian carriers, recollected that he ought not to have engaged with
plebeians. The writer whom we have here quoted, told us, some
time ago, from a greater authority certainly than that of The Times,
the true grounds of war, or " that we might spill our blood for our
country, for our liberty, for our friends, for our kind; " but we do
not remember, among these legitimate sources of the waste of
human blood, that we were to shed it for a punctilio. If war
were to be decided by the breaking of white and black sticks
among gentlemen-ushers, or even by the effusion of courtly
phrases in The Courier and The Times, we should have no ob-
jection to this fastidious refinement ; but we cannot consent to
shed the best blood of Europe, nor that of " the meanest peasant
in this our native land," in order that the delicate honour of the
Carlton House Minority may not be stained, nor the purity of
their moral taste perverted, by an intercourse with any but gen-
tlemen and men of honour. And thou, Carl John, what hast
thou to say to this new plea of the old school ? — Or why, nat
being clad with the inherent right to " monarchize, be feared, and
kill with looks," — dost thou insult over the King of Denmark,
menace Holstein, and seize upon Norway, and yet tellest thy
little son, that the time is coming, when conquerors shall be no
21
more ? — The Times editor scornfully rejects our practical opinion
on the probability of restoring the Bourbons, because it seems
we always reject every proposition that makes the continuance of
war necessary. Be it so. But do not these persons also attach
the highest degree of probability, or, when they are so inclined,
moral certainty, to every thing that tends to make peace unat-
tainable ? It is true we did not, as they say, anticipate the re-
verses of the French Emperor before they happened. If we did
not anticipate them before, it was because we had nothing in past
experience to guide us to such a conclusion, except, indeed, the
constant unverified predictions of The Times and The Courier.
If these inspired writers had the slightest intimation of them one
moment before they happened, we are willing to bow down to
them, and they shall be our Gods. But of this we are sure, from
all experience, that the way to render the fruits of those reverses
uncertain, or to defeat them altogether, is the very mode of pro-
ceeding recommended by the ceaseless partizans of interminable
hostilities. If the French are a nation of men — if they have the
common faculties of memory, of understanding, and foresight ; if
they are, as they have been pronounced by one no ways favourable
to them, " the most civilized, and with one exception, the most
enlightened people in Europe," surely, if any thing can kindle in
their minds " the flame of sacred vehemence, and move the very
stones to mutiny," it is the letting loose upon them the mohawks
of Europe, the Cossacks, with General Blucher's manifesto in
their hands. It is restoring to Bonaparte the very weapon
which we had wrested from him, the mighty plea of the inde-
pendence of nations ; it is reclothing his power with those ada-
mantine scales " which fear no discipline of human hands," the
hearts and wills of a whole people, threatened with emasculation
of their moral and physical powers, by half a dozen libellers of
the human species, and a horde of barbarians scarcely human.
Even the writer in The Times acknowledges that the Cossacks
entering France as a sort of masters of the ceremonies to the
Bourbons, is only better, and less likely to excite horror and dis-
22
may, than their entering it in their own rights and persons. It
may be so. The bear bringing in the monkey on his back may
be more inviting than the bear alone. But we should think that
either portent must be fatal, that neither hieroglyphic will be
favourably interpreted.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF FETUS.
" Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass,
" But there goes more to a substantial ass;
" Our modern wits such monstrous fools have shewn,
" Tliey seem not of Heaven's making but their own." — Drvden.
Dec. 2, 1813.
There is a degree of shameless effrontery which disarms and
baffles contempt by the shock which it gives to every feeling of
moral rectitude or common decency ; as there iS a daring extra-
vagance in absurdity which almost challenges our assent by con-
founding and setting at defiance every principle of human rea-
soning. The ribald paragraphs, which fill the columns of our
daily papers, and disgrace the English language, afford too many
examples of the former assertion ; the Letters of Vetus are a
striking instance of the latter.
It would have been some satisfaction to us, in the ungrateful
task which we have imposed upon ourselves, if, in combating the
conclusions of Vetus, we could have done justice to the ingenuity
of his arguments, or the force of his illustrations. But his ex-
treme dogmatism is as destitute of proofs, as it is violent in itself.
His profound axioms are in general flat contradictions ; and he
scarcely makes a single statement in support of any proposition
which does not subvert it. In the Parliamentary phrase, he con-
stantly stultifies himself. The glaring and almost deliberate in-
congruity of his conclusions is such as to imply a morbid defect
of comprehension, a warped or overstrained understanding. Ab-
2S
sorbed in an inveterate purpose, bent on expanding some vapid
sophism into a cumbrous system, he is insensible to the most ob-
vious consequences of things ; and his reason is made the blind
pander to his prejudices.
We are not converts to this author's style, any more than to his
reasoning. Indeed the defects of the one very much assist those
of the other, and both have the same character. There is a per-
petual effort to make something out of nothing, and to elevate a
common-place into sublimity. The style of Vetus is not very
different from that of Don Adriano de Armado ; every M'ord is as
who should say, " I am Sir Oracle." Like the hero of Cervantes,
haranguing the shepherds, he assaults the very vault of Heaven
with the arrogance of his tone, and the loudness of his pretensions.
Nothing can exceed the pompous quaintness, and laborious
foolery of many of his letters. He unfolds the book of fate,
assumes the prophet or historian, by virtue of alliteration and
antithesis ; — sustains the balance of power by well-poised pe-
riods, or crushes a people under a ponderous epithet. The set
style of Vetus does not conform easily to the march of human
affairs ; and he is often forced to torture the sense to " hitch it"
in a metaphor. While he is marshalling his words, he neglects
his arguments, which require all his attention to connect them
together ; and in his eagerness to give additional significance to
his sentences, he loses his own meaning.
We shall proceed to the task we at first proposed, viz. that of
supplying marginal notes to the voluminous effusions of Vetus,
and shall continue our comments as often as he furnishes us with
the text.
We agree with the sentiment with which he commences his
last Letter, that it is " particularly desirable to follow up the
question of peace" at the present crisis, but not with the reason
which he assigns for his extreme anxiety to enter upon the ques-
tion, " because this is just the moment to dread the entertain-
ment of a pacific overture." We can readily believe that at no
other moment than when he dreads its approach, would Vetus
24
ever breathe a syllable on the subject of peace, and then only to
avert it. Whenever " a spurious and mawkish beneficence" gives
an alarm of peace, the dogs of war stand ready on the slip to
liunt it down.
" I have stated to you" (To the Editor of the Times) " as the
only legitimate basis of a treaty, if not on the part of the conti-
nental Allies, at least for England herself, that she should conquer
all she can, and keep all she conquers. This is not by way of
retaliation, however Just, upon so obdurate and rapacious an
enemy — but as an indispensable condition of her own safety and
existence."
That which is here said to be the onli/ legitimate basis of a
treaty is one, which if admitted and acted upon, would make it
i^npossible that any treaty should ever be formed. It is a basis,
not of lasting peace, but of endless war. To call that the basis
of a treaty which precludes the possibility of any concession or
compensation, of every consideration either of the right or power
of each party to retain its actual acquisitions, is one of those mis-
nomers which the gravity of Vetus's manner makes his readers
overlook. After the imposing and guarded exordium which
ushers in the definition of our only legitimate basis of a treaty,
we are not prepared to expect Vetus's burlesque solution of the
difficulty — " that we are not to treat at all." The human mind
is naturally credulous of sounding professions, and reluctantly ad-
mits the existence of what is very common, and common for that
reason — pompous nonsense. It seems, however, that this basis
of a treaty is to apply only to one of the contracting powers,
namely, England, it is equivocal as to the AUies, and with re-
spect to France, it is, we suppose, meant to be altogether null.
For in a former letter, after asking, " Who are to be the judges of
his (Bonaparte's) rights ? " he answers emphatically, " We and
our Allies 1" Bobadil did not come up to this exquisite pacifi-
cator of the world ! To make common sense of Vetus's axiom
with reference to any state whatever, " that it should keep all it
conquers," it seems necessary to add this trifling condition, " if it
25
can." And with respect to Great Britain in particular, if from
her peculiar situation she has the power to keep all she conquers
without being amenable to any other tribunal than her own will,
this very circumstance proves that the exercise of that power is
not necessary to her safety and existence. Again, if England has
an interest of her own, quite independent on and separate from
that of the continent, what has she to do with continental Allies ?
If her interests may be and are interwoven with those of the rest
of Europe, is it too much to expect from her a common sacrifice
to the common cause ? We quarrel with France on continental
grounds ; we strip her of her colonies to support the quarrel ;
and yet we refuse to restore any part of them, in order to secure
peace. If so, we are only ostensible parties in the contest, and
in reality robbers.
" The first policy of a wise people is to make rival nations
afraid to disturb them, to impress their enemies with a terrific
sense," (how magnificent is this epic mode of expression) " that
to attack them is to suffer not only transient defeats, but deep,
grievous, and irrecoverable losses ; and to hold in abhorrence any
peace which shall not be a living record of their own superiority,
and a monument worthy of those warriors, through whose noble
blood it was obtained."
If the losses sustained in war were to be irrecoverable, it is
easy to foresee that the seat of empires would be very soon
changed in almost all cases whatever. But Vetus here, as is
customary with him when it tends to enforce the hyperbolical
effect of his style, assumes as a broad ground of national wisdom,
a physical impossibility. It is not in the nature of things that the
losses of rival States should be irrecoverable. Vetus would do
better to decree at once that the possessions of nations are mias-
sailable as well as irrecoverable, which would prevent war alto-
gether. But still more preposterous is the madness or malice of
the assertion, that no peace can be made by a wise nation, which
is not a living record of their own superiority. " This is the
key-stone which makes up the arch" of Vetus's indestructible war-
26
system. Can it have escaped even the short-sighted logic of this
writer, that to make superiority an indispensable condition of a
wise peace is to proscribe peace altogether, because certainly this
superiority cannot belong at the same time to both parties, and
yet we conceive that the consent of both parties is necessary to a
peace ? Any other peace, we are told, than that which is at all
times impracticable between rival states, ought not only never to
be made, but it ought to be held in abhorrence, we ought to
shudder at its approach as the last of evils, and throw it to an
immeasurable distance from us. This is indeed closing up the
avenues to peace, and shutting the gates of mercy on mankind,
in a most consummate and scientific manner. Our philosophic
rhetorician appears also to forget, in that high tone in which he
speaks of the monuments raised by the noble blood of warriors,
that these sort of monuments are cemented by the blood of others
as well as by our own, and tell the survivors a double story.
His heated imagination seems to have been worked up into a
literal belief of his own assertion, that the French nation are a
rank non-entity ; or he supposes that there is some celestial ichor
in our veins, which we alone shed for our country, while other
nations neither bleed nor suiFer from war, nor have a right to
profit by peace. This may be very well in poetry, or on the
stage, but it will not pass current in diplomacy. Vetus, indeed,
strains hard to reconcile inconsistencies, and to found the laws of
nations on the sentiments of exclusive patriotism. But we should
think that the common rules of peace and war, which necessarily
involve the rights, interests, and feelings of different nations, can-
not be dictated by the heroic caprices of a few hair-brained
egotists, on either side of the question.
27
JLLVSTRJTIONS OF VETVS.
(continued.)
" He is indeed a person of great acquired follies."
Sir Fopling Flutter.
Dec. 10, 1813.
" Nothing," continifes Vetus, " can be more opposite to
this great policy, than to fight and to render back the fruits of our
successes. We may be assured, that those with whom we con-
tend are ready enough to improve thei?' victories. If we are not
equally so, we shall never he at rest. If the enemy beats us, he
wins our provinces. — [What provinces of ours'^ — If we beat
him, we restore all. What more profitable game could he de-
sire ! Truly, at this rate, our neighbours must be arrant fools if
they leave us one week's repose !"
There is a spirit of Machiavelian policy in this paragraph
which is very commendable. It reminds us of the satirist's de-
scription of " fools aspiring to be knaves." It is, in fact, this
fear of being outwitted by the French, that constantly makes us
the dupes of our suspicions of them, as it is a want of confidence
in our own strength or firmness, that leads us to shew our courage
by defiance. True courage, as well as true wisdom, is not dis-
trustful of itself. Vetus recommends it to us to act upon the
maxims of the common disturbers of mankind, of " this obdurate
and rapacious foe," as the only means to secure general tranquil-
lity. He wishes to embody the pretended spirit and principles
of French diplomacy in a code, — the acknowledged basis of
which should be either universal conquest, or endless hostility.
We have, it seems, no chance of repelling the aggressions of the
French, but by retaliating them not only on themselves, but on
other states. At least, the author gives a pretty broad hint of
what he means by the improvement of our victories, when he
talks of annexing Holland and Danish Zealand to Hanover, as
" her natural prey," instead of their being the dependencies of
28
France. This is certainly one way of trimming the balance of
power in Europe, and placing the independence of nations in a
most happy dilemma. The inventor of this new and short way
with foreign states only laments that Hanover, " under British
auspices," has not been beforehand with France in imitating
Prussia in her seizure of the Austrian provinces on one side, and
her partition of Poland on the other. He can scarcely express
his astonishment and regret, that Holland and Denmark should
so long have escaped falling into our grasp, after the brilliant ex-
ample of " rapacity and obduracy" set to our phlegmatic, plod-
ding, insipid, commercial spirit by Prussia and Russia. But now
that we have rescued " our natural prey" from the French, it is
to be hoped, that we shall make sure of it. Vetus's great prin-
ciples of morality seem to be borrowed from those of Peacham,
and his acknowledgments of merit to flow much in the same
channel : — " A good clever lad, this Nimming Ned — there's not
a handier in the whole gang, nor one more industrious to save
goods from the fire !" — His chief objection to that " revolution-
ist," Bonaparte, (Vetus too is a projector pf revolutions) is not,
evidently, to his being a robber, but because he is at the head of
a different gang ; and we are only required to bestir ourselves as
effectually as he does, for the good of mankind ! But Vetus,
whose real defect is a contraction of intellectual vision, sees no
alternative between this rapacious and obdurate policy, and un-
conditional submission, between " restoring all" or none. This
is not sound logic. He wishes by a coup sur to prevent an unfair
and dishonourable peace, by laying down such rules as must make
peace impossible, under any circumstances, or on any grounds
that can enter into human calculation. According to him, our
only security against the most wild and extravagant concessions,
is the obstinate determination to make none ; our only defence
against the fascinations of our own folly, is to take refuge from
the exercise of our discretion in his impregnable paradoxes. —
"The same argument which goes to justify a war, prescribes war
measures of the most determined and active character." Good ;
29
because the nature and essence of war is a trial of strength; and^
therefore, to make it as advantageous to ourselves as possible,
we ought to exert all the strength that we possess. " The very
object," continues Vetus, " that of weakening the enemy, for
which we pursue those vigorous measures, and strip him of his
possessions, renders it necessary/ to keep him in that state of
weakness by which he will be deterred from repeating his attack ;
and, therefore, to hold inflexibly what we have acquired." Here
again Vetus confounds himself, and, involving a plain principle in
the mazes of a period, represents war not as a trial of strength
between contending states, each exerting himself to the utmost,
but as a voluntary assumption of superiority on the part of one of
them. He talks of stripping the enemy of his possessions, and
holding them inflexibly — as matters of course, as questions of
will, and not of power.
It is neither the actual possession, nor the zeill to keep certain
acquisitions, but the power to keep them, and, at the same timef
to extort other concessions from an enemy, that must determine
the basis of all negociations, that are not founded on verbal chi-
meras.
" We are taught, indeed, to take for granted, that a peace,
whose conditions bear hard on either party, will be the sooner
broken by that party ; and, therefore, that we have an indirect
interest in sacrificing a portion of our conquests." The general
principle here stated is self-evident, and one would think indis-
putable. For the very ground of war is a peace whose conditions
are thought to bear hard on one of the parties, and yet, accord-
ing to Vetus, the only way to make peace durable, to prevent the
recurrence of an appeal to force, is to impose such hard condi-
tions on an enemy, as it is his interest, and must be his inclination,
to break by force. An opinion of the disproportion between our
general strength, and our actual advantages, seems to be the neces-
sary ground of war, but it is here converted into the permanent
source of peace. The origin of the common prejudice is, how-
ever, very satisfactorily illustrated in the remainder of the para-
30
graph. " This language is in favour with the two extremes of
EngUsh faction. The blind opponents of every minister how
happens to be engaged in conducting a war" \^Is war then a
mere affair of accident ?] " can see no danger in national dis-
honour ; and cry out for peace with double vehemence, whenever
it is least likely to be concluded well. The dependents, on the
other hand, of any feeble government, will strive to lower the
expectations of the country — to exclaim against immoderate ex-
ertion — to depreciate her powers in war, and her pretensions at a
peace : — thus preparing an oblique defence for their employers,
and undermining the honest disappointment" \_Quere expectations]
" of the people when they reflect how little has been done by
war, and how much" [of that little] " undone by negociation.
But besides being a factious expedient, it is a principle of ac-
tion equally false and absurd. I deny that we effect any thing
more by granting an enemy what are called favourable terms,
than convince him that he may go to war with England, gratis.
The conditions he obtains will encourage him to try the chance
of another war, in the hope of a still more advantageous treaty."
Here Vetus entirely shifts the state of the question. The terms
of a peace, if not hard, must be immedimitXy favourable I Be-
cause we grant an enemy such terms as he has a right to expect,
it is made a conclusion that we are also to grant him such as he
has no right to expect, and which will be so decidedly advan-
tageous as to induce him to try his fortune still farther against so
generous an adversary. That is, Vetus has no idea of the possi-
bility of a just, fair, or honourable peace ; his mind refuses to
dwell for a moment on any arrangement of terms, which, by
bearing hard on one party or another, will not be sure to end
speedily, from the desire on one side to retrieve its affairs, and
on the other to improve its advantages, in a renewal of war.
" The only valid security for peace is the accession to our own
strength, and the diminution of our rival's, by the resources and
dominions we have wrested from him." First, this security can
be good only on one side : secondly, it is not good at all : the
only security for peace is not in the actual losses or distresses in-
curred by states, but in the settled conviction that they cannot
better themselves by war. But all these contradictions are nothing
to Vetus, who alone does not fluctuate between the extremes of
faction, but is still true to war — and himself.
But there is, in our opinion, a third extreme of Enghsh faction
(if Vetus will spare us the anomaly) not less absurd, and more
mischievous than either of the others : we mean those who are
the blind adherents of every minister who happens to be engaged
in a war, however unnecessarily or wantonly it may have been
begun, or however weakly and wickedly carried on : who see no
danger in repeated disgraces, and impending ruin, provided we
are obstinately bent on pursuing the same dreadful career which
has led to them ; who, when our losses come thronging in upon
us, urge us to persist till we recover the advantages we have lost,
and, when we recover them, force us on till we lose all again :
with whom peace, in a time of adverse fortune, is dishonour, and
in the pride of success, madness ; who only exaggerate " our
pretensions at a peace," that they may never be complied with :
who assume a settled unrelenting purpose in our adversary to
destroy us, in order to inspire us with the same principle of
never-ending hostility against him : who leave us no alternative but
eternal war, or inevitable ruin : who irritate the hatred and the
fears of both parties, by spreading abroad incessantly a spirit of
defiance, suspicion, and the most galling contempt : who, adapt-
ing every aspect of affairs to their own purposes, constantly return
in the same circle to the point from which they set out : with
whom peace is always unattainable, war always necessary !
We shall pass over Vetus's historic researches, the wars of the.
Romans and Carthaginians (the formal latitude of Vetus's pen de-
lights in these great divisions of human affairs), and come to what
is more to our purpose.
In modern times he first comes to the treaty of 1763, only (as
far as we can find) to affix the epithet " American rebels" as a
sort of Pragmatic Sanction to our colonists, with whom, he says,
JJ2
France joined a few years afterwards, and, " in spite of her
ruined finances and her peaceful king, aimed a mortal blow at
the British monarchy." Yet, notwithstanding this long-standing
and inveterate animosity of the French court to this country, we
find the same France, in the next paragraph but one, stigmatized
as republican and Corsican, " with centric and eccentric scrib-
bled o'er," as if these were important distinctions, though Vetus
himself " would prefer for France the scourge of Bonaparte, to
the healthier, and to England not less hostile, sovereignty of the
banished house of Bourbon." Why then pertinaciously affix these
obnoxious epithets ? They are bad ornaments of style — they are
worse interpreters of truth.
To prove his general axiom, that in order to be stable, '' the
conditions of peace must bear hard on one of the parties," Vetus
asks, " Were the powers that partitioned unhappy Poland so
conciliated by her acquiescence in their first encroachments, as
to abstain from offering her any second wrong ?" Now this is
an instance precisely in point to prove the direct reverse of Vetus^s
doctrine : for here was a treaty in which the terms bore exceed-
ingly hard on one of the parties, and yet this only led to accumu-
lated wrongs by a renewal of war. We say that hard conditions
of peace, in all cases, will lead to a rupture. If the parties are
nearly equal, they will lead to resistance to unfounded claims ; if
quite unequal — to an aggravation of oppression. But would
Russia and Prussia have been more lenient or deterred from their
encroachments, if Poland had pretended to impose hard conditions
of peace on them ? These governments partitioned Poland, not
in consequence of any treaty good or bad, but because they had
the will and the power to do so. Vetus would terrify the French
into moderation by hard conditions of peace, and yet he supposes us
to be in the same relation to France as Poland to its implacable
enemies.
" Did the wretched complaisance of the leading continental
courts in their several treaties with France, ensure their tranquil-
lity even for a moment ?" This is still altering the record. The
33
question is not about submitting to hard conditions, but about
imposing them. Besides, " the aggravated and multipHed mo-
lestations, injuries, and insults, which these courts were doomed to
suffer," might be accounted for from those which they had in
vain attempted to inflict on France, and from their still more
wretched complaisance in being made the tools of a court which
was not continental.
" Then comes the peace of Amiens, our peace of Amiens —
a peace born, educated, nourished, and matured in this very phil-
anthropic spirit of gentleness and forgiveness. In the war which
preceded the truce of which 1 am speaking, the French govern-
ment involved us in considerably more than two hundred millions
of debt." Vetus then proceeds to state that we made peace with-
out any liquidation of this claim, without satisfaction, without a
bond, (what else'^) \\\iho\\i a promise, without a single guinea !
" I will have ransom, most egregious ransom." Why was it ever
heard of that one government paid the debts in which another
had involved itself in making war upon it ?
" The language of England," says our author, " was correctly
what follows : — You, Monsieur, have loaded me with unspeak-
able distresses and embarrassments," (all this while, he it recol-
lected, our affairs were going on most prosperously and glorioush/
in the cant of The Times) " you have robbed me of half my
fortune, and reduced me to the brink of beggary," (the French
by all accounts were in the gulph of bankruptcy) " you have
torn away and made slaves of ray friends and kindred," (indeed)
" you have dangerously wounded me, and murdered my beloved
children, who armed to defend their parent." — This is too much,
even for the dupes of England. Stick, Vetus, to your statistics,
and do not make the pathetic ridiculous ! Sophistry and affecta-
tion may confound common sense to a certain degree, but there
is a point at which our feelings revolt against them.
We have already remarked on what Vetus says of Hanover ;
he probably will not wish us to go farther into it. Of Bonaparte
he says, of course, that nothing short of unconditional submission
D
34
will ever satisfy that revolutionist, and that he will convert the
smallest concession made to him into a weapon for our destruc-
tion. That is, we have it in our power to set him at defiance'
to insult him, to " bring him to the block," &c. whenever we
please ; and yet we are so completely in his power, so dependent
on him, that the smallest concession must be fatal to us, will be
made the instrument of our inevitable destruction. Thus is the
public mind agitated and distracted by incredible contradictions,
and made to feel at once " the fierce extremes" of terror and
triumph, of rashness and despair. " Our safety lies in his
Aveakness, not in his will." If so, or if it depends on either of
the conditions here stated, we are in no very pleasant situation.
But our real safety depends on our own strength, and steady
reliance on it, and not on the arguments of Vetus.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF FETUS,
(continued.)
*' Madmen's epistles are no gospels."
Dec. 16, 1813.
Th e last Letter of Vetus begins with an allusion to the events
which have lately taken place in Holland. He then proceeds —
** What final effect this popular movement by the Dutch may
have upon the future interests and prosperity of England is a
question to be discussed with deliberate caution — with extreme
solicitude — and with the chance, I trust, the distant chance, of its
conducting us to no very gratifying conclusion !" There is some-
thing in this passage truly characteristic, and well worthy of our
notice. Vetus is, it seems, already jealous of the Dutch. The
subtle venom of his officious zeal is instantly put in motion by the
prospect of their national independence and commercial pros-
perity ; and his pen is, no doubt, prepared, on the slightest pro-
vocation of circumstances, to convert them from an ally to be
35
saved, into a rival and an enemy to be crushed. He, however,
waives for the present the solemn discussion, till he can find some
farther grounds to confirm him in his extreme solicitude and mys-
terious apprehensions. The perverse readiness of Vetus to pick
a quarrel out of every thing, or out of nothing, is exactly des-
cribed in Spenser's Allegory of Furor and Occasion, which if
we thought him " made of penetrable stuff," we would recom-
mend to his perusal.
The introductory comment on the Revolution in Holland is a
clue to the whole of our author's political system, which we shall
here endeavour to explain. He looks askance with " leer malign "
on the remotest prospect of good to other nations. Every addi-
tion to the general stock of liberty or happiness, is to him so much
taken from our own. He sees nothing gratifying in that pros-
perity or independence, which is shared (or any part of it) with
foreign nations. He trembles with needless apprehension at the
advantages in store for them, which he anticipates only to pre-
vent, and is indifferent to our own welfare, interests, honour —
except as they result from the privations, distress, and degradation
of the rest of the world. Hatred, suspicion, and contempt for
other nations are the first and last principles of the love which
" an upright Englishman" bears to his country. To prevent
their enjoying a moment's repose, or indulging even in a dream
of future comfort, he would involve his own country in incessant
distraction and wretchedness, and risk its final ruin on the cast of
a die ! — -Vetus professes, with some reason, not to be enamoured
of quotation : but he may, perhaps, allow us to refer to an author,
who, though not so deep read in Vattel and the writings of the
jurists, had just and penetrating views of human nature. " Think,
there's livers out of England. What's England in the world's
map? In a great pool a swan's nest." Now (his " swan's nest"
is indeed to us more than all the world besides — to cherish, to
protect, to love, and honour it. But if we expect it to be so to
the rest of the world — if we do not allow them to cultivate their
own affections, to improve their own advantages, to respect their
D 2
36
•
own rights, to maintain their own independence — if in the blind-
ness of our ignorance, our pride, and our presumption, we think
of setting up our partial and local attachments as the law of nature
and nations — if we practise, or so much as tolerate in theory that
" exclusive patriotism" which is inconsistent with the common
privileges of humanity, and attempt to dictate our individual
caprices, as paramount and binding obligations on those, to whose
exaction of the same claims from us we should return only loud
scorn, indignation, ai^d defiance — if we are ever so lost to reason,
as Vetus would have us, who supposes that we cannot serve our
country truly and faithfully but by making others the vassals of
her avarice or insolence ; we shall then indeed richly deserve, if
we do not meet with, the natural punishment of such disgraceful
and drivelling hypocrisy.
Vetus, who is extremely dissatisfied with our application of the
term " exclusive patriotism" to him, is nevertheless " at a loss to
understand the patriotism which is not exclusive. The word m-
plies a preference of the rights and welfare of our own country to
those of other (and above all other) of rival countries. This is
not indeed the philanthropy of Anacharsis Cloots — it is not the
dreary jargon of metaphysics, nor the shop-boy philosophy of a
printer's devil — nor the sans-culotterie of scholastic virtue." We
will tell Vetus what we mean by exclusive patriotism, such as
(we say) his is. We mean by it then, not that patriotism which
implies a preference of the rights and welfare of our own country,
but that which professes to annihilate and proscribe the rights of
others — not that patriotism which supposes us to be the creatures
of circumstance, habit, and affection, but that which divests us of
the character of reasonable beings — which fantastically makes our
interests or prejudices the sole measure of right and wrong to
other nations, and constitutes us sole arbiters of the empire of
the world — in short, which, under the affectation of an over-
weening anxiety for the welfare of our own country, excludes
even the shadow of a pretension to common sense, justice, and
humanity. It is this wretched solecism which Vetus would fain
37
bolster up into a system, with all the logic and rhetoric he is
master of. It is true, this kind of patriotism is not the philan-
thropy of Anacharsis Cloots ; it has nothing to do with philan-
thropy in any shape, but it is a vile compound of " the jargon of
metaphysics, with the vulgar notions of a printer's devil." It is
an intense union of the grossness and narrowness of ignorance
with the dangerous refinement of the most abstracted speculation.
It is passion and prejudice, inflamed by philosophy, and philo-
sophy distorted by passion and prejudice.
After his cold exordium on the Revolution in Holland, our
consistent politician enters with warmth on Lord Castlereagh's
speech on the subsidiary treaties, in which he finds a But before
the word Peace, which has a most happy efficacy in healing the
wounds inflicted on his tortured apprehensions, by the explicit,
unqualified declaration of Lord Liverpool in the other House.
" After describing the laudable solicitude of Ministers for the
attainment of that Jirst of earthly goods, peace," (we thought it
had ranked last in the mind of Vetus) " his Lordship added what
was worth all the rest — BUT we must have a secure peace. We
must not only recollect with whom we contend, but with whom
we negociate, and never grant to such an enemy conditions, which
under the name of peace, would disarm this nation, and expose
her to contingent dangers." (To place any nation out of the
reach of contingent dangers in peace or war is, we imagine, an
undertaking beyond even the calibre of Lord Castlereagh's talents
as a statesman.) " These," proceeds Vetus, " were nearly the
words ; they certainly do not compromise his meaning." (Our
author cannot be much mistaken in attributing to his Lordship
any words which seeming to have some meaning, in reality have
none.) " Here then the noble Secretary has chased away every
doubtful expression of his colleague." {" Why so,— this horrible
shadow" of peace " being gone," Vetus " is himself again.")
" The sentiment delivered by the sovereign on the throne is
now given to us with a construction, at which we need no longer
be alarmed. / ask only that secuie peace, — a peace consistent
38
with English safety — void of the shadozo of regard or indu/getne
to the pretensions and honour, otherwise the ambition and arro-
gance of Bonaparte, which, as compared with the relief of one
days hunger to the meanest peasant in this our native land, are
baubles not worth a name !" — ^This is undoubtedly one of the
most remarkable specimens we ever met with of that tigure in
rhetoric, designated by an excellent writer as " the tigure of en-
croachment."* Vetus, by a series of equations (certainly not
mathematical ones) at length arrives at a construction of peace at
which he is no longer alarmed ; at the identical peace which he
wants, and the only one he will admit, — a peace preposterous in
its very terms, and in its nature impracticable, — a peace " void
of the shadow of regard or indulgence to the pretensions and
honour" of the enemy, which are to pass with them as well as
with us, for so much " arrogance and ambition." This is the
only peace consistent with English safety — this is the secure peace
of Lord Castlereagh — the fair and honourable peace announced
from the throne — the very peace which Lord Liverpool meant
to describe when he startled Vetus by the doubtful expression
of a peace " consistent with the honour, rights, and interests of
France" — " of such a peace as we in her situation should be
disposed to grant." To the mind of Vetus, which is indeed the
very receptacle for contradictions " to knot and gender in," these
two sorts of peace appear to be perfectly compatible, and the one
a most happy explanation of the other, viz. a peace void of every
shadow of regard to the rights and honour of a rival nation, and
a peace consistent with thuse rights and that honour. If this is
not " mere midsvmimer madness," we do not know what is. Or
if any thing can surpass it (" for in this lowest deep of absurdity
a lower deep still opens to receive us, gaping wide") it is the
forlorn piece of sentimental mummery by which it is attempted
to protract this endless war of proscription against the pretensions
of France, under the mask of relieving the w ants and distresses of
* See Remaiks ou Judge Eyre's Charge to the Jury, 1794, by W. Godwin,
39
the meanest peasant of this our native land ! Compared with the
tears and blood of our countrymen, all the sophistries of Vetus
by which he would make them victims of his own vanity and
egotism, not less than of the arrogance and ambition of Bona-
parte, are indeed contemptible and mischievous baubles.
" What means the impious cry raised by degenerate English-
men against the mere chance — nay, the remotest possibility of a
peace, whose terms should be honourable to their country ?
Whence arises this profligate and abandoned yell with which
these traitors insult us? Are they still in fay'^ Is their patron
still rich enough to bribe them^^ When we demand compensa-
tion for our dreadful sufferings, it is but what justice grants.
When we call for security, it is what our existence requires. Yet,
when these undoubted rights and essential safeguards of an injured
people are asserted, it is nothing less than blaspheming the holy
supremacy of Bonaparte !"
First, when Vetus demands compensation for our sufferings, it
would perhaps hardly be sufficient to refer him to the satisfaction
which the patriotic contributors to The Times, The Courier,
The Morning Post, The Sun and I'he Star, must have had in
writing, and their admirers in reading the daily paragraphs, of
which those sufferings were the dreadful price, and the inevitable
result. When we demand compensation for what we have suf-
fered, it is hat justice, if we can at the same time make com-
pensation for what we have made others suffer ; but at all events,
it is no compensation for past sufferings, to make them perpetual.
When we call for security, we are right; but when we tell the
enemy that our only security is in his destruction, and call upon
him for this pledge and safeguard of our undoubted rights, we
shew, by asking for what we know we cannot have, that not
security, but dtfiance is our object. As to the terms of abuse
which are introduced in this paragraph (we suppose, to vary the
general gravity and decorum of Vetus's style) we shall answer
them by a very short statement of what we conceive to be the
truth. Europe has been for the last twenty years engaged iu a
40
desperate and (for some reason or other) an unequal struggle
against France ; — by playing at double or quits, she has just reco-
vered from the very brink of destruction ; and ihe keepers of our
political E. O. tables treat us as traitors and miscreants, wlio
would dissuade her from sitting down once more to finish the
game, and ruin her adversary.
" — It is asked, — ' Do we propose to humble France ? Do
we propose to destroy her ? If so, we breathe eternal war ; if
so, we convert the aggressor into the sufferer, and transfer all the
dignity and authority of justice to the enemy against whom we
arm!" Yes, against whom we arm for the avowed purpose of
his destruction. From the moment that we make the destruction
of an enemy (be he who he may) the indispensable condition of
our safety, our destruction from that moment becomes necessary
to liis, and an act of self-defence. Not much liking this dilemma
from which our author has more than once " struggled to get
free," he in the next passage makes a wide career indeed, in
order, no doubt, to return to the charge with better effect here-
after. " The question of peace or eternal war is not a naked
question of right and wrong. It is a question, whose morality is
determined by its reference to our preservation as a people. To
such interrogatories I answer without reserve, that we ought to
exact precisely/ that measure of humiliation from France, and that
we do recommend that critical advance towards her destruction,
that may combine the utmost attinaahle satisfaction for our past
grievances with a solid protection to our future interest and wel-
fare. From France, since ihe fatal battle of Hastings, what has
this nation of Saxon zmrriors" — (We hardly know ourselves in
the learned livery of Vetus's style. He himself is doubtless
descended from some very old family settled here before the
Conquest) — " What has this nation of Saxon warriors ever yet
endured from France but injury and affliction ?" Yet we have
made a shift to exist as a nation under all this load of calamity.
We siill breathe and live notwithstanding some intervals of repose,
some short resting places afforded us, before this morbid inspector
41
of health, like another Doctor Pedro Positive, injoined his pre-
posterous regimen of incessant war as necessary to lasting peace,
and to our preservation as a people !
" Modern France" continues Vetus, rising in his argument,
*' has no principle so deeply rooted as that of everlasting enmity to
England. I confess for this reason that in my uncorrupted judg-
ment the best security for Great Britain, and therefore, if prac-
ticable, her most imperious duty, would be the absolute conquest
of France. But since that, unfortunately, is an event which at
•present we are not likely to accomplish, the second best security
is" (one would think not to attempt it at all ; no, but) " to reduce
her, if we can, to a degree of weakness consistent with our im-
mediate repose" After thus modestly postponing the absolute
conquest of France to a more convenient opportunity, he adds
the following incredible sentence. " If the enemy should be so
far borne away by his hatred, as to command his emissaries in
London to announce that he prefers waging eternal war to the
acceptance of conditions, which his own persevering and atro-
cious outrages have rendered in the mind of every Englishman
indispensable to the safety of these islands, the woeful alternative
of perpetual war very plainly originates not with Great Britain
but with Bonaparte !" That is to say. The Times not long ago
laid it down as a fixed, unalterable maxim, without reference to
terms of one sort or another, that we were never to make peace
with Bonaparte ; Vetus in this very letter enters into an elaborate
apology, for that multitude of wise, honest, and virtuous persons
who think his existence as a sovereign at all times threatens our
existence as a nation, and it is because we entered our protest
against this " frantic outcry raised by degenerate Englishmen,"
that Bonaparte is here made to charge his emissaries in London
to announce that he prefers eternal war to the acceptance of con-
ditions, the moderation of which conditions or of our second best
security may be judged of when we are told that the best, and
indeed only real security for Great Britain, and therefore her
most imperious duty, would be the absolute conquest of France.
42
Vetus is, however, contented with such terms of peace as will
imply only a critical advance to her destruction, and if Bonaparte
is not contented with the same terms, the alternative of eternal
war, it seems, originates with him and not with Vetus.*
But we deny that though this best security for Great Britain,
the absolute conquest of France, were in her power, that it would
be her most imperious duty to effect it. And we deny it, because
on the same ground a better security still for Great Britain would
be the conquest or destruction of Europe and the world ; and yet
we do not think it her imperious duty, even if she could, to ac-
complish the one, or to make a critical advance to the other. For
if it is once laid d own and acted upon as a maxim in national
morality, that the best and most desirable security of a state is in
the destruction of its neighbours, or that there is to be an unre-
lenting ever watchful critical approximation to this object as far
as possible, there is an end of civil society. The same principle
of not stopping short of this maximum of selfish security
will impose the same imperious duty of rankling jealousy, and
inexorable hostility on others. Our speculator's " best possible
security" for the independence of states, is nothing but a watch-
word for mutual havoc, and wide-spreading desolation. Terrified
with the phantom of imaginary danger, he would have us rush
headlong on the reality. We are obstinately to refuse the enjoy-
ment of a moment's repose, and proceed to commit wilful dila-
pidation on the estate of our happiness, because it is not secured
to us by an everlasting tenure. Placed at the mercy of the malice
or hypocrisy of every venal alarmist, our only resource must be to
seek a refuge from our fears in our own destruction, or to find
the gratification of our revenge in that of others. But a whole
nation is no more justified in obtaining this best of all possible
securities for itself, by ihe immediate subversion of other states,
than the assassin is justified in taking ihe life of another, to pre-
* Observe that these critically destructive terms of peace are not strictly
called for by Bonaparte's persevering and atrocious outrages, but are at all
limes rendered necessary by the cveilasting enmity of France.
43
vent the possibility of any future attempt upon his own. For in
proportion as a state is weak and incapable of subjugating us, is
the manifest injustice of any such precaution ; — and in proportion
as a state is formidable, and likely to excite serious apprehension
for our own safety, is the danger and folly of setting an example
which may be retaliated with so much greater effect, and " like
a devilish engine, recoil upon ourselves." That exclusive patri-
otism which claims for our country an exemption from " con-
tin^^ent danger," which would place its wealth, its power, or even
its safely beyond the reach of chance and the fluctuation of human
affairs, claims for it an exemption from the common lot of
human nature. That exclusive patriotism which seeks to enforce
this claim (equally impious and unwise) by the absolute conquest
of rival states, tempts the very ruin it professes to avert.
But Vetus mistakes the nature of patriotism altogether. He
would transform that principle which was intended for the tutelary
genius of nations, into the destroying demon of the world. He
ransacks past history to revive old grudges; he anticipates the
futme to invent new ones. In his whole system, there is not room
for " so small a drop of pity as a wren's eye." His patriotism is
the worm that dies not ; a viper gnawing at the heart. He would
strip this feeling of every thing but the low cunning, and brutal
ferocity of the savage state, and then arm it with all the refine-
ments of scholastic virtue, and the most rigid logic. The di-
verging rays of human reason which should be diffused to cheer
and enlighten the moral world, are in him collected into a focus of
raging zeal to burn and destroy. It is well for mankind that in
the order of the universe, our passions naturally circumscribe
themselves, and contain their own antidote within them. The
only justification of our narrow, selfish passions, is their short-
sightedness : — were it not for this, the jealousies of individuals
and of nations would not leave them the smallest interval of rest.
It is well that the ungovernable impulses of fear and hatred are
excited only by gross, palpable objects ; and are therefore tran-
sient, and limited in their operation. It is well that those motives
44
which do not owe their birth to reason, should not afterwards
receive their nourishment and support from it. If in their present
desultory state, they produce so many mischiefs, what would be
the case, if ihey were to be organized into systems, and elevated
into abstract principles of right and wrong ?
The whole of Vetus's reasoning is founded on the false notions
of patriotism which we have here pointed out, and which we con-
ceive to be totally inconsistent with " the just principles of nego-
ciation." The remainder of his letter, which unfolds his motives
for a pacific arrangement with Bonaparte, is founded entirely on
the same jaundiced and distempered views. Many uise, many
honest, many virtuous persons, he says, have maintained, not
without reason, *' the incompetency of this Corsican under any
circumstances to discharge the obligations of a state of peace."
But he, more wise, more honest, more virtuous, sees a hope, a
shadow of peace, rising like a cloudy speck out of a quarter
where it was least expected. " The stone which the builders
rejected, is become the corner-stone of his Temple of Peace." —
" It does not appear to Vetus, that a peace with Bonaparte is
now unattainable on terms sufficient for our safety." He thinks
there is no man so proper to make peace with as this Corsican,
this Revolutionist, — no one so proper to govern France — to the
complete exclusion of the Bourbons, whose pretensions he scouts
analytically, logically, and chronologically, and who, it seems, had
always the same implacable animosity against this country as
Bonaparte, tcuthout a tt/the of his ability. [Surely this circum-
stance might plead a little in their favour with Vetus.] And why
so ? Whence arises this unexpected partiality shewn to Bona-
parte ? Why it is " from the strong conviction that by no other
means so decisive as the existence of this man, with his con-
suming, depressing and degrading system of government, can we
hope to see France crushed and ground dozen below the capacity/
of contending for ages to come with the force of the British
Empire, moved by the spirit of freedom ! Regarding France
under every known form of government as the irreconcileable foe
45
of England, / have beheld with almost vnmingledjoi/ the growth
and accumulation of this savage despotism .'" To be sure " while
there appeared to some persons," [V etus was not one of them]
** a chance of his enslaving the Continent, and hurling the mass
of subjugated nations against our shores — then, indeed, those who
entertained such fears were justified in seeking his personal and
political destruction. But once released from the terror of his
arm, zehat genuine Englishman can fail to rejoice in the pri-
vilege of consigning Bonaparte and the French people, for better
for worse, to the paradise of each other's embraces?" Vetus
then proceeds to inveigh at great length against the persons and
pretensions of the Bourbons. Leaving them to the mercy of
this good-natured remembrancer, we ehall only observe, that he
decides the impolicy of restoring the Bourbons, by asking, whe-
ther their restoration would not be advantageous to France, and
consequently (he infers very consistently with himself) injurious to
this country. Looking forward but half a century, he sees France
gradually regain under the old regime " her natural ascendancy
over Great Britain, from which she falls, and must fall every
hour more rapidly from the necessary operation of those prin-
ciples on which the Corsican dynasty is founded." Nay, looking
on farther than the expiration of the same half century, he sees
" sloth, weakness, and poverty, worse than ever sprung from
Turkish policy, proceeding from this odious, self-dissolving power,
and a gulph of irretrievable destruction, already yawning for our
eternal foe."
It is not long ago since Vetus drew an historical parallel be-
tween this country and Carthage, encouraging us to expect the
same fate from France which Carthage received from Rome,
and to act upon this fanciful comparison as a solid ground of
wisdom. Now all at once " this mendicant in argument, this
perfect juggler in politics," inverts the perspective, takes a pro-
phetic view of the events of the next fifty years, and France is
seen dwindling into another Turkey, which the genius of British
freedom grinds to powder, and crushes beneath her feet ! These
46
gj-eat statesmen-like views of things, " this large discourse of
reason, looking before and after," are, we confess, beyond us.
We recollect indeed a similar prophecy to that of Vetus, couched in
nearly the same terms, when in the year 1797, the French were
said to be " on the verge, nay, in the very gulph of bankruptcy,"
and that their finances could not hold out six months longer.
Vetus, however, taught by the failure of past prognostics, con-
structs his political calculations for the ensuing century, instead
of the ensuing year, and puts off the day of reckoning to a period
when he and his predictions will be forgotten.
Such are the charitable grounds on which our author wishes to
secure Bonaparte on the throne of France, and thinks that peace
may at present be made with him, on terms consistent with
our safety. He is not, like others, " ready to shake hands with
the Usurper over the tomb of the murdered D'Enghien, provided
he will return to the paths of religion and virtue ^ but he will
shake hands with him over the ruins of the liberty and happiness
of France, on the express condition that " he never returns to
the paths of religion and morality." Vetus is willing to forget
the injuries which Bonaparte may have done to England, for the
sake of the greater mischiefs he may do to France. These are the
" obligations" which Vetus owes to him — this the source of his
gratitude, the sacred pledge that reconciles him to " that monster
whom England detests." He is for making peace with the " ty-
rant," to give him an opportunity to rivet on the chains of France,
and fix her final doom. But is Vetus sincere in all this ? His
reasoning comes in a very questionable shape; and we the more
doubt it, because he has no sooner (under the auspices of Bona-
parte) hurled France down the gulf of irretrievable destruction,
than he immediately resumes the old topic of eternal war or per-
petual bondage, as the only alternative which this country can
look to. Why, if he is in earnest, insist with Lord Castlereagli
on the caution with which we must grant terms to " such an ene-
my," to this disabled and paralyzed foe ? Why assert, as Vetus
did in his very last letter, that " nothing short of unconditional
47
submission will ever satisfy that revolutionist, and that any con^
cession made to him will be instantly converted into a vieapon for
our destruction ?" Why not grant to him such terms as might be
granted to the Bourbons, since they would be granted to a much
less dangerous and powerful rival ? Why not subsist, as we have
hitherto done, without the fear of perpetual war or perpetual
bondage before our eyes, now that the crown of France has lost
its original brightness, and is shorn of those beams which would
again sparkle round it, if fixed on ihe head of a Bourbon ? We
suspect that our author is not quite in earnest in his professionsj
because he is not consistent with himself. Is it possible that his
anxiety to keep out the Bourbons arises from his fear that peace
might creep in with them, at least as a sort of compliment of the
season ? Is our veteran politician aware, in his own mind, that
the single epithets, Corsican, republican, revolutionary, will have
more eifect in stirring up the embers of war, than all the arguments
which he might use to demonstrate the accumulating dangers
to be apprehended from the mild paternal sway of the ancient
dynasty ?
We cannot help saying, however, that we think the elaborate
attempt of Vetus to prove the necessary extinction of the power
of France under the government of Bonaparte, a total failure.
What is the amount of his argument ? That in a period when
the French were to owe their existence and their power to war,
Bonaparte has made them a warlike people, and that they did
not sit down quietly to " the cultivation of arts, luxuries, and let-
ters," when the world was beleaguered against them. Is it for
Vetus, who reprobates the peace of Amiens, that hollow truce
(as he justly calls it), that intermission of war but for a moment,
to say of Bonaparte, " His application of public industry is only
to the arts of death — all other perishes for want of wholesome
nourishment f" What then becomes of the long-resounded charge
against him on his exclamation " for ships, colonies, and com-
merce?" We suspect, that energy in war is not an absolute
proof of weakness in peace. He lays down, indeed, a general
48
principle (true enough in itself) that a government, in its nature
and character at variance with the people, must be comparatively
weak and insecure ; yet, in applying this maxim, he proves not
that the French people and government are at irreconcileable va-
riance, but that the one has become entirely subdued and assi-
milated to the other. But hear him speak for himself. " The
causes of the overthrow of the old government are foreign to our
present purpose. The consequence has been the birth of this
bloody and scorching despotism, — this giant, armed from his mo-
ther's womb with sweeping scimitar and consuming fire. Can
such a government be fit for such a people ? Can a tyranny,
operating by direct violence and characteristic of the earliest pe-
riods in the most barbarous condition of mankind, have any qua-
lity adapted to the wants or feelings of a nation, grown old in
arts, luxuries, and letters ? Is it not plain to the least acute ob-
server, that where the principles of such a government, and such
a stage of society, are so vehemently contrasted, there can be
no immediate aUiance ; but that an incessant counteraction must
ensue — that the government or the people must change their
character before a just harmony and co-operation can exist be-
tween them ; in other words, that one of them must yield!"
[Well, this is the very thing which, in the next sentence, he
shews has actually taken place.] " And from whom are we to
infer this ultimate submission to its rival ? Has the tyrant loosed
his chains ? — has he relaxed his hold, or flung aside the whip of
scorpions ? No ! it is France herself which has given way. It
is the French nation who gradually recede from the rest of the
civilized world." That is, it is France who, contrary to Vetus's
argument, in receding gradually from the rest of the civilized
world, has been identified with the government, and become that
whip of scorpions in the hands of Bonaparte, which has been the
scourge and dread of all Europe. It is thus that our author al-
ways defeats himself. He is fond of abstruse reasoning and deep
investigation in exact proportion to his incapacity for them — as
eunuchs are amorous through impotence !
49
But though he fails in his argument, the moral is not less in-
structive. He teaches us on what grounds a genuine English pa-
triot goes to war, and on what terms he will make peace. A
patriot of this exclusive stamp, who is troubled with none of the
symptoms of a " spurious and mawkish beneficence," threatens
France with the restoration of the Bourbons, only to throw her
into the convulsions of anarchy, and withdraws that kindly inter-
ference, only that she may sink into the more fatal lethargy of
despotism. It is the same consistent patriot who kindles the fires
of La Vendee, and whenever it suits his purpose, is no longer
borne away by the " torrent of royal, flaming, unreflecting sym-
pathies !" It is the same tried friend of his country, who car-
ries on a twenty years' war for the preservation of our trade and
manufactures, and when they are mentioned as inducements for
peace, disdains " all gross, commercial calculations." It is the
same conscientious politician, who at one time makes war for the
support of social order, and the defence of our holy religion ; —
who, at another, hails the disappearance of " the last glimmering
of education among a people grown old in arts and letters," and
who rejoices " to see the Christian religion made studiously con-
temptible by the poverty and debasement of its professors !" It
is the same true patriot, the same Vetus, who " beholds with
unmingled joy, the growth and accumulation of a savage despo-
tism, which is to crush and bow down France under our feet ;"
— who holds " the whip of scorpions over her head ;" — who
" arms a scorching tyranny with sweeping scimeter and consum-
ing fire" against her; — who pushes her headlong down " the
yawning gulf of irretrievable destruction ;" — it is the same Vetus,
who, suddenly recovering all the severity of justice, and all the
tenderness of humanity, makes a piteous outcry about " the
dreadful sufferings we have endured," in attempting to heap coals
of fire on our adversary, demands the payment of " two lumdred
millions of debt, in which her government have wantonly in-
volved us," complains of our being " driven to beggary and want"
in this unnatural conflict, calls for the release of our countrymen,
£
50
" sent into hopeless captivity," and invokes the murdered names
of those children of the state, who " armed to defend a beloved
parent, and an injured country !" Even Vetus shrinks from the
enormity of such inconsistencies, and excuses himself by saying,
" Do I feel the spontaneous and miprovoked desire that such a
mass of evil should be perpetuated for any portion of mankind ?
God forbid. But it is, / coiiscienliousty believe, a question,
which of these countnes shall destroy the other. In that case,
my part is taken — France must be ruined, to save our native
country from being ruined. If this be perpetual war, I cannot
help it. Perpetual war has little terror, zohen perpetual bon-
dage threatens us." Here then our bane and antidote are both
before us : perpetual war or perpetual bondage ; — a pleasant al-
ternative ! — but it is an alternative of Vetus's making, and we
shall not, if we can help it, submit to either of his indispensable
conditions. We shall not learn of him, for " his yoke is not
easy, nor his burden light." If this be our inevitable lot, " he
cannot help it." No ; but he can help laying the blame of his
own irritable and mischievous conclusions on Nature and Pro-
vidence ; or at least we think it our duty to guard ourselves and
others against the fatal delusion.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF FETUS.
" Take him, and cut him out in little stars."
■ Jan. 3, 1814.
We midertook, some time ago, the task of ascertaining the
true value of this writer's reasoning, by removing the cumbrous
load of words which oppress his understanding, as well as that of
his readers ; and we find that " our occupation is not yet gone."
His last letter, indeed, furnishes us with comparatively slender
materials. His style is considerably abated. With Bottom in
the play, he may be said to " aggravate his voice so, that he roars
51
yan an 'twere any sucking dove." His swaggering paradoxes
dwindle into unmeaning common-places ; his violent dogmas into
tame equivocations. There is scarcely an attempt made to de-
fend his own extreme opinions, or to repel the charge of gross
and glaring inconsistency which we brought against them. He
makes indeed a faint effort to screen certain general positions
from the odium and contempt they deserve, by explaining them
away, and to shift off the responsibility of others, by directly
denying them. Vetus has, in fact, marched boldly on in a fog
of splendid words, till he unexpectedly finds himself on the edge
of a precipice, and he seems willing to retreat from it as well as
his accustomed solemnity, and the incumbrances of his style will
permit. It may, perhaps, be some consolation, if we remind
him that he is not the first enthusiast on record, who mistook a
cloud for a goddess. His present situation is certainly no very
pleasant one : it a good deal resembles that of Parolies, when he
undertook the recovery of his drum.
The most striking part of Vetus's last letter is his gratuitous
tirade against what has been called the modern philosophy, as if
this were the only alternative (whereas it is in truth the antithesis
or converse) of his system of exclusive patriotism. Our con-
tradiction of his first principle, that the basis of a peace with
France is to be one which does not leave a shadow of regard to
her honour, rights, or interest, and that the terms of peace to
which she is in duty bound to accede, must be such as to imply
a critical advance to her destruction — our utter rejection of this
new-fangled theory of negociation he considers as " a sucker from
the root of that poisonous vegetable, the doctrine of universal
benevolence," and deprecates our reasoning on the subject as
*' a blossom which threatens the desolation of the moral world !"
We really cannot attribute to our opinions any such power or any
such tendency as the morbid imagination of our political hypo-
chondriac lends to them. The arguments of Vetus on this question
seem a sort of transcript of Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, or of one
of Sir James Mackintosh's lectures at Lincoln's Inn ; and are
E 2
52
very tolerable, dull, common-place declamation — a little bor-
dering on fustian. But, as is the invariable fate of Vetus's argu-
ments, they contain a flat contradiction to the principle he is
aiming to establish. Though the passage has little to do with
the immediate question, we shall give it as a literary curiosity.
It is an instance of one of those lapses of thought, of that epilepsy
of the mind, which we have already pointed out as the distin-
guishing characteristic of this author's understanding. His object
is to exclude all general reasoning, or the seeds of what he ab-
surdly calls " theo-philanthropy" from the feelings of patriotism ;
and in his eagerness to do this, he effectually explodes and laughs
to scorn all patriotism, as a branch of the same theo-philanthropy,
as impracticable and romantic folly. His words are these: —
" One of these patriots enacts the part of a drawling hypocriti-
cal projector, w horn no natural affection can move, nor individual
happiness enliven. He is a regular brother of a well known sect,
which we of ibis generation have had the misfortune to behold in
high activity — and which, having seen, it is but wisdom to re-
member. The men I speak of were those who in some degree
precipitated the French revolution, and who entirely perverted its
possible uses, the mongrel race of metaphysical enthusiasts, who
undertook to change the objects of human feeling, that they might
disappoint more effectually the ends for which it was bestowed.
Such were the worshippers of the strumpet goddess Reason ; a
deity, in herself, and in the prostitute who represented her, con-
vertible to purposes equally abandoned. The next step, after
acknowledging this divinity, was to make a display of her power.
Mankind were to be reasoned out of all human sensibilities ; but
the loss was to be supplied by reasoning them into a new assort-
ment of human sensibilities, on a larger and nobler scale. Bro-
therly regard was a puny sentiment ; what was a single brother to
him who felt that millions of freemen were his brothers ! Mar-
riage, too, that holy and heavenly* and heart-sustaining institution,
* " la heaven tbey neither marry nor are given in marriage." There is no-
thing so provoking as these matter-of-fact Utopia-mongers.
53
what with its graceful and beautiful assemblage of bland obliga-
tions and virtuous sympathies — how stood the fixed relation of
husband and wife? Why, treason to natural liberty! — ' exclusive
tenderness' — a bar to the performance of those unconfined em-
braces, which spoke the reign of universal love. Parental aftec-
tion, and filial piety, also, were still less worthy to escape the
blight of this ruthless philosophical reform. How narrow was
the father's mansion ! How diminutive the mind that could look
with reverence to the beings that gave it birth, when the republic,
sole heiress of philanthropy and freedom — the great republic,
offered herself as the fond and universal parent. Nor could the
sire, who argued logically, bewail the sacrifice of his devoted
offspring. His children — not his, but their country's children —
were to be educated by and for that country. Flis paternal feel-
ings were not to be extinguished — no, nothing more than trans-
ferred to the state, and ennobled by the magnitude of the object.
This same republic was a perfect ' Scrub.' She was to play
the sister, husband, wife, son, and mother — confiscating and ap-
propriating the individual duties, rights, and charities of mankind
— ransacking the deepest recesses of the heart, and seizing as
prizes to her sovereign will the royalties and wrecks of human
nature.
" But the phrenzt/ did not terminate here. It was not enough
that all the relations of life should merge in that of citizen : even
* exclusive patriotism' was a vulgar thought. In the paroxysms
of disorder, it was sometimes proposed, that the citizen himself
should evaporate into a citizen of the world. The universal re-
public — the vast family of mankind — the deputations from the
human race — became instruments with the knaves who led, and
visions for the dupes who admired. There can leally be no ob-
jection to this superfine theory, but that it is inconsistent with the
order of Providence, and destructive of the nature of man — that
it unfixes our moral land-marks— melts into air every practical
virtue and definite duty — substitutes words for salutary deeds — and
by directing our most natural and useful passions to objects indis-
54
tinct or unattainable, leaves these powerful agents afloat, and ends
by abusing them to the production of crime and misery. Such
were the results of that system of speculation, which assumed for
its basis the existence of a species of beings far above the pitch
of humanity, and which, in its application to human affairs, re-
duces them to the level of brutes.
" A sucker from the root of this poisonous vegetable is again
in blossom, and threatens the desolation of the moral world. We
are called upon to abdicate the right and obligation of preferring
and protecting our native country, that is, of enjoying our proper
advantages, and of discharging our specific trusts — and for what ?
Why, that we may undertake the preposterous office, and execute
the factitious duty of handing over to a mortal enemy the greatness
to which we have waded through blood and fire, and raising his
empire on the ruins of our own. Beware, we are warned, of
neglecting the rights of the adversary. It is our peculiar business
to guard the rights of France."*
The whole of this pompous episode is a mere diversion to the
question. Vetus, some time ago, asked, in a tone which could
not be mistaken, " Who are the French nation ? A rank non-
entity. Who are to be the sole judges of the rights and preten-
sions of what once was France ? We, and our allies !" — and when
we protest against this unheard-of basis of a negociation between
rival states, he answers with a tedious prize-dissertation on the
doctrine of universal benevolence, and the perfectibility of man.
Vetus insists on a peace (the only peace fit for a wise nation) that
shall remain a proud monument of its own superiority, — that is,
a peace which can never be made between any two states, a peace
that does not admit of the shadow of regard to the rights, interests,
or honour of the enemy, a peace that implies a critical advance to
the destruction of France. But it seems, that all this proud dis-
play of pedantic phraseology, by which he attempted to " con-
found the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes
* The style of Vetus bears the same relation to eloquence that gilded lead
does to gold :— it glitters, and is heavy.
56
and ears," now means nothing more than that we are to guard and
protect our native country, and not surrender our own rights to
the enemy. There needed no oracle to tell us that. But Vetus,
having set out on the forlorn hope of political paradox, is himself
ashamed to turn back to a trite truism, and contends that there is
no safety for this country but in the destruction of the enemy, and
no patriotism which is not inconsistent with the rights, liberties,
and even existence of other countries. We deny it. We say
there is a patriotism consistent with the claims of reason, justice,
and humanity; and another exclusive of them. The latter is
Vetus's patriotism ; the former is ours. This we have stated be-
fore. We do not wonder that Vetus has not answered it; for it
does not admit of an answer.
It seems, however, that the view we have taken (in common
with all civilized nations) of this subject, is " a sucker from the
poisonous root of universal benevolence;" and Vetus's prejudices,
coupling with that strumpet Reason, beget in his mind a sort of
" mongrel metaphysical enthusiasm," in which he sees visions,
and has revelations of the general nature of man. He tells us,
we are regular adepts in that school which, under the direction
of the goddess, or the strumpet, Reason, (for with him they are
both the same) trampled on all human sensibilities, and the cha-
rities of private life, to offer them up as a sacrifice to that tJion-
strous fiction, their country, and then to that more monstrous
fiction, their kind. This is the most curious defence of patriot-
ism we ever met with, and a striking instance of the pains which
this laborious reasoner takes to confute himself. Our country,
according to this patriotic writer, is " a perfect Scrub," a kind
of Sin and Death business, a contradiction, and a dire chimera,
" confiscating and appropriating the individual duties, rights, and
charities of mankind — ransacking the deepest recesses of the
heart, and seizing as prizes to her sovereign will the royalties and
wrecks of human nature." It is " a superfine theory, inconsistent
with the order of Providence, and destructive of the nature of
man, and which, by pretending to raise us far above the pitch of
56
humanity, degrades us below the level of brutes." But then
" there is a phrenzy still greater" than this, which is the love of
mankind. This is the consummation of enormity, and the tri-
umph of the strumpet-goddess. Vetus has here fallen into a
more desperate dilemma than any he has yet encountered in his
perilous way. We present him with the choice of a pair of al-
ternatives : either he must mean that the love of the republic, or
our country, which he treats with such profound contempt and
abhorrence, is only bad when it destroys the private and natural
affections, or he must exclude at once every shadow of regard to
the rights, liberties, and happiness of mankind, and then the
same thing will follow of patriotism itself, which, as he says truly,
is an emanation from the same impure source, human reason,
and so to establish his favourite principle of exclusive patriotism,
he gets rid of it altogether. " The latter end of this writer's
reasoning always forgets the beginning." We will tell Vetus the
hinge on which this whole controversy turns, and what is the
radical error of the system of general philanthropy, which he has
attempted to expose. It is, that it is an exclusive system, and is
therefore unfitted for the nature of man, who is a mixed being,
made up of various principles, faculties, and feelings. All these
are good in their place and degree, as well as the affections that
spring from them — natural affection, patriotism, benevolence :
it is only exclusive selfishness, exclusive patriotism, exclusive phil-
anthropy, that are inconsistent with the order of Providence,
and destructive of the nature of man : Vetus in avoiding one ex-
treme has fallen into another, for the extremes not only " of
faction" but of folly meet; though we should be loth to compare
the splendid dreams of the philosophical enthusiast, who wished to
raise man above the pitch of his common nature, to the groveling,
sordid, shuffling paradoxes of Vetus, who would degrade him be-
low the level of the brutes, and whose maxims are as repugnant
to common sense, and the practical rules of life, as they are
devoid of every thing elegant in imagination, or consistent in
reasoning.
57
ILLUSTRATIONS OF VETUS.
• (concluded.)
" What do you read, my lord ? — Words, words, words.
What is the matter? Nothing."
Jan. 5, 1S14.
We gave in our last article Vetus's quaint denunciation of the
principles of patriotism and philanthropy. It appears by this, that
the same "jargon of metaphysics," and the same vapid rhetoric
may be employed against both these sacred and inviolable feelings,
by any one who is weak and vain enough to suppose that lan-
guage was given us, not to communicate truth to others, but to
impose falsehood on ourselves. Does Vetus mean to assert, that
his topics are fatal to all patriotism, as well as all philanthropy ?
Or (which is the alternative) that they are fatal to neither, pro-
perly understood, — that there is a true and a false patriotism, a
true and a false philanthropy? What will " the acknowledged
saviours of Europe, the magnanimous defenders of the common-
wealth of nations, the liberators of Spain, the recreators of Por-
tugal, the regenerators of Germany," say to Vetus's exclusive
patriotism ? Or, we would ask, whether the abuse of reason,
of which he complains in certain moderns, is a sufficient cause
that we should explode it altogether? In the dialect of Don
Quixotte's books of chivalry, must " the unreasonableness of their
reason so unreason our reason," that we are to reject the faculty,
both root and branch ? Shall we impiously renounce the goddess,
because she has been personated by a strumpet ? Reason is the
queen of the moral world, the soul of the universe, the lamp of
human life, the pillar of society, the foundation of law, the bea-
con of nations, the golden chain, let down from heaven, which
links all animated and all intelligent natures in one common sys-
tem — and in the vain strife between fanatic innovation, and fana-
58
tic prejudice, we are exhorted to dethrone this queen of the world,
to blot out this light of the mind, to deface this fair column, to
break in pieces this golden chain ! We are to discard and throw
from us, with loud taunts and bitter imprecations, that reason,
which has been the lofty theme of the philosopher, the poet, the
moralist, and the divine, whose name was not first named to be
. abused by the enthusiasts of the French revolution, or to be blas-
phemed by the madder enthusiasts, their opponents, but is co-eval
with, and inseparable from the nature and faculties of man, — is the
image of his Maker stamped upon him at his birth, the under-
standing breathed into him with the breath of life, and in the par-
ticipation of which alone he is raised above the brute creation, and
his own physical nature! — Vetus labours hard to persuade us,
that the goddess and the strumpet are really one person, equally
" convertible to the same abandoned purposes ;" that reason
and sophistry are the same thing. He may find his account in
endeavouring to confound them ; but his indifference betrays the
hoUowness of his claims to true reason, as the false mother was
detected by her willingness to compromise her own pretensions,
only to be revenged on her rival.
Vetus has, however, without knowing it, stumbled on an im-
portant truth, which is, that patriotism, in modern times, and in
great states, is and must be the creature of reason and reflection,
rather than the offspring of physical or local attachment. Our
country is a complex abstract existence, known only to the un-
derstanding. It is an immense riddle, containing numberless
modifications of reason and prejudice, of thought and passion.
Patriotism is not, in a strict or exclusive sense, a natural or per-
sonal affection, but a law of our rational and moral nature,
strengthened and determined by particular circumstances and asso-
ciations, but not born of them, nor wholly nourished by them. It
is not possible that we should have an individual attachment to six-
teen millions of men, any more than to sixty millions. We cannot
be attached, except rationally and " logically," to places we never
saw, and people we never heard of. Is not the name of English-
59
man a general term, as well as that of man ? How many varie-
ties does it not combine within it ? Are the opposite extremities
of the globe our native place, because they are a part of that
geographical and political denomination, our country ? Does na-
tural affection expand in circles of latitude and longitude ? What
personal or instinctive sympathy has the English peasant with the
African slave-driver, or East India nabob ? None but the most
" drawling hypocritical" sophist will say that there is any. These
wretched bunglers in metaphysics would fain persuade us to dis-
card all public principle, and all sense of abstract justice, as a
violation of natural affection, and yet do not see that the love of
our country is itself in the order of our general affections, except,
indeed, that exclusive sort which consists in a mere negation of
humanity and justice. The common notions of patriotism are,
in fact, transmitted to us from the savage tribes, or from the
states of Greece and Rome, where the fate and condition of all
was the same, or where the country of the citizen was the town
in which he was born. Where this is no longer the case, where
our country is no longer contained within the narrow circle of the
same walls, where we can no longer behold its glimmering horizon
from the top of our native mountains — beyond these limits it is
not a natural but an artificial idea, and our love of it either an
habitual dictate of reason, or a cant term. It was said by an
acute observer, and eloquent writer, that the love of mankind
was nothing but the love of justice: the same might be said, with
considerable truth, of the love of our country. It is little more
than another name for the love of liberty, of independence, of
peace, and social happiness. We do not say, that other indirect
and collateral circumstances do not go to the superstructure of
this sentiment, (as language,* literature, manners, national cus-
toms,) but this is the broad and firm basis. All other patriotism,
not founded on, or not consistent with truth, justice, and hu-
* He who speaks two languages has no country. Tiie Fiencli, when they
roade their language the common language of the courts of Earope, gained more
than by all their other conquests put together.
60
Hianity, is a painted sepulchre, fair without, but full of ravening
and all uncleamiess within. " It leaves our passions afloat, and
ends with abusing them to crime and misery." It is the watch-
word of faction, the base pander of avarice and pride, the ready
tool in the hands of those who, having no sense of public duty,
and disclaiming all pretensions to common humanity, sacrifice
the lives of millions to the madness of one, and are eager to offer
up their country a devoted victim at the shrine of power, as the
miserable slave is yoked to the foul Eastern idol,* and crushed
beneath its chariot wheels ! Thus the hired scribbler of a profli-
gate newspaper sits secure and self-satisfied at his desk — with a
venomed word, or a lie that looks like truth, sends thousands of
his countrymen to death, — receives his pay, and scribbles on, re-
gardless of the dying and the dead ! — And this is patriotism.
The tempora moUia fandi do not belong to Vetus any more
than to ourselves. He is, like us, but an uncouth courtier, a
rough, sturdy, independent politician, who thinks and speaks for
himself. He complains of " the soft nonsense whispered in the
higher circles," and gossipped in The Morning Post, in favour
of peace. Be it so, for once, that these soft whispers are fraught
with ruin, dishonour, and slavery to this country. Yet, if the
efifeminate and dastard sound once floats through the air, borne
on the downy wing of fashion — if it is whispered from the prince
to the peer, and from lords to ladies, from ministers to their
clerks, from their clerks to the treasury-prints, and from the
knaves who write to the dupes who read — even the warning voice
of Vetus will not be able to prevent the Syren sound from spread-
ing in gentle murmurs, and " smoothing the raven down of dis-
* See Mr. Canning's speech on' the Jaggeinaut. — They manage these things
better in the East (it is to be hoped we shall do so in time here); otherwise, if
there had been any occasion, what pretty Anti-Jacobin sonnets might not Mr.
Canning have written in praise of this JaggernautP Or Mr. Southey, after in
vain attempting its overthrow, might have " spun his brains" into a Carmen
Annuum to celebrate his own defeat. Or Vetns might play off his discovery
of the identity of the strumpet and the goddess Reason, against any disposi-
tion to disarm its power or arrest its progress.
61
cord till it smiles." And will Vetus pretend such ignorance
both of llie court and of the country, as not to know, that whe-
ther the word is war or peace, the same effect will follow — that
whether the breath of kings breathe " airs from heaven or blasts
from hell," the same well-attuned system of undulating sounds will
disperse them wide in eddying circles, and the same round of
smiles and whispers and significant shrugs will be repeated, whe-
ther the country bleeds or starves, is enslaved within, or conquered
without? All those who do not catch the soft whisper, and
mimic the gracious smile, and join the magic circle, are no better
than hypocrites, madmen, and traitors to their country! We
know it well.
Vetus in vain attempts to repel the charge which we brought
against The Times, whose profession of eternal war with Bo-
naparte we said was incompatible with the possibility of his
making peace with us, by asserting that this doctrine is " an
audacious plagiarism, from the portfolio of the French Minister."
We have not such near access to the port-folio of the French
Government as this writer; but we have access to The Times,
and there we find this audacious plagiarism written in large letters
in almost every page. We say that wherever the doctrine is found
(whoever invented or whoever adopted it), there is an insuperable
bar to peace. If it is found on one side, that is the responsible
side ; if it is found on both, neither can reproach the other with
the continuance of hostilities. This statement is plain and unan-
swerable. Does Vetus think to " thrust us from a level consi-
deration by a confident brow, and the throng of words which
come with such affected gravity from him ?" He disclaims the
doctrine for himself. Why then is he so eager to justify it in
The Times ''^ They are caught in the fact ; they are taken with
the manner ; and Vetus would divert us from executing summary
justice on them, by offering himself as security that they are only
the receivers of the stolen goods ; " the audacious plagiarists,"
instead of the atrocious inventors of this mischievous doctrine.
Besides, the answer is a wretched evasion, and makes the
62
assertion itself sensekss and nugatory. The principle of The
Times was and is (if they have not retracted it) that we are never
to make peace with Bonaparte at all, that is, though he would
make peace with us, (otherwise the words have no meaning) and
then comes the gloss of Vetus, which is, that we will not make
peace with him, only because he will not make peace with us.
Ridiculous ! — Vetus asks, " Who has been the founder of this
shocking creed— who the aggressor— who the unrelenting enemies
of peace ?" May we not answer — " The incessant war-faction
of England f" Why would Vetus strip " these acknowledged
saviours of Europe" of the praise which is so justly due to them,
or degrade them from that proud eminence which they have
maintained with so much persevering fortitude? We cannot
withhold from these persons our sincere and conscientious thanks
for all the benefits which this war has conferred on our country,
on Europe, and the world. While France strove insidiously to
ruin us by peace, these firm patriots have always been determined
to save us by war — from " England's" greatest and most magna-
nimous politician," down to the last desperate incendiary of The
Times, who is only willing to conclude " a Regicide Peace" by
celebrating " the condign and solemn punishment of Bona-
parte !"*
Vetus says, that " eternal war is no expression of his, and that
it is a deliberate falsehood in us who assert that he has used it,
or that this country has no alternative between eternal war and
eternal bondage." " It is not England," he says, " but France—
not Vetus, but the French government — who has broached the
* Of the facility of realising this devout aspiration of the writer in The Times,
we have no exact means of judging by his own statements, for he one day tells
us that " there is nothing to hinder Lord Wellington from marching to Paris,
and bringing the Usurper to the block," and the next endeavours to excite the
panic fears of his readers, by telling them, in a tone of equal horror and dis-
may, " That the monster wields at will the force of forty millions of men."
The assertions of these writers have no connection with the real state of things,
but depend entirely on their variable passions, and the purpose they have in
view.
(J3
creed, that one of the two countries must in the end destroy the
other."
If it is a falsehood, it is a deliberate one, for we do delibe-
rately assert that he uses these words, and inculcates this doctrine
incessantly. But instead of contradicting Vetus, it is better to
let him contradict himself; no one else can do it so effectually.
In his last letter but one he has these words : — " It is, I con-
scientiously believe, a question, zohich of these two countries shall
destroy the other. In that case my part is taken. — France must
be ruined to save our native country from being ruined. — If this
be perpetual war, I cannot help it. — Perpetual war has little
terror, when perpetual bondage threatens us." Either the inter-
pretation of this passage is that which we have given to it, or, as
Vetus says, " the English language must be constructed anew."
He now, indeed, mitigates the dread sentence he had passed
upon us, by saying, not that we have no alternative but either
war, or slavery, but that we have no alternative but either war,
or slavery, or peace. We are glad that Vetus has introduced this
new clause in our favour into the codicil ; it was not in the ori-
ginal will, or expressed in such faint characters, that we, with the
rest of the public, missed the intended benefaction. Just in the
same manner, that profound politician and humane writer, the
author of the Essay on Population, found out that the only pos-
sible checks to excessive population, were vice and misery, which
were, therefore, to be considered as the greatest blessings of man-
kind, and having gained a vast reputation by this singular dis-
covery, he then recollected what every one knew before, that
there was another check to this principle, viz. moral restraint,
and that consequently vice and misery were not the greatest
blessings of society.
We did not state it as an inconsistency in Vetus, that he held
out France as an object of terror, and yet recommended a riego-
ciation with Bonaparte, because his government tended to weaken
France, but we did state it as a rank inconsistency in Vetus to
hold up Bonaparte as an object of peculiar terror to this country,
64
and yet to represent his government as tottering on the brink of
deplorable weakness and unavoidable ruin. Vetus could not meet
the objection, and he has altered the terms.
Vetus concludes his letter with the following note : —
" Tke stupid impertinence' (charged on the attacks made upon
him) " has no relation to The Morning Chronicle, with which I
am disposed to part in peace. One feels a tolerance towards that
paper, for the talents which once adorned it ; and of the con-
tinuance of which I should rejoice to see more proof in its late
attacks on Vetus. We have little common faith in politics, but
we have, I trust, a common stake in the spirit and dignity of the
press."
We are obliged to Vetus for this amicable offer, of the sin-
cerity of which we entertain no doubt. As to the talent shown
in our attacks on him, we are ready to admit that it is little
enough ; but we at the same time think that if it had been greater,
it would have been more than the occasion required. We have
no enmity to Vetus, but to his extravagance, and if be will correct
that, he will save us the trouble of correcting it for him. We are
ready to believe that this writer has talents and acquirements
which might be made useful to the public, if he would forego
his mistaken pretensions to extraordinary wisdom and eloquence.
The qualities of profound thought and splendid imagery are seldom
found singly in the same person, and the union of both together is
an undertaking much beyond the capacity of Vetus. And now^
we leave him to return to his indigestions with " what appetite
he may."*
* We only wish to add one thing, which is, to protest against the self-im-
portance of such expressions as the following, which occur often in Vetus's
letters: — " The men I speak of were" those, &c. " This sentiment never pre-
vailed with the better sort." This is an affectation of the worst part of Burke's
style, his assumption of a parliamentary tone, and of the representation of the
voice of some corporate body. It was bad enough in him ; in Vetus it is in-
tolerable.
65
ON THE LATE WAR.
Aprils. 1814. ^
The systematic patrons of eternal war are always returning,
when they dare, to the point from which they set out twenty years
ago ; the war with them has not yet lost its original character :
they have long memories : they never lose sight of their objects
and principles. We cannot but admire their candour as well as
their consistency, and would wish to imitate it. It is deemed
necessary by the everlasting war-faction to prove in their own
justification, " that the march to Paris was not chimerical in
1793," by carrying it into effect now, and to blot France out of
the map of Europe, three-and-twenty years after the event had
been announced by that great prophet and politician, Mr. Burke.
This splendid reverie is not yet accomplished. The triumph of
the Pitt-school over the peace-faction is not yet complete ; but
we are put in complete possession of what is required to make it
so. As the war with them was a war of extermination, so the
peace, not to fix a lasting stigma on their school and principles,
must be a peace of extermination. This is what we always said
and thought of those principles and that school. This is their
triumph, their only triumph — the true crown of their hopes, the
consummation of their utmost wishes, nothing short of which can
satisfy their proud pretensions, or finish this just and necessary
war, as it was begun. Otherwise, no peace for them ; otherwise,
they will have failed in both branches of that happy dilemma, hit
upon by the beneficent genius of " the great statesman, now no
more," the necessity of destroying France, or being ourselves
destroyed in the attempt. If they succeed in neither experiment,
all that they have done is surely lost labour. They have then a
right to their revenge, " their pound of carrion-flesh" — " 'tis
theirs, 'tis dearly bought, and they will have it." Be it so. But we
shall let them feast alone : we are not man-eaters. We shall not
66
join the barbarous yell of this worse than Thracian rout, nor figure in
at the close of their dance of death, nor applaud the catastrophe
of their twenty years' tragedy. We did not approve it in its
commencement or progress ; nor will we hail its threatened con-
clusion. We have had, and we will have, no hand in the plot,
the execution, the scene-shifting, or the decoration. We leave
the full credit of it to the original authors ; and, in spite of all the
puffing of the Bayes's of the Pitt-school, the only answer they
will get from us is, *•' 'Tis an indifferent piece of work : would
'twere done!" Though the torch of The Times blazes over
Paris, " fierce as a comet;" though The Sun sees the lilied
banner of the Bourbons floating before Lord Wellington in the
plains of Normandy ; though The Courier is setting out post-
haste to break up the negociations at Chatillon; and The
Morning Herald sheds tears of joy over the fashionable virtues
of the rising generation, and finds that we shall make better man-
milliners, better lacqueys, and better courtiers than ever — we
remain sceptical as to the success, and more than sceptical as to
the necessity of this last cast of our political dicers, and desperate
venture of our licenced dealers and chapmen in morality and mas-
sacre. In our opinion, lives enough have been thrown away to
prove, that the survivors are only born to hear fardels. This is
the moral of the piece, if it succeeds on the principles of the
Pitt-school, and all short of that is mere gratuitous mischief.
The war, conducted on those principles and for those purposes,
" was not, and it cannot come to good." Its failure, or its
success, must be fatal.
The war, as it was carried on from the first by the Pitt-school,
and as they would now revive it, was not a national quarrel, but
a question about a political principle. It had no more to do with
France or England as geographical denominations, than the wars
between the Guelphs and Gibelines. It was not a war of mer-
cantile advantage, or a trial of strength between two countries^
which must be decided by the turn of events, by the probable
calculation of loss and profit, but a war against an opinion, which
67
could, therefore, never cease, but with the extirpation of that
opinion. Hence there could be neither safety, nor honour, nor
justice, in any terms of peace with the French government, be-
cause, by the supposition, it was not with its power or its conduct,
but with its existence, that we were at war. Hence the impossi-
bility of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with France.
Hence Mr. Burke's regicide war. Hence the ridiculousness
asserted by The Courier, of even attempting negociation with
this hated power. Hence the various and contradictory aspects
which the war assumed after its first out-set, and all of which
answered the purpose equally well, because there was another
pivot on which the whole turned, the sheet-anchor which never
loosed its hold, and which enabled " the pilot to weather the
storm." It was not a temporary or local question of the boun-
daries, the possessions, or particular rights of rival states, but a
question, in which all states are at all times equally interested, of
the internal right of any people to choose its own form of govern-
ment. Whether this was a just ground of war or not, is another
question ; but it was the true one — that which gave its character
to the war, and accounts for all its consequences. It was a w'ar
of proscription against a great and powerful state, for having set
the example of a people ridding itself of an odious and despicable
tyranny. It was the question of the balance of power between
kings and people ; a question, compared with which the balance
of power in Europe is petty and insignificant. That what we
have here stated, are the real and paramount grounds of this
bloody and inveterate contest in the minds of the war-faction is,
what we apprehend they will not, in their present state of frenzy,
deny. They are the only ones that always survive the shock of
accident and the fluctuation of circumstances, and which are
always recurred to when all others fail, and are constantly avowed
in the face of day, whenever the least probability of success
attends them. It has been declared again and again, month after
month, and year after year, that no peace should be made with
France till the last remaining effort had been tried to attain this
F 2
68
object. We were to bury ourselves with our great war-minister,
under the ruins of the civilized world, sooner than relax in our
exertions, or recede from our object. No sacrifices were to be
held too dear — no sufferings too great in the prosecution of this
sacred cause. No other than the last extremity was to force
peace from us. Nothing short of the complete subjugation of
France was to satisfy us — nothing short of our own ruin was to
drive us to despair. We were like wrestlers, struggling on the
edge of a precipice, one (or both) of whom must be certain of
destruction. Such were the mad, mischievous, and unprincipled
terms, on which a pampered crew of sycophants have played away
the welfare, the repose, the liberties, and happiness of mankind,
and on which they would now urge us to stake our all again, to
realize their favourite scheme of the march to Paris, and the
annihilation of the French people.
The consequences of the Pitt project were inevitable. From
the moment that the existence of France as a nation was declared
to be incompatible with that of the surrounding states — that she
was denounced as a nuisance which must be abated, and set up
as a mark for the vengeance of the rest of the world, the struggle
necessarily became convulsive, and the re-action terrible. Is it
then a matter of wonder, that in this unnatural strife, France,
proscribed, hunted down, put out of the pale of nations, endea-
voured rather to reduce others to the last extremity than to be
reduced to it herself? Or are we entitled to wreak that ven-
geance upon her which we could not at first execute, because the
engine which we had prepared to crush her has recoiled with the
greatest violence upon ourselves ? It has been said that we less
easily forgive the injuries we do or meditate against others, than
those we receive from them. There are, we know, persons to
whom the celebrated line of the historian is, at all times, applicable :
Odia in (origum jacieiis, quce conderet, auctaque promeret. We
are not surprised to find that the good intentions of these persons
towards France, though she did not submit to the original tender
made to her of their kind interference and paternal care, have not
69
spoiled by keeping. If Titus complained witli so much bitter-
ness, that he had lost a day to virtue, what must not some modern
friends to mankind feel, when they reflect that they have lost so
many years in the execution of their just and beneficent plans ! —
In spite of Mr. Southey's reasoning in his Carmen Triump/ia/e,
about joining " the avengers of mankind," we conceive that the
wheel has gone once round already, " full circle home," and that
now it had better stand still.
But it may be said, do we mean to apply these remarks to
Bonaparte ? As far as relates to any merits of the war-faction.
It was they who implicated him with the cause of the French
people, as " the child and champion of Jacobinism." We cannot
express our opinion better than in the words of Mr. Whiibread,
" that England had made Bonaparte, and he had undone himself."
He was the creature of the Pitt-school. Was the iron scourge
which he has held over Europe put into his hands by the peace-
party ? Were the battles of Austerlitz and Jena — were the march
to Vienna, the possession of Berlin, the invasion of Spain, the
expedition to Russia, and the burning of Moscow, the conse-
quences of the signing or of the breaking of the treaty of
Amiens f
The author of the letters of Vetus, (who we suppose is silenced
by The Times, for asserting that the Bourbons have no more a
lawful right to the throne of France, at this moment, than the
Stuarts had to the throne of England twenty years after the Revo-
lution of 1688,) is of opinion, that this war is merely national,
merely the old grudge between the two countries ; and that the
Bourbons, the Republic, and Bonaparte, are equally hostile to
England, and we to them. In this, as in most things else, our
opinion is the opposite of his. There is only one period of the
history of the two countries, which, reversed, furnishes an exact
counterpart to the present contest, both in its avowed principles
and secret motives — we mean the war waged by Louis XIV. against
this country and its allies, for nearly as long a period after, the
70
English Revolution. The difference in the results of these two
revolutions has been this : that from the insular situation of this
country, which enables us to do either right or wrong, nearly
with impunity, and which makes our means of defence greater,
and our means of offence proportionably less — that from this
collateral cause, the internal struggle, in proportion to the danger,
was less bloody in our own case, and the re-action of our efforts
to defend ourselves from the imposition of a foreign yoke and of
hereditary slavery, less violent and fatal to other states. All the
differences have arisen from the character of the two nations, and
from local and accidental circumstances : there was none in the
abstract political principle. We gave them the example of their
Revolution ; we also gave them an example of " national fortitude'*
in maintaining it. We — the people of England, (not an upstart
Jacobite faction in the Hanoverian line,) are proud of having imi-
tators ; and we think it not unlikely that the French, if forced
upon it, may behave on this occasion as the English behaved,
when an hereditary pretender came over to us, backed by the aid
of foreign arms, to assert his lawful claim to the throne — that is,
in other words, to be the natural proprietor of a whole people.
We twice sent him back again with all his myrmidons ; we would
not be made a property of. We felt that in not doing so we should
be traitors, not only to our country, but to our kind — the worst
species of treason to our country. It is curious that the " deepest
enmity which the French people have drawn down upon them by
their early struggles in the same cause, should be shewn by that
government who had long insulted the slavery of Europe by the
loudness of its boasts of freedom." We do not know how it is,
but so it has happened, that in the thirty years of war which have
graced the annals of the present reign, there has been a consi-
derable want of sympathy between the crown and the people, as
if the quarrel were merely the cause of kings, in which the people
had no concern. Has this circumstance arisen from any unplea-
sant sense of obligation, or consciousness of a little irregularity
71
and deviation from the right line in the descent of the crown, no
more accounted for in Mr, Burke's Reflections, than the declina-
tion of atoms in Epicurus's philosophy ? Tlie restoration of the
Bourbons in France will be the re-establishment of the principles
of the Stuarts in this country.*
PRINCE MAURICES PARROT;
Or, French Instructions to a British Plenipotentiary.
Sept. IS, 1814.
1. That the French people were so deeply implicated in the
Slave Trade, as not even to know that it had been abolished by
this country.
2. That the French press had been so long under the complete
despotic control of Bonaparte, that the present government must
despair of making any immediate impression on the independence
of the political opinions, or the energetic firmness of the indi-
vidual feelings of the people, lately consigned to their protection.
3. That such were their blind and rooted prejudices against
the English, that we could only hope to convince them of our
entire sincerity and disinterestedness in abolishing the Slave Trade
ourselves, by lending a helping hand to its revival by others.
4. That if we consented to give up our colonial conquests to
the French, on conditions dictated only by the general principles
of humanity, this would be a proof that we intended to keep them
in our own hands from the most base and mercenary motives.
5. That the French government simply wished to begin the
Slave Trade again as the easiest way of leaving it off, that so they
might combine the experiment of its gradual restoration wilh that
of its gradual abolition, and, by giving the people an interest in
it, more effectually wean their affections from it.
* Written originally for the Morning Chronicle.
72
6. That it is highly honourable in us to have proposed, and in
the French to have agreed to, the abolition of the Slave Trade,
at the end of five years, though it vt'ould have been insulting in
us to have proposed, and degrading in them to have subnoiitted
to, any stipulation on the subject.
7. That to rob and murder on the coast of Africa is among
the internal rights of legislation and domestic privileges of every
European and Christian state.
8. That we are not to teach the French people religion and
morality at the point of the sword, though this is what we have
been professing to teach them for the last two and twenty years.
9. That his most Christian Majesty Louis XV III. is so fully
impressed with the humane and benevolent sentiments of Great
Britain and the allies in favour of the abolition of the Slave Trade,
that he was ready to have plunged all Europe into a war for its
continuance.
10. That we could not possibly make the abolition, (though the
French government would certainly have made the revival) of the
Slave Trade a sine qua non in the treaty of peace, and that they
would otherwise have gone to war to recover by force of arms
what they can only owe to the credulity or complaisance of our
negociators.
Lastly. That by consenting to the re-establishment of the
Slave Trade in France, we were most effectually preparing the
way for its abolition all over the world.
•' With so little a web as this will I ensnare so great a fly as
Cassio!" — Such were the formidable barriers, the intricate lines
of circumvallation, drawn by the French round the abolition of
the Slave Trade, as strong as those which they threw up to de-
fend their capital: yet we think, that after our political missionary
had overleaped the one, he might have broken through the other.
Where there is a will, there is a way. But there are some minds
to which every flimsy pretext presents an insurmountable obstacle,
where only the interests of justice and humanity are at stake.
These persons are always impotent to save — powerful only to
73
oppress and to betray. Their torpid faculties and amiable apathy
are never roused but by the calculations of self-interest, or the
thirst of revenge. The glossy sleekness of the panther's hkin does
not blunt the sharpness of his fangs, and his fawning eye dooms
his victim while it glitters. But to come to Lord Castlereagh.
In the present instance, he appears to have been cajoled into
acquiescence from his well-known indifference to the object.
His speech contained nothing but a story of a cock and a bull,
told by M. Talleyrand with great grace and gravity, assented to
by his Lordship with equal affability and address, and repeated
to the House of Conimons with hesitating volubility and plausible
negligence of manner. It is well to sacrifice to the graces ; but
it is too much to have sacrificed a whole continent to the graces
of M.Talleyrand's person, or the purity of his French accent.
We can imagine how the scene took place. This question of
Africa, being considered as an idle question, in which neither
courts nor ministers were concerned, would be naturally left as a
sort of carte-blanche for all the flourishes of national politesse, as
a kind o{ no mans groutid for a trial of diplomatic skill and com-
plaisance. So Lord Castlereagh, drawing on his gloves, hemmed
once or twice, while the French minister carelessly took snuff:
he then introduced the question with a smile, which was answered
by a more gracious smile from M. Talleyrand : his Lordship
then bowed, as if to bespeak attention ; but the Prince of Bene-
vento bowing still lower, prevented what he had to say ; and the
cries of Africa were lost amidst the nods and smile and shrugs of
these demi-puppets. The Ex-bishop of Autun may in future
hope to find a successful representative in the English ambassador
from Paris,' for the noble secretary mistijied the house, as he
had himself been mistijied by his highness of Benevento. — Count
Fathom, after his defeat by the French abbe, practised in this his
adopted country with great applause ! We may take this oppor-
tunity of remarking, that we do not think his Lordship at all
improved during his stay in France. He performs the arc of his
oscillation from the treasury bench to the table, and from the
74
table back again, in a second less time than he used to do. He
commits dulness with greater vivacity, and flounders more briskly
in an argument. He has enhanced the loose dangling slip-shod
manner which so well accords with his person and understanding,
into something positive and dogmatical ; and is even grown tena-
cious of the immaculateness of his maiden treaty, which he will
not have so much as suspected : In this alteration of tone we
think him wrong. We have always looked upon Lord Castle-
reagh as an excellent taffeta lining to a court dress ; but he should
leave the buckram of office to his friend the secretary of the Ad-
miralty.
WHETHER THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM CAN ENTER-
TAIN ANY SANGUINE HOPES OF THE FAVOURABLE
RESULTS OF THE ENSUING CONGRESS ?
Oct. 23, 1814.
An excellent article appeared in the Examiner of last week,
giving a general outline of the views and principles which ought
to actuate the allied powers at the approaching Congress, and of
the leading arrangements with respect to the different subjects to
be brought under consideration, which ought to follow from those
principles. Cordially as we agree with this respectable writer in
the several points which he has stated, we are, we confess, far
from feeling any strong assurances that even any one of these
points will be amicably adjusted. They are briefly these : —
1. That Poland should be restored to her independence.
2. That the other powers of Europe should no longer co-operate
with Sweden in the subjugation of Norway. 3. That the Slave
Trade should be immediately and generally abolished. 4. That
Saxony should not share a fate similar to that of Poland.
5. That Austria should relinquish her views of unjust aggrandise-
ment in Italy. 6. and last, That some concessions should pro-
75
bably be made by England as to her exclusive claims to maritime
supremacy, as far as those claims are found to be rather galling
to the feelings of other nations, than essential to her own security.
All of the objects here recommended are, we should imagine,
every way practicable as well as desirable, if there were any thing
like a hearty good-will to avail themselves of the present favour-
able situation of the world in those who have the power to decide
its fate. Armed with sovereign authority, seconded by public
opinion, with every obstacle removed from their dread of the
overwhelming power of France, they have all the means at their
disposal to rear a splendid, lofty, and lasting monument to justice,
liberty, and humanity. Are the views then of the allied sovereigns
solely directed to these objects ? That is the simple question ;
and we are afraid it would be great presumption to answer it in
the affirmative. It would be supposing that the late events have
purified the hearts of princes and nations ; that they have been
taught wisdom by experience, and the love of justice from the
sense of injury ; that mutual confidence and good-will have suc-
ceeded to narrow prejudices and rankling jealousy ; that the race
of ambitious and unprincipled monarchs, of crafty politicians,
and self-interested speculators is at an end ; that the destructive
rivalry between states has given way to liberal and enlightened
views of general safety and advantage ; and that the powers of
Europe will in future unite with the same zeal and magnanimity
for the common good, as when they were bound in a common
cause against the common enemy. All this appears to us quite
as Utopian as any other scheme which supposes that the human
mind can change. Happy should we be, if instead of those mag-
nificent and beneficial projects in which some persons seem still
to indulge their imaginations as the results of this meeting, the
whole should not turn out to be no better than a compromise of
petty interests, of shallow policy, and flagrant injustice.
We forbore for a long time from saying any thing on this un-
grateful subject : but our forbearance has not hitherto, at least
been rewarded. We shall therefore speak out plainly on the sub-
76
ject ; as we should be sorry to be thought accomplices in a de-
Jusion, which can only end in disappointment. The professions
of justice, njoderatiou, and the love of liberty, made by the
powers of Europe at the end of the last, and at the beginning of
the present year, were certainly admirable : they were called for
at the time, and were possibly sincere. But we are all of us apt
to forego those good resolutions which are extorted from us by
circumstances rather than from reason or habit, and to recant
*' vows made in pain as violent and void." Without meaning
any indirect allusion to the person into whose mouth these words
are put, we believe this, that princes are princes, and that men
are men ; and that to expect any great sacrifices of interest or
passion from either in consequence of certain well-timed and well-
sounding professions, drawn from them by necessity, when that
necessity no longer exists, is to belie all our experience of human
nature. We remember what modern courts and ministers were
before the dreaded power of Bonaparte arose ; and we conceive
this to be the best and only ground to argue what they will be,
now that that power has ceased. " Why so, being gone, they are
themselves again." It appears to us, that some very romantic
and extravagant expectations were entertained from the destruc-
tion of the tyranny of Bonaparte. It is true, his violence and
ambition for a while suspended all other projects of the same
kind. " The right divine of kings to govern wrong" was wrested
from the puny hands of its legitimate possessors, and strangely
monopolized by one man. The regular professors of the regal
art were set aside by the superior skill and prowess of an adven-
turer. They became in turn the tools, or the victims of the
machinations of the maker and puller-down of kings. Instead of
their customary employment of annoying their neighbours, or
harrassing their subjects, they had enough to do to defend their
territories and their titles. The aggressions which they had
securely meditated against the independence of nations, and their
haughty contempt for the liberties of mankind, were retorted on
their own heads. The poisoned chalice was returned to their
77
own lips. They then first felt the sting of injustice, and the bit-
terness of scorn. They saw how weak and little they were in
themselves. They were roused from the still life of courts, and
forced to assume the rank of men. They appealed to their people
to defend their thrones ; they called on them to rally round the
altar of their country ; they invoked the name of liberty, and in
that name they conquered. Plans of national aggrandisement
or private revenge were forgotten in the intoxication of triumph,
as they had been in the agony of despair. This sudden usur-
pation had so overpowered the imaginations of men, that they
began to consider it as the only evil that had ever existed in the
world, and that with it, all tyranny and ambition would cease.
War was talked of as if it had been an invention of the modern
Charlemagne, and the Golden age was to be restored with the
Bourbons. But it is hard for the great and mighty to learn in
the school of adversity : emperors and kings bow reluctantly to
the yoke of necessity. When the panic is over, they will be glad
to drink of the cup of oblivion. The false idols which had been
set up to Liberty and Nature, to Genius and Fortune, are thrown
down, and they have once more " all power given them upon
earth." How they are likely to use it, whether for the benefit
and happiness of mankind, or to gratify their own prejudices and
passions, we have, in one or two instances, seen already. No
one will in future look for " the milk of human kindness" in the
Crown Prince of Sweden, who is a monarch of the new school ;
nor for examples of romantic generosity and gratitude in Fer-
dinand of Spain, who is one of the old. A jackall or baboon,
dandled in the paws of a royal Bengal tiger, may not be very for-
midable ; but it would be idle to suppose, if they should provi-
dentially escape, that they would become tame, useful, domestic
animals.
The King of Prussia has recovered the sword of the Great
Frederick, his humane, religious, moral, and unambitious prede-
cessor, only, as it appears, to unsheath it against the King of
Saxony, his old companion in arms. The Emperor of Austria
78
seems eager to catch at the iron crown of Italy, which has just
fallen from the brows of his son-in-law. The King of France,
our King of France, Louis the Desired, and who by the " all hail
hereafter," is to receive the addition of Louis the Wise, has im-
proved his reflections during a twenty years' exile, into a humane
and amiable sanction of the renewal of the Slave Trade for five
years only. His Holiness the Pope, happy to have escaped from
the clutches of the arch-tyrant and impostor, employs his leisure
hours in restoring the order of the Jesuits, and persecuting the
Freemasons. Ferdinand, the grateful and the enlightened, who has
passed through the same discipline of humanity with the same
effect, shuts up the doors of the Cortes, (as it is scandalously
asserted, at the instigation of Lord Wellington), and throws open
those of the Inquisition. At all this, the romantic admirers of
patriot kings, who fondly imagined that the hatred of the op-
pressor was the same thing as the hatred of oppression, (among
these we presume we may reckon the poet-laureat,) hang their
heads, and live in hope of better times. To us it is all natural,
and in order. From this grand goal-delivery of princes and po-
tentates, we could expect nothing else than a recurrence to their
old habits and favourite principles. These observations have not
been hastily or gratuitously obtruded : they have been provoked
by a succession of disgusting and profligate acts of inconsistency
and treachery, unredeemed by a single effort of heroic virtue or
generous enthusiasm. Almost every principle, almost every pro-
fession, almost every obligation, has been broken. If any proof
is wanting, look at Norway, look at Italy, look at Spain, look at
the Inquisition, look at the Slave Trade. The mask of liberty
has been taken off by most of the principal performers; the
whining cant of humanity is no longer heard in The Courier and
The Times. What then remains for us to build a hope upon,
but the Whig principles of the Prince Regent, inherited from his
ancestors, and the good nature of the Emperor of Russia, the
merit of which is entirely his own ? Of the former of these per-
sonages, our opinion is so well known, that we need not repeat it
79
here. Again, of the good intentions of the last-mentioned sove-
reign, we declare that we have as full a persuasion. We be-
lieve him to be docile to instruction, inquisitive after knowledge,
and inclined to good. But it has been said by those who have
better means of information than ourselves, that he is too open
to the suggestions of those about him ; that, like other learners,
he thinks the newest opinion the best, and that his real good-
nature and want of duplicity render him not sufficiently proof
against the seltish or sinister designs of others. He has certainly
a character for disinterestedness and magnanimity to support in
history : but history is a glass in which few minds fashion them-
selves. If in his late conduct there was any additional impulse
given to the natural simplicity of his character, it probably arose
from an obvious desire to furnish a contrast to the character of
Bonaparte, and also to redeem the Russian character, hitherto
almost another name for barbarity and ferociousness, in the eyes
of civilized Europe. In this point of view, we should not despair
that something may be attempted, at least with respect to Poland,
by the present autocrat of all the Russias, to blot out certain
stains on the reputation of his grand-mother, the Empress
Catharine.
With regard to Norway, the only hope of the suspension of
its fate seems to arise out of a very natural, if not laudable jea-
lousy and distaste, which have been conceived by some of the
old-standing sovereigns of Europe against the latest occupier and
most forward pretender to thrones. An adventurer who has
made a fortune by gaining a prize in the lottery, or by laying qui
tarn informations against his accomplices, cannot expect to be
admitted, on an equality, into the company of persons of regular
character and family estates. The Emperor of Austria, in parti-
cular, may have additional motives of dislike to Bernadotte, con-
nected with late events ; and we agree with the Examiner, that
he may, in the end, " have to regret the length to which he was
hurried against a man, who was the key-stone of all the new
power which had been built on the ruin of thrones."
80
As to any immediate adjustment of the maritime rights of this
country, on general principles, satisfactory to all parties, we see
no reason to expect it. We think ihe following paragraph jus-
tifies us in this opinion. " We are told," says the Morning
Chronicle, " that on the day when the capture of the city of
Washington, and the demolition of its public buildings reached
Paris, the Duke of Wellington had a ball: not one public am-
bassador of the potentates of Europe, our good allies, presented
himself to congratulate his grace on the event." We here see,
on one side, the most absurd expectations of disinterested sym-
pathy with our national feelings, and as little disposition to enter
into them on the other. It is strange that the above paragraph
should have found its way into a paper which makes an almost
exclusive profession of liberal and comprehensive views.
Nor can we indulge in any serious expectations of '* the imme-
diate and general abolition of the Slave Trade." Africa has little
to hope from " the prevailing gentle arts" of Lord Castlereagh.
However sturdy he may be in asserting our maritime rights, he will,
we imagine, go to sleep over those of humanity, and waking from
his doux sommeil, find that the dexterous prince of political jug-
glers has picked his pocket of his African petitions, if, indeed, he
chuses to carry the credentials of his own disgrace about with
him. There are two obstacles to the success of this measure.
In the first place, France has received such forcible lessons from
this country on the old virtues of patriotism and loyalty, that she
must feel particularly unwilling to be dictated to on the new doc-
trines of liberality and humanity. Secondly, the abolition of the
Slave Trade, on our part, was itself the act of Mr. Fox's admi-
nistration — an administration which we should suppose there is
no very strong inclination to relieve from any part of the contempt
or obloquy which it has been the fashion to pour upon it, by ex-
tending the benefit of its measures, or recommending the adoption
of its principles.
There is another point, on which, though our doUbts are by no
means strong or lasting, we do not at all times feel the same abf;
81
solute confidence — the continuance of the present order of things
in France. The principles adhered to in the determination of
some of the preceding arrangements, and the permanent views
which shall appear to actuate the other powers of Europe, uiay
have no inconsiderable influence on this great question. What-
ever tends to allay the ferment in men's minds, and to take away
just causes of recrimination and complaint, must, of course,
lessen the pretexts for change. We should not, however, be more
disposed to augur such a change from the remaining attachment of
individuals, or of the army, to Bonaparte, than from the general
versatility and restlessness of the French character, and their total
want of settled opinion, which might oppose a check to military
enthusiasm. Even their present unqualified zeal, in the cause of
the Bourbons, is ominous. How long this sudden fit of grati-
tude, for deliverance from evils certainly brought upon them by
their slowness to admit the remedy, may continue, it is impos-
sible to say. A want of keeping is the distinguishing quality
of the French character. A people of this sort cannot be de-
pended on for a moment. They are blown about like a weather-
cock, with every breath of caprice or accident, and would cry
vive fempereur to-morrow, with as much vivacity and as little
feeling, as they do vive le roi to-day. They have no fixed prin-
ciple of action. They are alike indifferent to every thing : their
self-complacency supplies the place of all other advantages — of
virtue, liberty, honour, and even of outward appearances. They
are the only people who are vain of being cuckolded and being
conquered. — A people who, after trampling over the face of
Europe so long, fell down before their assailants without
striking a blow, and who boast of their submission as a fine
thing, are not a nation of men, but of women. The spirit of
liberty, at the Revolution, gave them an impulse common to hu-
manity ; the genius of Bonaparte gave them the spirit of military
ambition. Both of these gave an energy and consistency to their
character, by concentrating their natural volatility on one great
object. But when both of these causes failed, the Allies found
G
82
that France consisted of nothing but ladies' toilettes. The army
are the muscular part of the state ; mere patriotism is a paste-
board visor, which opposes no resistance to the sword. What-
ever they determine will be done; an effeminate public is a non-
entity. They will nut relish the Bourbons long, if they remain
at peace ; and if they go to war, they will want a monarch who is
also a general.
The Lay of the Laureate, Carmen Nuptiale, by
Robert Southey, Esq. Poet- Laureate, Member of the Royal
Spanish Academy, and of the Royal Spanish Academy of
History. — London: Longmans, 1816.
Examiner, July 7, 1816.
The dog which his friend Launce brought as a present to
Madam Silvia in lieu of a lap-dog, was something like " The
Lay of the Laureate," which Mr. Southey has here offered to
the Princess Charlotte for a Nuptial Song. It is " a very cur-
rish performance, and deserves none but currish thanks." Launce
thought his own dog, Crab, better than any other ; and Mr.
Southey thinks his own praises the fittest compliment for a lady's
ear. His Lay is ten times as long, and he thinks it is therefore
ten times better than an Ode of Mr. Pye's.
Mr. Southey in this poem takes a tone which was never heard
before in a drawing-room. It is the first time that ever a Re^
formist was made Poet-laureate. Mr. Croker was wrong in intro-
ducing his old friend, the author of " Joan of Arc," at Carlton-
House. He might have known how it would be. If we had
doubted the good old adage before, " Once a Jacobin and always
a Jacobin," since reading " The Lay of the Laureate," we are
sure of it. A Jacobin is one who would have his single opinion
govern the world, and overturn every thing in it. Such a one
is Mr. Southey. Whether he is a Republican or a Royalist,—
83
whether he hurls up the red cap of liberty, or wears the lily,
stained with the blood of all his old acquaintance, at his breast,
— whether he glories in Robespierre or the Duke of Wellington,
— whether he pays a visit to Old Sarum, or makes a pilgrimage
to Waterloo, — whether he is praised by The Courier, or parodied
by Mr. Canning, — whether he thinks a King the best or the worst
man iu his dominions, — whether he is a Theophilanthropist or a
Methodist of the church of Eng]and,-=-whether he is a friend of
Universal Suffrage and Catholic Emancipation, or a Quarterly
Reviewer, — whether he insists on an equal division of lands, or of
knowledge, — whether he is for converting infidels to Christianity,
or Christians to infidelity, — whether he is for pulling down the
kings of the East or those of the West, — whether he shaiply sets
his face against all establishments, or maintains that whatever is,
is right, — whether he prefers what is old to what is new, or what
is new to what is old, — whether he believes that all human evil is
remediable by human means, or makes it out to himself that a
Reformer is worse than a house-breaker, — whether he is in the
right or the wrong, poet or prose-writer, courtier or patriot, — he
is still the same pragmatical person — every sentiment or feeling
that he has is nothing but the effervescence of incorrigible over-
weening self-opinion. He not only thinks whatever opinion he
may hold for the time infallible, but that no other is even to be
tolerated, and that none but knaves and fools can differ with him.
" The friendship of the good and wise is his." If any one is so
unfortunate as to hold the same opinions that he himself formerly
did, this but aggravates the offence by irritating the jealousy of
his self-love, and he vents upon them a double portion of his
spleen. Such is the constitutional slenderness of his understanding,
its " glassy essence," that the slightest collision of sentiment gives
an irrecoverable shock to him. He regards a Catholic or a Pres-
byterian, a Deist or an Atheist, with equal repugnance, and makes
no difference between the Pope, the Turk, and the Devil. He
thinks a rival poet a bad man, and would suspect the principles,
G 2
84
mora!, political, and religious, of any one who did not spell the
word laureate with an e at the end of it. — If Mr. Southey were
a bigot, it would be well ; but he has only the intolerance of
bigotry. His violence is not the effect of attachment to any prin-
ciples, prejudices, or paradoxes of his own, but of antipathy to
those of others. It is an impatience of contradiction, an unwill-
ingness to share his opinions with others, a captious monopoly
of wisdom, candour, and common sense. He is not an enthu-
siast in religion, but he is an enemy to philosophers ; he does
not respect old establishments, but he hates new ones ; he has
no objection to regicides, but he is inexorable against usurpers ;
he will tell you that " the re-risen cause of evil" in France yielded
to " the Red Cross and Britain's arm of might," and shortly af-
ter, he denounces this Red Cross as the scarlet whore of Babylon,
and warns Britain against her eternal malice and poisoned cup ;
he calls on the Princess Charlotte in the name of the souls of ten
thousand little children, who are without knowledge in this age
of light, " Save or we peiush," and yet sooner than they
should be saved by Joseph Fox or Joseph Lancaster, he would
see them damned-; he would go himself into Egypt and pull down
^^ the barbarous kings" of the East, and yet his having gone there
on this very errand is not among the least of Bonaparte's crimes ;
he would " abate the malice" of the Pope and the Inquisition,
and yet he cannot contain the fulness of his satisfaction at the fall
of the only person who had both the will and the power to do this.
Mr. Southey began with a decent hatred of kings and priests, but
it yielded to his greater hatred of the man who trampled them in
the dust. He does not feel much affection to those who are born
to thrones, but that any one should gain a crow n as he has gained
the laureate-wreath, by superior merit alone, was the unpardon-
able sin against Mr. Southey 's levelling Muse !
The poetry of the Lay is beneath criticism ; it has all sorts of
obvious common-place defects, without any beauties either ob-
vious or recondite. It is the Namby-Pamby of the Tabernacle ;
85
a Methodist sermon turned into doggrel verse. It is a gossipping
confession of Mr. Southey's political faith — the " Practice of Piety"
or the " Whole Duty of Man" mixed up with the discordant slang
of the metaphysical poets of the nineteenth century. Not only
do his sentiments every where betray the old Jacobinical leaven,
the same unimpaired desperate unprincipled spirit of partisanship,
regardless of time, place, and circumstance, and of every thing
but its own headstrong will ; there is a gipsey jargon in the ex-
pression of his sentiments which is equally indecorous. Does
our Laureate think it according to court-etiquette that he should
be as old-fashioned in his language as in the cut of his clothes? —
On the present occasion, when one might expect a truce with
impertinence, he addresses the Princess neither with the fancy of
the poet, the courtier's grace, nor the manners of a gentleman,
but with the air of an inquisitor or father-confessor. Geo. Fox,
the Quaker, did not wag his tongue more saucily against the
Lord's Anointed in the person of Charles II., than our Laureate
here assures the daughter of his Prince, that so shall she prosper
in this world and the next, as she minds what he says to her.
Would it be believed (yet so it is) that, in the excess of his unau-
thorized zeal, Mr. Southey in one place advises the Princess con-
ditionally to rebel against her father ? Here is the passage. The
Angel of the English church thus addresses the Royal Bride: — '
** Bear thou that great Eliza in thy mind,
Who from a wreck this fabric edified ;
Aud Her who to a nation's voice resigned,
When Rome in hope its wihest engines plied,
By her own heart and righteous Heaven approved,
Stood up against the Father whom she loved,"
This is going a good way. Is it meant, that if the Prince Re-
gent, " to a nation's voice resigned," should grant Catholic Eman-
cipation in defiance of the " Quarterly Review," Mr. Southey
would encourage the Princess in standing up against her father, in
imitation of the pious and patriotic daughter of James II. ?
86
This quaint effusion of poetical fanaticism is divided into four
parts, the Proem, the Dream, the Epilogue, and L'Envoy.
The Proem opens thus ; —
pans, me jrroem, me u
The Proem opens thus ; —
'' There was a time when all my youthful thought
Was of the Muse ; and of the Poet's fame,
How fair it flourisheth and fadeth not,
Alone enduring, when the Monarch's name
Is but an empty sound, the Conqueror's bust
Moulders and is forgotten in the dust."
This may be very true, but not so proper to be spoken in this
place. Mr. Southey may think himself a greater man than the
Prince Regent, but he need not go to Carlton-House to tell him
so. He endeavours to prove that the Prince Regent and the
Duke of Wellington (put together) are greater than Bonaparte,
but then he is by his own rule greater than all three of them.
We have here perhaps the true secret of Mr. Southey *s excessive
anger at the late Usurper. If all his youthful thought was of his
own inborn superiority to conquerors and kings, we can conceive
that Bonaparte's fame must have appeared a very great injustice
done to his pretensions : it is not impossible that the uneasiness
with which he formerly heard the names of Marengo, of Auster-
litz, of Jena, of Wagram, of Friedland, and of Borodino, may
account for the industrious self-complacency with which he harps
upon those of Busaco, Vimiera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Thoulouse,
and Waterloo ; and that the Iron Crown of Italy must have
pressed upon his (Mr. Southey's) brows, with a weight most
happily relieved by the light laureate-wreath ! We are justified in
supposing Mr. Southey capable of envying others, for he sup-
poses others capable of envying him. Thus he sings of himself
jand his office :—^
" Yea in this now, while malice frets her hour,
Is foretaste given me of that meed divine;
Here undisturbed in this sequestered bower,
The friendship of the good and wise is mine ;
87
And that green wreath which decks the Bard when dead,
That laureate garland crowns my living head.
That wreath which in Eliza's golden days
My master dear, diviuest Spenser, wore,
That which rewarded Drayton's learned lays.
Which thoughtful Ben and gentle Daniel* bore . , .
Grin, Envy, through thy ragged mask of scorn !
In honour it was given, with honour it is worn !"
Now we do assure Mr. Southey, that we do not envy him this
honour. Many people laugh at him, some may blush for him,
but nobody envies him. As to Spenser, whom he puts in the list
of great men who have preceded him in his office, his laureate-
ship has been bestowed on him by Mr. Southey ; it did not
" crown his living head." We all remember his being refused
the hundred pounds for his " Fairy Queen." Poets were not
wanted in those days to celebrate the triumphs of princes over
the people. But why does he not bring his list down nearer to
his own time — to Pye and Whitehead and CoUey Gibber? Does
Mr. Southey disdain to be considered as the successor even of
Dryden ? That green wreath which decks our author's living
head, is so far from being, as he would insinuate, an anticipation
of immortality, that it is no credit to any body, and least of all
to Mr. Southey. He might well have declined the reward of ex-
ertions in a cause which throws a stigma of folly or sometliing
worse on the best part of his life. Mr. Southey ought not to
have received what would not have been offered to the author of
" Joan of Arc."
Mr. Southey himself maintains that his song has still been
"to Truth and Freedom true;" that he has never changed his
opinions ; that it is the cause of French liberty that has left him,
not he the cause. That may be so. But there is one person in
the kingdom who has, we take it, been at least as consistent in
* The ignorant will suppose that these are two proper names.
88
his conduct and sentiments as Mr. Southey, and that person is the
King. Thus the Laureate emphatically advises the Prnicess : —
" Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way,
As in his Father's he, learn thou to tread."
Now the question is, whether Mr. Southey agreed with his Ma-
jesty on the subject of the French Revolution when he published
" Joan of Arc." Though Mr. Southey " as beseems him well"
congratulates the successes of the son, we do not recollect that he
condoled with the disappointments of the father in the same cause.
The King has not changed, therefore Mr. Southey has. The
sun does not turn to the sun-flower ; but the sun-flower follows
the sun. Our poet has thoughtlessly committed himself in the
above lines. He may be right in applauding that one sole pur-
pose of his Majesty's reign which he formerly condemned : that
he can be consistent in applauding what he formerly condemned,
is impossible. That his majesty King George HI. should make
a convert of Mr. Southey rather than Mr. Southey of George III.
is probable for many reasons. The King by siding with the
cause of the people could not, like King William, have gained a,
crown : Mr. Southey, by deserting it, has got a hundred pounds
a-year. A certain English ambassador, who had a long time re-
sided at the court of Rome, was on his return introduced at the
levee of Queen Caroline. This lady, who was almost as great a
prig as Mr. Southey, asked him why in his absence he did not try
to make a convert of the Pope to the Protestant religion. He
answered, " Madam, the reason was that I had nolliing better
to offer his Holiness than what he already has in his possession."
The Pope would no doubt have been of the same way of think-
ing. This is the reason why kings, from sire to son, pursue
" their steady way," and are less changeable than canting cosmo-
polites.
89
The Lay of the Laureate, Carmen Nuptiale, hy
Robert Southey, Esq. Poet- Laureate, Member of the Royal
Spanish Academy, and of the Royal Spanish Academy of
History. — London : Longmans, 1816.
(concluded.)
** Queen. Hamlet, thon hast thy Father much offended.
" Hamlet. Madam, you have my Father much offended."
July 14, J 816.
Though we do not think Mr. Southey has been quite con-
sistent, we do not think him a hypocrite. This poem proves it.
How should he maintain the same opinion all his life, when he
cannot maintain it for two stanzas together ? The weakness of
his reasoning shews that he is the dupe of it. He has not the
faculty of perceiving contradictions. He is not accountable for
his mistakes. There is not a single sentiment advanced in any
part of the Lay, which is not flatly denied in some other part
of it. Let us see : — •
" Proudly I raised the high thanksgiving strain
Of victory in a rightful cause achieved :
For which I long had looked and not in vain,
As one who with firm faith and undeceited,
In history and the heart of man could find
Sure presage of deliverance for mankind."
Mr. Southey does not inform us in what year he began to look
for this deliverance, but if he had looked for it long, he must
have looked for it long in vain. Does our poet then find no pre-
sage of deliverance for " conquered France " in the same prin-
ciples that he found it for " injured Germany ? " But he has no
principles; or he does not himself know what they are. He
praises Providence in this particular instance for having conformed
to his hopes ; and afterwards thus gives us the general results of
his leading in history and the human heart. In the Dream he
says^ speaking of Charissa and Speranza —
" This Jovely pair unrolled before the throne
" Earth's nielaucholy map," whereon to sight
Two broad divisions at a glance were shown,
The empires these of darkness and of hght.
Well might the thoughtful bosom sigh to mark
How wide a portion of the map was dark.
Behold, Charissa cried, how large a space
Of earth lies unredeemed ! Oh grief to think
That countless myriads of immortal race
In error born, in ignorance must sink,
Trained up in customs which corrupt the heart,
And following miserably the evil part !
Regard the expanded Orient from the shores
Of scorched Arabia and the Persian sea,
To wliere the inhospitable Ocean roars
Against the rocks of frozen Tartary ;
Look next at those AuBtralian isles which lie
Thick as the stars which stud the wintry sky.
Then let thy mind contemplative survey
That spacious region where in elder time
Earth's unremembered conquerors held the sway;
And Science trusting in her skill sublime.
With lore abstruse the sculptured walls o'erspread,
Its import now forgotten with the dead.
From Nile and Congo's undiscovered springs
To the four seas which gird tlie unhappy land,
Behold it left a prey to barbarous Kings,
The Robber and the Trader's ruthless hand ;
Sinning and suffering, everywhere unblest,
Behold her wretched sons, oppressing and opprest! "
This is " a pretty picture " to be drawn by one who finds in
the past history of the world the sure presage of deliverance for
mankind. We grant indeed that Mr. Southey was right in one
thing, viz. in expecting from it that sort of " deliverance of
mankind," bound hand and foot, into the power of Kings and
Priests, which- has actually come to pass, and which he has
celebrated with so much becoming pomp, both here and elsewhere.
91
The doctrine of " millions made for one " lias to be sure got a
tolerable footing in the East. It has attained a very venerable
old age there — it is mature even to rottenness, butwiihout decay.
" Old, old. Master Shallow," but eternal. It is transmitted down
in unimpaired succession from sire to son. Snug's the word.
Legitimacy is not there militant, but triumphant, as the Editor of
The Times would wish. It is long since the people had any thing
to do with the laws but to obey them, or any laws to obey but the
will of their task-masters. This is the necessary end of legitimacy.
The Princes and Potentates cut one another's throats as they
please, but the people have no hand in it. They have no French
Revolutions there, no rights of man to terrify barbarous kings,
no republicans or levellers, no weathercock deliverers and re-
deliverers of mankind, no Mr. Southeys nor Mr. Wordsworths.
In this they are happy. Things there are perfectly settled, in the
state in which they should be, — still as death, and likely to remain
so. Mr. Southey's exquisite reason for supposing that a crusade
to pull down divine right would succeed in the East, is that a
crusade to prop it up has just succeeded in the West. That will
never do. Besides, what security can he give, if he goes on
improving in wisdom for the next five and twenty years as he has
done for the last, that he would not in the end be as glad to see
these " barbarous kings " restored to their rightful thrones, as he
is now anxious to see them tumbled from them ? The doctrine
of " divine right " is of longer standing and more firmly esta-
blished in the East than in the West, because the Eastern world
is older than ours. We might say of it,
" The wars it well remembers of King Nine,
" Of old Assaracus and Inaclius divine."
It is fixed on the altar and the throne, safe, quite safe against
Mr. Southey's enthusiasm in its second spring, his Missionary
Societies, and his Schools for All. It overlays that vast con-
tinent, like an ugly incubus, sucking the blood and stopping up
the breath of man's life. That detestable doctrine, which in
92
England first tottered and fell headless to the ground with the
martyred Charles ; which we kicked out with his son James, and
kicked twice back with two Pretenders, to make room for
" Brunswick's fated line," a line of our own chusing, and for that
reason worth all Mr. Southey's lines put together ; that detestable
doctrine, which the French, in 1793, ousted from their soil,
thenceforward sacred in the eyes of humanity, which they ousted
from it again in 1815, making it doubly sacred; and which (oh
grief, oh shame) was borne into it once more on English should-
ers, and thrust down their throats with English bayonets ; this
detestable doctrine, which would, of right and with all the
sanctions of religion and morality, sacrifice the blood of millions
to the least of its prejudices ; which would make the rights, the
happiness, and liberty of nations, from the beginning to the end
of time, dependent on the caprice of some of the lowest and vilest
of the species ; which rears its bloated hideous form to brave
the will of a whole people ; that claims mankind as its property,
and allows human nature to exist only upon suflferance; that
haunts the understanding like a frightful spectre, and oppresses
the very air with a weight that is not to be borne ; this doctrine
meets with no rubs, no reverses, no ups and downs, in the East.
It is there fixed, immutable. The Jaggernaut there passes on
with its " satiate " scythe over the bleeding bodies of its victims,
who are all as loyal, as pious, and as thankful as Mr. Southey.
It meets with no opposition from any " re- risen cause of evil "
or of good. Mankind have there been delivered once for all !
In the passage above quoted, Mr. Southey founds his hope of
the emancipation of the Eastern world from " the Robber and
the Trader's ruthless hand " on our growing empire in India.
This is a conclusion which nobody would venture upon but himself.
His last appeal is to scripture, and still he is unfortunate : —
♦* Speed thou the work, Redeemer of the World !
That the long miseries of mankind may cease !
Where'er the Red Cross hauner is unfurled,
There let it carry truth; and light, and peace!
93
Did not the Angels who announced thy birth,
Proclaim it with the sound of Peace on Earth ?
From the length of time that this prediction has remained
unfulfilled, Mr. Southey thinks its accomplishment must be near.
His Odes will not hasten the event.
Again, we do not understand the use which Mr. Southey
makes of the Red Cross in this poem. For speaking of himself
he says,
" And when that last and most momentous hour
Beheld the re-risen cause of evil yield
To the Red Cross and England's arm of power,
I sung of Waterloo's unrivalled field,
Paying the tribute of a soul embued
With deepest joy, devout and awful gratitude."
This passage occurs in the Proem. In the Dream the Angel
of the English Church is made to warn the Princess —
" Think not that lapse of ages shall abate
The inveterate malice of that Harlot old ;
Fallen tho' thou deemest her from her high estate,
She proffers still the envenomed cup of gold.
And her fierce Beast, whose names are blasphemy,
The same that was, is still, and still must be."
It is extraordinary that both these passages relate to one and
the same thing, namely. Popery, which our author in the first
identifies with the Christian religion, thus invoking to his aid every
pure feeling or pious prejudice in the minds of his readers, and
in the last denounces as that Harlot old, " whose names are blas-
phemy," with all the fury of plenary inspiration. This is a great
effort of want of logic. Mr. Southey will hardly sing or say that
it was to establish Protestantism in France that England's arm
of power was extended on this occasion. Nor was it simply to
establish Popery. That existed there already. It was to esta-
blish " the inveterate malice of that Harlot old," her " envenomed
cup," to give her back her daggers and her fires, her mummeries,
her holy oil, her power over the bodies and the minds of men,
94
to restore lier " the same that she was, is still, and still must be,'*
that that celebrated fight was fought. The massacres of Nismes
followed hard upon the triumph of Mr. Southey's Red Cross.
The blood of French Protestants began to flow almost before
the wounds of the dying and the dead in that memorable carnage
had done festering. This was the most crying injustice, the
most outrageous violation of principle, that ever was submitted
to. What ! has John Bull nothing better to do now-a-days than
to turn bottle-holder to the Pope of Rome, to whet his daggers
for him, to light his fires, and fill his poisoned bowl ; and yet,
out of pure complaisance (a quality John has learnt from his
new friends the Bourbons) not venture a syllable to say that we
did not mean him to use them ? It seems Mr. Southey did not
think this a fit occasion for the interference of his Red Cross
Muse. Could he not trump up a speech either for " divine
Speranza," or " Charissa dear," to lay at the foot of the throne ?
Was the Angel of the English Church dumb too — " quite chop-
fallen ? " Yet though our Laureate cannot muster resolution
enough to advise the Prince to protect Protestants in France, he
plucks up spirit enough to urge him to persecute Catholics in
this country, and pretty broadly threatens him with the conse-
quences, if he does not. " 'Tis much," as Christopher Sly says.
There is another subject on which Mr. Southey's silence is
still more inexcusable. It was understood to be for his exertions
in the cause of Spanish liberty that he was made Poet- Laureate.
It is then high time for him to resign. Why has he not written
a single ode to a single Spanish patriot who has been hanged,
banished, imprisoned, sent to the galleys, assassinated, tortured ?
It must be pleasant to those who are suffering under the thumb-
screw to read Mr. Southey's thoughts upon that ingenious little
instrument of royal gratitude. Has he discovered that the air
of a Court does not very well agree with remonstrances against
acts of oppression and tyranny, when exercised by those who are
born for no other purpose ? Is his patriotism only a false cover,
a Carlton-House convenience ? His silence on this subject is not
03
equivocal. Whenever Mr. Southey shews the sincerity of his
former professions of zeal in behalf of Spanish liberty, by writing
an elegy on the death of Porlier, or a review of the conduct of
Ferdinand VII. (he is a subject worthy of Mr. Southey 's prose
style), or by making the lame tailor of Madrid (we forget his
name) the subject of an epic poem, we will retract all that we
have said in disparagement of his consistency — But not till then.
We meant to have quoted several other passages, such as that
in which old Praxis, that is, Experience, recommends it to the
Princess to maintain the laws by keeping all that is old, and add-
ing all that is new to them-^— that in which he regrets the piety
and learning of former times, and then promises us a release
from barbarism and brutishness by the modern invention of
Sunday schools — that in which he speaks of his own virtues and
the wisdom of his friends — that in which he undertakes to write
a martyrology. — But we are very tired of the subject, and the
verses are not worth quoting. There is a passage in Racine which
is ; and with that, we take our leave of the Laureate, to whom it
may convey some useful hints in explanation of his ardent desire
for the gibbeting of Bonaparte and the burning of Paris : —
Nabal. — Que peut vous inspirer line haine si forte?
Est-ce que de Baal le zele vous transporte ?
Pour moi, vous le savez, descendu d'Ismael,
Je ne seis ni Baal ni le Dieu d'Israel.
Mathan. — Ami, peux-tu penser que d'un zele frivole
Je me laisse aveugler pour une vaine idole !
N^ ministre du Dieu qu'en ce temple on adore,
Peut-etre que Mathau le serviroit encore,
Si I'amour des grandeurs, la soif de commander,
Avec son joug ^troit pouvoient s'accommoder.
Qu'est-il besoin, Nabal, qu'a tes yeux je rappelle ■
De Joad et de moi la fameuse querelle ?
Vaincu par lui j'entrai dans une autre carriere,
Et nion ame a la cour s'attacha tout entiere.
J'approchai par degr6s I'oreille des rois ;
Et bientftt en oracle on erigea ma voix.
J'^tudiai leur coeur, je flattai lenrs caprices,
Je leur semai de deurs le bord des precipices :
96
Pr^9 de leurs passions rien ne me fut sacr^ ;
De mesure et de poids je changeois a leur gr^,
Autant que de Joad I'inflexible rudesse
De leur siiperl)e oreille offensoit la mollesse ;
Autant je les cbarmois par ma dext^rit6,
D6robant a leur yeux la triste v^rit6,
Pretaiit a leur fureur des couleurs favourables,
Et prodigue sur-tont du sang des niis^rables.*
D^serteur de leur loi, j'approvai I'entreprise,
Et par la de Baal m^ritai la pretrise;
Par la je me rendis terrible a niun rival,
Je ceignis la tiare, et marclial son 6gal.
Toutefois, je I'avoue, en ce comble de gloire,
De Dieu que j'ai quitt^ I'importune m^'moire
Jette encore en nion ame un reste de terreur ;
Et c'est ce qui redouble ct nourrit ma fureur.
Heurenx, si sur son temple achevaut ma vengeance,
Je puis convaincre enfin sa iiaine d inipuissance,
Et parmi les debris, les ravages, et les morts,
A force d'atteutats perdre tous mes remords,t
TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER.
Sir, — I hope you will not omit to notice two passages in
Mr. Southey's poem, in which, to try his talent at natural de-
* •* Carnage is her daughter." — Mr. fVordsioorth's Thanksgiving Ode.
t This article falls somewhat short of its original destination, by our having
been forced to omit two topics, the praise of Bonaparte, and the abuse of
poetry. The former we leave to history : tlie latter we have been induced to
omit from cur regard to two poets of our acquaintance. We must say they
have spoiled sport. One of them lias tropical blood in his veins, which gives
a gay, cordial, vinous spirit to bis whole character. The otiier is a mad wag, —
who ought to have lived at the Court of Horwendillus, with Yorick and
Hamlet, — equally desperate in his mirth and his gravity, who would laugh at a
funeral and weep at a wedding, who talks nonsense to prevent the head-ache,
who would wag his flutter at a skeleton, whose jests scald like tears, who makes
a joke of a great man, and a hero of a cat's paw. The last is more than Mr.
Garrard or Mr. Turnerelii -can do. Tlie busts which these gentlemen have
made of a celebrated General are very bad. His head is worth nothing unless
it is put on bis men's shoulders.
97
scription, he gives an account of two of " the fearfullest wild-
fowl living " — a British Lion and a Saxon one. Both are striking
likenesses, and would do to hang on the outside of Exeter-'Change
to invite the curious. The former (presumed not to be indigenous)
is described to be in excellent case, well-fed, getting in years and
corpulent, with a high collar buried in the fat of the neck, false
mane, large hannches (for which this breed is remarkable), paws
like a shin of beef, large rolling eyes, a lazy, lounging animal,
sleeping all day and roaring all night, a great devourer of carcases
and breaker of bones, pleased after a full meal, and his keepers
not then afraid of him. Inclined to be uxorious. Visited by all
persons of distinction, from the highest characters abroad down
to the lowest at home. — The other portrait of the Saxon Lion
is a contrast to this. It is a poor lean starved beast, lord neither
of men nor lands, galled with its chain, which it has broken, but
has not got off from its neck. This portrait is, we understand,
to be dedicated to Lord Castlereagh. — Your constant reader,
Ne Quid Nimis.
" A NEW View OF Society ; or, Essays on the Principle of
the Formation of the Human Character, and the Application
of the Principle to Practice." Murray, 18 J6. — " An Ad-
dress TO THE Inhabitants of New Lanark, onopen-
ing an Institution for the Formation of Character." By
Robert Owen, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for
the County of Lanark." — Hatchard, 18l6.
[" Dedicated to those who have no Private Ends to accomplish, who are ho-
nestly in searcli of Truth, for the purpose of ameliorating the Condition of
Society, and who have the firmness to follow the Truth wherever it may lead,
without being turned aside from the Pursuit by the Prepossessions or Preju-
dices of any part of Mankind; — to Mr. Wilberforce, the Prince Regent,"
&c.]
August 4, I SI 6.
" A NEW View of Society" — No, Mr. Owen, that we deny.
It may be true, but it is not new. It is not coeval, whatever the
H
98
author and proprietor may think, with the New Lanark mills,
but it is as old as the royal borough of Lanark, or as the county
of Lanark itself. It is as old as the " Political Justice" of Mr.
Godsvin, as the " Oceana" of Harrington, as the " Utopia" of
Sir Thomas More, as the " Republic" of Plato ; it is as old as
society itself, and as the attempts to reform it by shewing what it
ought to be, or by teaching that the good of the whole is the
good of the individual — an opinion by which fools and honest
men have been sometimes deceived, but which has never yet
taken in the knaves and knowing ones. The doctrine of Universal
Benevolence, the belief in the Omnipotence of Truth, and in the '
Perfectibility of Human Nature, are not new, but " Old, old,"
Master Robert Owen ; — why then do you say that they are new?
They are not only old, they are superannuated, they are dead and
buried, they are reduced to mummy, they are put into the cata-
combs at Paris, they are sealed up in patent coffins, they have
been dug up again and anatomised, they have been drawn, quar-
tered and gibbetted, they have become black, dry, parched in
the sun, loose, and rotten, and are dispersed to all the winds of
Heaven ! The chain in which they hung up the murdered corse
of human Liberty is all that remains of it, and my Lord Shallow
keeps the key of it ! If Mr. Owen will get it out of his hands,
with the aid of Mr. Wilberforce and the recommendation of The
Courier, we will " applaud him to the very echo, which shall
applaud again." Till then, we must content ourselves with
" chaunting remnants of old lauds" in the manner of OpheHa : —
" No, no, he is gone, and we cast away moan,
And will he not come again,
And will he not come again ?"
Perhaps, one of these days, he may . . . . " like a cloud over the
Caspian :" then if ever, and never till then, human nature will
hold up its head again, and the Holy and Triple Alliance will be
dissolved. But as to this bald spectre of Liberty and Necessity
conjured up by Mr. Owen from the falls of the Clyde, with a
99
primer in one hand, and a spinning-jenny in the other, coming
down from the Highlands in a Scotch mist, and discoverable
only by second-sight, we may fairly say to it —
" Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold ;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,
Which thou dost glare with."
Why does Mr. Owen put the word " New," in black-letter at
the head of the advertisements of his plan of reform ? In what
does the New Lanark differ from the old Utopia ? Is Scotland,
after all, the true Lubber-land ? Or must the whole world be
converted into a cotton-factory? Does not Mr. Owen know that
the same scheme, the same principles, the same philosophy of mo-
tives and actions, of causes and consequences, of knowledge and
virtue, of virtue and happiness, were rife in the year 1793, were
noised abroad then, were spoken on the house-tops, were whis-
pered in secret, were published in quarto and duodecimo, in
political treatises, in plays, poems, songs, and romances — made
their way to the bar, crept into the church, ascended the rostrum,
thinned the clashes of the universities, and robbed " Durham's
golden stalls" of their hoped-for ornaments, by sending our aspir-
ing youth up to town to learn philosophy of the new teachers of
philosophy; that these " New Views of Society" got into the
hearts of poets and the brains of metaphysicians, took possession
of the fancies of boys and women, and turned the heads of almost
the whole kingdom : but that there was one head which they never
got possession of, that turned the heads of the whole kingdom
round again, stopped the progress of philosophy and necessity by
wondrous fortitude, and that " thus repelled, philosophy fell into
a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a watching, then into a
weakness, thence to a lightness, and by this declension, to the
lamentable state wherein it now lies," — hooted by the boys,
laughed at by the women, spit at by fools, trod upon by knaves,
damned by poet-laureates, whined over by maudlin metaphysi-
cians, rhymed upon by mincing ballad-makers, ridiculed in ro-
H 2
100
mances, belied in histories and travels, pelted by the mob, sneered at
by the court, driven from the country, kicked out of society, and
forced to take refuge and to lie snug for twenty years in the New
Lanark mills, with the connivance of the worthy proprietor,
among the tow and spindles ; from whence he lets us understand
that it is coming up again to Whitehall-stairs, like a spring-tide
with the full of the moon, and floating on the blood that has
flowed for the restoration of the Bourbons, under the patronage
of the nobility, the gentry, Mr. Wilberforce, and the Prince Re-
gent, and all those who are governed, like these great personages, by
no other principle than truth, and no other wish than the good
of mankind ! This puff will not take with us : we are old birds,
not to be caught with chaflF: we shall not purchase in this new
lottery, where there are all prizes and no blanks ! We are inclined
to throw Mr. Owen's " New View," behind the fire-place, as
we believe most people do the letter they receive from the pro-
prietors of the lucky lottery-office, informing them that their
ticket was drawn a blank the first day, and in the postscript soli-
citing their future favours !
Mr. Owen may think that we have all this while been jesting,
when we have been in sad and serious earnest. Well, then, we
will give him the reason why we differ with him, out of " an old
saw," as good as most " modern instances." It is contained in
this sentence : — " If to do were as easy as to teach others what
were good to be done, chapels had been churches, and poor
men's cottages princes' palaces." Our author has discovered no
new theory ; he has advanced no new reasons. The former rea-
sons were never answered, but the plan did not succeed. Why
then does he think his must? All that he has done has been
to leave out the reasons for his paradoxes, and to give his con-
clusions in capitals. This may take for a time with Mr. Wilber-
force and the Methodists, who like hieroglyphics, but it cannot
last. Here is a plan, strange as it may seem, " a new View of So-
ciety," published by two of our most loyal booksellers, and what is
still more extraordinary, puffed in The Courier as an extremely
101
practical, practicable, solid, useful, and good sort of work, which
proposes no less than to govern the world without religion and
without law, by the force of reason alone ! This project is in
one of its branches dedicated to the Prince Regent, by which (if
carried into effect) he would be stuck up in his life-time as " a
useless piece of antiquity;" and in another part is dedicated to
Mr. Wilberforce, though it would by the same rule convert that
little vital member of the community into " a monkey preacher,"
crying in the wilderness with no one to hear him, and sneaking
about between his character and his conscience, in a state of lu-
dicrous perplexity, as indeed he always appears to be at present !
What is most remarkable is, that Mr. Owen is the first philoso-
pher we ever heard of, who recommended himself to the great by
telling them disagreeable truths. A man that comes all the way
from the banks of the Clyde acquires a projectile force that ren-
ders him irresistible. He has access, we understand, to the men
in office, to the members of parliament, to lords and gentlemen.
He comes to " pull an old house about their ears," to batter
down all their establishments, new or old, in church or in state,
civil, political, and military, and he quietly walks into their houses
with his credentials in his pocket, and reconciles them to the
prospect of the innumerable Houses of Industry he is about to
erect on the scite of their present sinecures, by assuring them of
the certainty of his principles and the infallibility of his practice,
in building up and pulling down. His predecessors were clumsy
fellows ; but he is an engineer, who will be sure to do their busi-
ness for them. He is not the man to set the Thames on fire, but
he will move the world, and New Lanark is the place he has
fixed his lever upon for this purpose. To shew that he goes
roundly to work with great people in developing his formidable
system of the formation of character, he asks, p. 7 of the se-
cond Essay, —
" How much longer shall we continue to allow generation af-
ter generation to be taught crime from their infancy, and when so
taught, hunt them like beasts of the forest, until they are eutan-
102
gled beyond escape in the toils and nets of the law ? When, if
the circumstances from youth of these poor uripitied sufferers had
been reversed with those who are even surrounded with the pomp
and dignity of justice, these latter would have been at the bar of
the culprit, and the former would have been in the judgment-
seat.
" Had the present Judges of these realms, whose conduct
compels the admiration of surrounding states, been born and
educated in St. Giles's, or some similar situation, is it not rea-
sonable to conclude, as they possess native energies and abilities,
that ere this they would have been at the head of their then pro-
fession, and in consequence of that superiority and proficiency,
have already suffered imprisonment, transportation, or death f
Or can we for a moment hesitate to decide, that if some of those
men whom our laws, dispensed by the present Judges, have
doomed to suffer capital punishment, had been born, trained,
and surrounded as these Judges were born, trained, and sur-
rounded ; that some of those so imprisoned, transported, or
hanged, would have been the identical individuals who would
have passed the same awful sentences on our present highly es-
teemed dignitaries of the Law'P
This is a delicate passage. So then according to the author
of the " New View of Society," the Prince Regent of these
realms, instead of being at the head of the allied sovereigns of
Europe, might, in other circumstances, have been at the head of
a gang of bravoes and assassins ; Lord Castlereagh, on the same
principle, and by parity of reasoning, without any alteration in
his nature or understanding, but by the mere difference of situa-
tion, might have been a second Count Fathom; Mr. Vansittart,
the chancellor of the exchequer, might, if he had turned his hand
that way in time, have succeeded on the snaffling lay, or as a
pick-pocket; Lord Wellington might have entered houses, instead
of entering kingdoms, by force ; the Lord-chancellor might have
been a Jew-broker ; the Marquis of or Lord a
bawd, and their sons, tapsters and bullies at bagnios ; the Queen
103
(God bless her) might have been an old washer-woman, taking her
snufF and gin among her gossips, and her daughters, if they had
not been princesses, might have turned out no better than they
should be! Here's a levelling rogue for you! The world turned
inside out, with a witness ! — Such are Mr. Owen's general princi-
ples, to which we have nothing to say, and such his mode of illus-
trating them in his prefaces and dedications, which we do not think
the most flattering to persons in power. We do not, however, wish
him to alter his tone : he goes swimmingly on at present, " with
cheerful and confident thoughts." His schemes thus far are tole-
rated, because they are remote, visionary, inapplicable. Neither
the great world nor the world in general care any thing about
New Lanark, nor trouble themselves whether the workmen there
go to bed drunk or sober, or whether the wenches are got with
child before or after the marriage ceremony. Lanark is distant,
Lanark is insignificant. Our statesmen are not afraid of the per-
fect system of reform he talks of, and, in the meantime, his cant
against reform in parliament, and about Bonaparte, serves as a
practical diversion in their favour. But let the good which Mr.
Owen says he has done in one poor village be in danger of be-
coming general, — let his plan for governing men by reason,
without the assistance of the dignitaries of the church and the
dignitaries of the law, but once get wind and be likely to be put
in practice, and his dreams of elevated patronage will vanish.
Long before he has done as much to overturn bigotry and super-
stition in this country, as he says Bonaparte did on the continent,
(though he thinks the restoration of what was thus overturned also
a great blessing) Mr. Wilberforce will have cut his connection.
When we see Mr. Owen brought up for judgment before Lord
Ellenborough, or standing in the pillory, we shall begin to think
there is something in this New Lanark Scheme of his. On the
other hand, if he confines himself to general principles, steering
clear of practice, the result will be the same, if ever his princi-
ples become sufficiently known and admired. Let his " New
View of Society" but make as many disciples as the " Enquiry
104
concerning Political Justice," and we shall soon see how the tide
will turn about. There will be a fine hue and cry raised by all
the good and wise, by all " those acute minds" who, Mr. Owen
tells us, have not been able to find a flaw in his reasonings, but
who will soon discover a flaw in his reputation. Dr. Parr will
preach a Spital sermon against him ; lectures will be delivered in
Lincoln's Jnn Hall, to prove that a perfect man is such another
chimera as a golden mountain ; Mr. Malthus will set up his two
checks of vice and misery as insuperable bars against i»im ; Mr.
Southey will put him into the " Quarterly Review ;" his name
will be up in the newspapers, The Times, The Courier, and The
Morning Post; the three estates will set their faces against him;
he will be marked as a Jacobin, a leveller, an incendiary, in all
parts of the three kingdoms ; he will be avoided by his friends,
and become a bye-word to his enemies ; his brother magistrates
of the county of Lanark will refuse to sit on the bench witij him ;
the spindles of his spinning-jennies will no longer turn on their
soft axles ; he will have gone out for wool, and will go home
shorn ; and he will find that it is not so easy or safe a task as he
imagined to make fools wise, and knaves honest; in short, to
make mankind understand their own interests, or those who go-
vern them care for any interest but their own. Otherwise, all
this matter would have been settled long ago. As it is, things
will most probably go on as they have done, till some comet
comes with its tail ; and on the eve of some grand and radical
reform, puts an end to the question.
The Speech of Charles C. Western, Esq. M. P. on
the Distressed State of the Agriculture of' the Country, de-
livered in the House of Commons, March 7, 18 16.
The Speech of Henry Brougham, Esq. M. P. on the
same subject, delivered in the same place, April 9, 1816.
This is a sore subject; and it is here handled with much ten-
derness and delicacy. It puts one in mind of the traveller's nose,
105
and the nuns of Strasburgh, in the tale of Slaukenbergius. '* I
will touch it, said one ; I dare not touch it, said another ; I wish
I had touched it, said a third ; let me touch it, said a fourth."
While the gentlewomen were debating the point, the traveller
with the great nose rode on. It would be no ungracious task to
treat of the distresses of the country, if all were distressed alike ;
but that is not the case ; nor is it possible to trace the necessities
of one part of the community to their source, or to hint at a
remedy, without glancing invidiously at the superfluities of others.
" Aye, there's the rub, that makes calamity of so long life.'* The
speeches before us are to the subject what a veil is to a lady's
face, or a blind to a window. Almost all that has been said or
written upon it is a palpable delusion — an attempt to speak out
and say nothing ; to oppose something that might be done, and
propose something that cannot be done ; to direct attention to the
subject, and divert it from it ; to do something and nothing ; and
to come to this potent conclusion, that while nothing is done,
nothing can be done. " But have you then any remedy to pro-
pose instead ?" What sort of a remedy do you mean ? *' Oh,
one equally safe and efficacious, that shall set every thing to rights,
and leave every thing just as it is, that does not touch either the
tythes or the national debt, nor places and pensions, nor property
of any kind, except the poor's fund ; that you may take from them
to make them independent of the rich, as you leave Lord Camden
in possession of thirty thousand a year to make him independent of
the poor." — Why, then, what if the l^ord Chancellor and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer were to play a game at push-pin on
the top of St. Paul's ; or if Mr. Brougham and Mr. Horner were
to play at cat's-cradle on the top of the Monument; or if the
little garden between the Speaker's house and the river-side were
to be sown with pearls and cockle-shells? Or if Pshaw!
Patience, and shuffle the cards.
The great problem of our great problem-tinders appears to
be, to take nothing from the rich, and give it to the poor. That
106
will never do. We find them and their schemes of diversion well
described in Rabelais, book v. chap. xxii.
" How Queen Whim's Officers were employed, and how the
said Lady retained us among her Abstractors.
" I then saw a great number of the Queen's officers, who made
blackamoors white, as fast as hops, just rubbing their bellies
with the bottom of a pannier.
" Others, with three couples of foxes in one yoke, ploughed a
sandy shore, and did not lose their seed.
" Others washed burnt tiles, and made them lose their colour.
'* Others extracted water out of pumice-stones, braying them
a good while in a mortar, and changed their substance.
*' Others sheered asses, and thus got long fleece wool.
" Others gathered oflf of thorns grapes, and figs ofif of thistles.
" Others stroked he-goats by the dugs, and saved their milk,
and much they got by it,
" Others washed asses' heads, without losing their soap.
*' Others taught cows to dance, and did not lose their fiddling.
*' Others pitched nets to catch the wind, and took cock lob-
sters in them.
*' Others out of nothing made great things, and made great
things return to nothing.
" Others made a virtue of necessity, and the best of a bad
market ; which seemed to me a very good piece of work.
** I saw two Gibroins by themselves, keeping watch on the top
of a tower ; and we were told they guarded the moon from the
wolves."
The war has cost the country five or six hundred millions of
money. This has not been a nominal expence, a playing at ducks
and drakes with the King's picture on the water, or a manufac-
turing of bank-notes, and then lighting our pipes with them, but
a real bona fide waste of the means, wealth, labour, produce, or
resources of the country, in the carrying on of the war. About
107
one hundred of these five or six hundred millions have been
sent directly out of the country in loans to our Allies, from the
year 1793 to the year IS 15, inclusive, during which period
there is not a single year in which we did not (from our desire of
peace with the legitimate government of that country) subsidise
one or all of the powers of Europe to carry on war against the
rebels, regicides, republicans, and usurpers of France. Now the
interest of this money alone would be five millions yearly, which
would be nearly enough to pay the amount of the poor-rates of
the whole country, which is seven millions of our yearly taxes, or
might at least be applied to mitigate the mild severity of
Mr. Malthus's sweeping clauses on that defenceless part of the
subject. Here is a hundred millions then gone clean out of the
country: there are four or five hundred millions more which
have been sunk in the expenses of the war, and which might as
well have been sunk in the sea ; or what has been saved out of the
wreck by those who have been most active in running the vessel
aground, is ir the hands of persons who are in no hurry that the
public should go snacks with them in their excessive good fortune.
In all three cases, and under each several head of loans, waste,
or monopoly. John Bull pays the piper, or the interest of the
whole money in taxes. He is just so many hundred millions the
worse for the war, (whoever may be the better for it) not merely
in paper, whi:h would be nothing, nor in golden guineas, which
would be souething ; but in what is better and more substantial
than either, h goods and chattels, in the produce of the soil, and
the work of lis hands — in the difference between what the in-
dustry of man, left to itself, produces in time of peace for the
benefit of mm, and what the same industry, under the direction
of governmeit, produces in time of war for the destruction of
others, withoit any benefit to himself, real, imaginary, or pre-
tended ; we nean in a physical and economical point of view,
which is here the question — a question, which seems to last when
the religion, politics, and morality of the affair are over. We
have said thai the expenses of the war might as well have been
108
sunk in the sea ; and so they might, for they have been sunk in un*
productive labour, that is, in maintaining large establishments, and
employing great numbers of men in doing nothing or mischief;
for example, in making ships to destroy other ships, guns and
gun-powder to blow out men's brains, pikes and swords to run
them through the body, drums and fifes to drown the noise of
cannon and the whizzing of bullets ; in making caps and coats to
deck the bodies of those who live by killing others ; in buying up
pork and beef, butter and cheese, to enable them to do this
with more effect : in barracks, in transport-ships, in baggage and
baggage-waggons, in horses, bridles and saddles, in suttlers and
followers of the camp, in chaplains of the regiment, in common
trulls, and the mistresses of generals and commanders in chief;
in contractors, in army and navy agents, their partners, clerks,
relations, dependants, wives, families, servants in and out of livery,
their town and country houses, coaches, curricles, parks, gardens,
grottos, hot-houses, green-houses, pictures, statues, libraries; in
treasury scribes, in secretaries and under-secretaries of state, of the
foreign, colonial, and war departments, with their swarms of un-
derlings, all of whom are maintained out of the labour and sweat
of the country, and for all of whom, and for all thai they do (put
together) the country is not one pin the better, or at least, one
penny more in pocket, than if they were at the lottom of the
Channel. The present may have been the most jiBt and neces-
sary war, in a political, moral, and religious point of view, that
ever was engaged in ; but it has also been the m(st expensive ;
and what is worse, the expense remains just the sane, though it
may have been the most unjust and unnecessary in the world.
We have paid for it, and we must pay for it equally n either case,
and wholly out of our own pockets. The price of restoring the
Pope, the Inquisition, the Bourbons, and the doctine of Divine
Right, is half of our nine hundred millions of debt That is the
amount of the government bill of costs, presentee to John Bull
for payment, not of the principal but the interest ; hat is what he
has got by the war ; the load of taxes at his bacz; with which
109
he comes out of his glorious five and twenty years' struggle, hke
Christian's load of sins, which whether it will not fall off from his
back like Christian's, into the Slough of Despond, will be seen
before long. The difference between the expense of a war or a
peace establishment is just the difference between a state of pro-
ductive and unproductive labour. Now this whole question,
which from its complexity puzzles many people, and has given
rise to a great deal of partly wilful and partly shallow sophistry,*
may be explained in two words. — Suppose 1 give a man five
shillings a day for going out in a boat and catching fish for me.
This is paying for productive labour : that is, I give him so nmch
for what he does, or a claim upon so much of the public stock :
but in taking so much from the stock by laying out his five shil-
lings, he adds so much to it by his labour, or the disposal of his
time in catching fish. But if I, having the money <to do what I
please with, give him five shillings a day for shooting at crows, he
is paid equally for his trouble, and accordingly takes so much
from the public stock, while he adds nothing to it but so much
carrion. So if the government pay him so much a-day for
shooting at Frenchmen and Republicans, this is a tax, a loss, a
burthen to the country, without any thing got by it ; for we can-
not, after all, eat Frenchmen and Republicans when we have killed
them. War in itself is a thriving, sensible traffic only to canni-
bals ! Again — if I give a man five shillings for making a pair of
shoes, this is paying for productive labour, viz. for labour that
is useful, and that must be performed by some one ; but if 1 give
the same man five shillings for standing on his head or behind my
chair while 1 am picking my teeth, or for running up a hill and down
again for a wager — this is unproductive labour, nothing comes of
it, and though the man who is thus idly employed lives by it,
others starve, upon whose pittance and whose labour he lives
through me. Such is the nature and effect of war ; all the
energies of which tend to waste, and to throw an additional and
* See an article on this subject in Mr. Coleridge's Frienel.
no
heavy burthen upon the country, in proportion to the extent and
length of time that it is carried on. It creates so many useless
members of the community : every man paid by the war out of
the taxes paid by the people, is, in fact, a dead body fastened to
a living one, that by its weight drags it to the earth. A five and
twenty years' war, and nine hundred millions of debt, are really
a couple of millstones round the neck of a country, that must
naturally press her down a little in the scale of prosperity. That
seems to be no riddle. We defy any sophist to answer this state-
ment of the necessary tendency of war in its general principle to
ruin and impoverish a country. We are not to wonder, when it
does so ; but when other causes operate to counteract or retard
this tendency. What is extraordinary in our own case is, that
the pernicious effects of war have been delayed so long, not that
they have come upon us at last.* — That money laid out in war is
thrown away is self-evident from this single circumstance, that
government never refund. The reason is, because they never do
any thing with their money that produces money again. They
are the worst bankers in the world. The Exchequer is a true
Sinking Fund. If you lend money to a farmer, a manufacturer, a
merchant, he employs it in getting something done, for which
others will pay, because it is useful ; as in raising corn, in weaving
cotton, in bringing home sugar or tobacco. But money sunk in
a war brings in no returns — except of killed and wounded. What
will any one give the government for the rotten bones that He
buried at Walcheren, or the dry ones at Waterloo ? Not a six-pence.
They cannot make a collection of wooden legs or dangling sleeves
from the hospitals at Greenwich or Chelsea to set up a raffle or
a lottery. They cannot bring the fruits of the war to auction, or
put up the tottering throne of the Bourbons to the best bidder.
* "We are somewhat in the situation of Captain Macheath in the " Beggar's
Opera." " The road had done the Captain justice, but the gaming-table had
been his ruin." We have been pretty successful on the high seas ; but the
Bank have swallowed it all up. The taxes have outlived the war, trade, and
commerce. They are tlie soul, the immortal part of the Pitt system.
Ill
They can neither bring back a drop of the blood that has been
shed, nor recover a shilling of the treasure that has been
wasted. If the expenses of the war are not a burden to the
people, which must sink it according to their weight, why do not
(government take the whole of this thriving concern into their own
hands, and pay the national debt out of the Droits of Admiralty ?
In short, the way to ascertain this point is, by the old method of
reductio ad absurdum : Suppose we had to pay the expenses of
such another peace-establishment and such another war. Who
does not see that they would eat up the whole resources of the
country, as the present peace-establishment and actual debt do
just one half ?
Speeches in Parliament on the Distresses of the
Country, by Mr. Western and Mr. Brougham.
(concluded.)
« Come, let ns leave off children's play, and go to push-pin."
Polite Conversation.
Dec. 29, 1816.
The war has wasted the resources of the country in foolery,
which the country has now to pay for in a load of taxes on its
remaining resources, its actual produce and labour. The tax-
gatherer is a government-machine that takes sixty-five millions
a-year from the bankrupt pockets of the nation, to give to those
who have brought it into that situation ; who takes so much from
the necessaries of life belonging to the poor, to add to the super-
fluities of the rich ; who adds so much to the hard labour of the
working part of the community, to " relieve the killing languor
and over-laboured lassitude of those who have nothing to do ; "
who, in short, out of the grinding poverty and ceaseless toil of
those who pay the taxes, enables those who receive them to live
in luxury and idleness.
112
Mr. Burke, whom we have just quoted, has said, that " if the
poor were to cut the throats of the rich, they would not have a
meal the more for it." First, (for truth is the first thing in our
thoughts, and not to give offence the second) this is a falsehood ;
a greater one than the answer of a Bond-street lounger, who
coming out of a confectioner's shop, where he has had a couple
of basons of turtle-soup, an ice, some jellies, and a quantity of
pastry, as he saunters out picking his teeth and putting the change
into his pocket, says to a beggar at the door, " I have nothing
for you." We confess, we have always felt it an aukward circum-
stance to be accosted in this manner, when we have been caught
in the act of indulging a sweet tooth, and it costs us an additional
penny. The rich and poor may at present be compared to the
two classes of frequenters of pastry-cooks' shops, those on the
outside and those on the in. We would seriously advise the
latter, who see the gaunt faces staring at them through the glass-
door, to recollect, that though custard is nicer than bread, bread
is the greatest necessary of the two. — We had forgot Mr. Burke's
sophism, to which we reply in the second place, that the cutting
of throats is a figure of speech, like the dagger which he pro-
duced in the House of Commons, not necessary to the specu-
lative decision of the question. The most civil, peaceable, and
complaisant way of putting it is this — whether if the rich were to
give all that they are worth to the poor, the latter would be none
the richer for it ? If so, the rich would be none the poorer, and
so far could be no losers on Mr. Burke's own hypothesis, which
supposes, with that magnanimity of contempt for plain matter of
fact which distinguished the author's theories, that the rich have
nothing, and the poor have every thing ? Had not Mr. Burke a
pension of 4000/. a-year ? Was this nothing ? But even this is
not the question neither. It is not, whether if the rich were to
part with all they have to the poor (which is a mere absurdity)
but whether if the rich do not take all they have left from the
poor (which we humbly hope is a proposition that has common
sense in it) the latter may not be the better oflf with something to
113
live upon than with nothing ? Whether, if the whole load of
taxes could be taken off from them, it would not be a relief to
them ? VVhedier, if half the load of taxes were taken off from
them, it would not be a relief to them ? Whether, if any part of
the load of taxes that can be taken off from them were taken off,
it would nut in the same proportion be a relief to them ? We
will venture to say, that no one will deny these propositions who
does not receive so much a year for falsehood and impudence.
The resistance which is made to the general or abstract principle
is not intended to prevent the extreme sweeping application of
that principle to the plundering or (as Mr. Burke will have it) to
the cutting the throats of the rich, but it is a manoeuvre, by getting
rid of the general principle altogether, viz. that the extravagance
and luxury of the rich, war, taxes, &c. have a tendency to increase
the distresses of the poor, or measures of retrenchment and re-
form to lighten those distresses — to give carte-hlanche to the
government to squander ihe wealth, the blood, the happiness of
the nation at pleasure ; to grant jobs, places, pensions, sinecures,
reversions without end, to grind down, to starve and impoverish
the country with systematic impunity. It is a legerdemain trick
played off by hireling politicians, to enable their patrons and em-
ployers to pick our pockets and laugh in our faces at the same
time.
It has been said by such persons that taxes are not a burthen to
the country ; that the wealth collected in taxes returns through
those who receive to those who pay them, only divided more equally
and beneficially among all parties, just (they say) as the vapours
and moisture of the earth collected in the clouds return to enrich
the soil in soft and fertilizing showers. We shall set ourselves
to shew that this is riot true.
Suppose a society of ten persons, without taxes to pay, and
who live on their own labour, on the produce of the ground, and
the exchange of one commodity among themselves for another.
Some of these persons will be naturally employed in tilling the
ground, others in tending cattle, others in making instruments of
I
114
husbandry, others in weaving cloth, others in making shoes, others
in building houses, others in making roads, others in buying and
selling, others in fetching and carrying what the others want. All
will be employed in something that ihey want themselves, or that
others want. In such a state of society, nothing will be given for no-
thing. If a man has a bushel of wheat, and only wants half of it, he
will give the other half to some one, for making him a coat or a
pair of shoes. As every one will be paid for what he does out of
the earnings of the labour of others, no one will waste his time or
his strength in doing any thing that is not wanted by some one
else, that is not as useful and necessary to his subsistence and
comfort, and more so, than the commodity which he gives in ex-
change for it. There will be no unproductive labour. What
each person gets will be either in proportion to what he has done
for himself, or what he has added to the comforts of others.
Exchange there will be no robbery. The wealth of all will be
the result of the exertions of each individual, and will circulate
equally and beneficially, because those who produce that wealth
will share it among themselves. This is an untaxed state of
society, where wealth changes hands indeed, but finds its level,
notwithstanding. — Now suppose two other individuals to be fas-
tened upon this society of ten persons — a government-man and a
fund-holder. They change the face of it in an instant. The
equilibrium, the balance is upset. The amount of the wealth of
the society before was a thousand pounds a-year, suppose. The
two new-comers take a writ out of their pockets, by which they
quietly lay hands on five hundred of it as their fair portion.
Where are the ten persons now f Mr. Burke, Mr. Coleridge,
Mr. Vansittart, The Courier, say — Just where they were before !
We say. No such thing. For three reasons : 1 . It cannot be
denied that the interlopers, the government-man and his friend,
the fund-holder, who has lent him money to sport with on all
occasions, are substantial botid Jide persons, like other men,
who live by eating, drinking. See. and who, if they only shared
equally with the other ten what they had got amongst them,
115
(for they add nothing to the common stock) must be a sufficient
burthen upon the rest, that is, must diminish the comforts or
increase the labour of each person one-fifth. To hear the other
side talk, one would suppose that those who raise and are paid
out of the taxes never touch a farthing of them, that they have no
occasion for them, that they neither eat nor drink, nor buy
clothing, or build houses with them ; that they live upon air,
or that harmless food, bank notes (a thing not to speak of),
and that all the ntoney they are so anxious to collect is distri-
buted by them again for the sole benefit of others, or passes back
througli the Exchequer, as if it were a conduit-pipe or empty
tunnel, into the hands of the original proprietors, without
diminution or diversion. Now this is not so. 2. Not only do
our government-man and his friend live like other people upon
their means, but they live better than other people, for they have
better means, that is, these two take half of what the other ten
get. They would be fools if they gave it back to them ; no,
depend upon it, they lay out their five hundred a-year upon them-
selves, for their own sole use, benefit, pleasure, mirth, and pas-
time. For each of these gentlemen has just five times as much to
spend as any of those that he lives upon at free cost, and he has
nothing to do but to think how he shall spend it. He eats and
drinks as much as he can, and always of the best and most costly.
It is pretended that the difference in the consumption of the pro-
duce of the soil is little or nothing, for a poor man's belly will
hold as much as a rich man's. But not if the one is full, and the
other empty. The man who lives upon the taxes, feasts upon
venison and turtle, and crams himself to the throat with fish,
flesh, and fowl ; the man who pays the taxes, upon a crust of
mouldy bread, and fat rusty bacon : the man who receives the
taxes drinks rich and sparkling wines, hock and canary ; the man
who pays them, sour small beer. If the poor man gets drunk
and leads an idle life, his family starve : the rich man drinks his
three bottles a day and does nothing, while his family live on the
fat of the land. If the poor man dies of hard labour and poor
I 2
116
living, his family comes to the parish ; if the rich man dies of
hard Hviiig and want of exercise, he leaves his family to be pro-
vided for by the state. But, 3. All that the government-man and
the fund-holder do not spend upon iheir bellies, in revelling and
gormandising, they lay out upon their backs, iheir houses, their
carriages, &c. in inordinate demands upon the labour of the
former ten persons, who are now employed, not in working for
one another, but in pampering the pride, ostentation, vanity,
folly, or vices, of our two gentlemen comers. After glutting their
physical appetites, they take care to apply all the rest to the gra-
tification of their factitious, arbitrary, and fantastic wants, which
are unlimited, and which the universe could not supply. *' They
toil not, neither do they spin, and yet even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these :" — while the poor are
clothed in rags, and the dogs lick up their sores. The money
that is taken from you and me, or the more industrious members
of the community, and that we should have laid out in having
snug, comfortable houses built for us all, or two bed-rooms for
our families instead of one, is employed, now that it has got into
the tax-gatherer's hands, in hiring the same persons to build two
enormous houses for the government-man and the fund -holder,
who live in palaces while we live in hovels. What are we,
the people, the original ten men, the better for that ? The taxes
enable those who receive them to pay our masons, carpenters, &c.
for working for them. If we had not been forced to pay the
money in taxes, the same persons would have been employed by
us for our common benefit. Suppose the government-man takes
it into his head to build a colossus, a rotunda, a pyramid, or any
thing else equally absurd and gigantic, it would, we say, be a
nuisance in proportion to its size. It would be ten times as great
a nuisance if it was ten times bigger. If it covered a whole
county, it would ruin the landed interest. If it was spread over
the whole country, the country must starve. When the govern-
ment-man and the fund-holder have got their great houses built,
they must next have them furnished with proportionable magni-
117
ficence, and by the same means ; with Persian and Turkey car-
pets, with Egyptian sofas, down beds, silk curtains, china vases,
services of phtte, tables, chairs, stoves, glasses, mirrors, chande-
jiers, paper hangings, pictures, busts, ornaments, kickshaws
without number, while you and I live on a mud floor, with bare
walls, stuck with a penny ballad, with a joint-stool to sit upon, a
tea-pot without a tea-spout to drink out of, a truckle-bed or some
straw and a bhinket to lie upon ! Yet Mr. Burke says, that if we
were suddenly converted into state-pensioners with thirty-thousand
a-year, we could not furnish our houses a bit the better for it.
This is like Lord Peter, in the Tale of a Tub. Then the go-
vernment-man and his friend must have their train of coaches,
horses, dogs, footmen dressed in blue, green, yellow, and red,
lazy rascals, making work for the taylor, the hatter, the shoe-
maker, the button-maker, the hair-dresser, the gold and silver
laceman, to powder, dress, and trick them out, that they may
lounge behind their mistresses' coaches, walk before their sedan
chairs, help on their master's stockings, block up his doors, and
perform a variety of little nameless offices, much to the ease and
satisfaction of the great, but not of the smallest benefit to any one
else. With respect to the article of dogs and horses, a word in
Mr. Malthus's ear. They come under the head of consumption,
and a swinging item they are. They eat up the food of the chil-
dren of the poor. The pleasure and coach-horses kept in this
kingdom consume as much of the produce of the soil as would
maintain all the paupers in it. Let a tax be laid upon them
directly, to defray the expense of the poor-rates, and to suspend
the operation of Mr. Malthus's geometrical and arithmetical
ratios. We see no physical necessity why that ingenious divine
should put a stop to the propagation of the species, that he may
keep two sleek geldings in his stable. We have lately read Swift's
account of the Houynhyms and Yahoos. There is some truth
in it; but still it has not reconciled us to Mr. Malthus's proposal
of starving the children of the poor to feed the horses of the rich.
But no more of that ! We have said enough at present to shew
118
how the taxes fly away with the money of a nation ; how they go
into the hands of the governnaent-man and the fund-holder, and
do not return into the pockets of the people, who pay them. For
the future, Mr. Burke's assertion, that the taxes are hke the
vapours that ascend into the clouds and return to the earth in fer-
tilizing showers, may pass for an agreeable metaphor, but for
nothing more. A pretty joke truly, this, of the people's receiving
their taxes back again in payment for what the rich want of them.
It is as if I should buy a pound of beef in a butcher's shop, and
take the money out of his own till to pay him ! It is as if a bill
is presented to me for payment, and I ask the notary for the
money to take it up with ! It is as if a Noble Earl was to win
50,000/. of a Noble Duke over-night, and offer to return it to
him tlie next morning, for one of his estates ! It is as if Mr.
Burke had been robbed of a bond for 4000/. and the fortunate
possessor had offered to restore it, on receiving in lieu his house
and gardens at Beaconsfield ! Having thus pointed out the nature
of the distress, we need not inquire far for the remedy.
A Lay-Sermon on the Distresses of the Country,
addressed to the Middle and Higher Orders. By S. T,
Coleridge, Esq. Printed for Gale and Fenner, price Is.*
-*' Fuuctiou
Is smuther'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not."
" Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd."
Sept.S, 1816.
This Lay-Sermon puts us in mind of Mahomet's coffin,
whi' h was suspended between heaven and earth, or of the flying
island at Laputa, which hovered over the head of Gulliver. The
* It may be proper to notice, that this article was written before the Dis-
course wliich it professes to criticise had appeared in print, or probably existed
any where, but in repeated newspaper advertisements.
119
ingenious author, in a preface, which is a master-piece in its kind,
having neither beginning, middle, nor end, apologizes for liaving
published a work, not a line of which is written, or ever likel} to be
written. He has, it seems, resorted to this expedient as the only
way of appearing before the public in a manner worthy of himself
and his genius, and descants on the several advantages to be
derived from this original mode of composition ; — That as long
as he does not put pen to paper, the first sentence cannot con-
tradict the second ; that neither his reasonings nor his conclusions
can be liable to objection, in the abstract; that omne ignotuin
pro magnijico est, is an axiom laid down by some of the best and
wisest men of antiquity ; that hitherto his performance, in the
opinion of his readers, has fallen short of the vastness of his
designs, but that no one can find fault with what he does not
write ; that while he merely haunts the public imagination with
obscure noises, or by announcing his spiritual appearance for the
next week, and does not venture out in propria persona with his
shroud and surplice on, the Cock-lane Ghost of mid-day, he may
escape in a whole skin without being handled by the mob, or
uncased by the critics ; and he considers it the safest way to
keep up the importance of his oracular communications, by
letting them remain a profound secret both to himself and the
world.
In this instance, we think the writer's modesty has led him into
a degree of unnecessary precaution. We see no sort of difference
between his published and his unpublished compositions. It
is just as impossible to get at the meaning of the one as the other.
No man ever yet gave Mr. Coleridge " a penny for his thoughts."
His are all maiden ideas ; immaculate conceptions. He is the
" Secret Tattle " of the press. Each several work exists only ia
the imagination of the author, and is quite inaccessible to the
understandings of his readers — " Yet virgin of Proserpina from
Jove." — We can give just as good a guess at the design of this
Liy-Sermon, which is not published, as of the Friend, the
Preliminary Articles in the Courier, the Watchman, the Con^
120
clones ad Populum, or any of the other courtly or popular pub-
lications of the same author. Let the experiment be tried, and
if, on committing the manuscript to the press, the author is caught
in the fact of a single intelligible passage, we will be answerable
for Mr. Coleridge's loss of character. But we know the force
of his genius too well. What is his Friend itself but an enor-
mous title-page ; the longest and most tiresome prospectus that
ever was written ; an endless preface to an imaginary work ; a
table of contents that fills the whole volume ; a huge bill of fare
of all possible subjects, with not an idea to be had for love or
money ? One number consists of a grave-faced promise to
perfoim something impossible in the next ; and the next is taken
up with a long-faced apology for not having done it. Through
the whole of this work, Mr. Coleridge appears in the character
of the Unborn Doctor ; the very Barmecide of knowledge ; the
Prince of preparatory authors !
" He never is — but always to be wise."
He is the Dog in the Manger of literature, an intellectual Mar-
Plot, who will neither let any body else come to a conclusion,
nor come to one himself. * This gentleman belongs to the class
of eclectic philosophers ; but whereas they professed to examine
different systems, in order to select what Mas good in each, our
perverse critic ransacks all past or present theories, to pick out
their absurdities, and to abuse whatever is good in them. He
takes his notions of religion from the " sublime piety " of Jordan©
Bruno, and considers a belief in a God as a very subordinate
question to the worship of the Three Persons of the Trinity.
The thirty-nine articles and St. Athana^^ius's creed are, upon the
isame principle, much more fundamental parts of the Christian
♦ This work is so obscure, that it has been supposed to be written in cyplier,
and that it is necessary to read it upwards and downwards, or backwards and
forwards, as it happens, to make head or tail of it. The effect is excf edingly
like the qualms produced by the heaving of a ship becalmed at sea ; the motion
iiS so tedious, improgressive, and sickening.
121
religion than the miracles or gospel of Christ. He makes the
essence of devotion to consist in Atheism, the perfection of mo-
rality in a total disregard of consequences. He refers the great
excellence of the British Constitution to the prerogative of the
Crown, and conceives that the old French Constitution must have
been admirably defended by the States-General, which never met,
from the abuses of arbitrary power. He highly approves of
ex-officio informations and special juries, as the great bulwarks
of the liberty of the press ; taxes he holds to be a providential
relief to the distresses of the people, and war to be a state of
greater security than peace. He defines Jacobinism to be an
abstract attachment to liberty, truth, and justice ; and finding that
this principle has been abused or carried to excess, he argues that
i\uti- jacobinism, or the abstract principles of despotism, super-
stition, and oppression, are the safe, sure, and undeniable remedy
for the former, and the only means of restoring liberty, truth, and
justice in the world. Again, he places the seat of truth in the
heart, of virtue in the head ; damns a tragedy as shocking that
draws tears from the audience, and pronounces a comedy to be
inimitable, if nobody laughs at it ; labours to unsettle the plainest
things by far-fetched sophistry, and makes up for the want of
proof in matters of fact by the mechanical operations of the
spirit. He judges of men as he does of things. He would per-
suade you that Sir Isaac Newton was a money-scrivener, Voltaire
dull, Bonaparte a poor creature, and the late Mr. Howard a
misanthrope ; while he pays a willing homage to the Illustrious
Obscure, of whom he always carries a list in his pocket. His
creed is formed not from a distrust and disavowal of the exploded
errors of other systems, but from a determined rejection of their
acknowledged excellences. It is a transposition of reason and
common sense. He adopts all the vulnerable points of belief as
the triumphs of his fastidious philosophy, and holds a general
retainer for the defence of all contradictions in terms and im-
possibilities in practice. He is at cross-purposes with himself as
well as others, and discards his own caprices if ever he suspects
J 22
there is the least ground for them. Doubt succeeds to doubt,
cloud rolls over cloud, one paradox is driven out by another still
greater, in endless succession. He is equally averse to the pre-
judices of the vulgar, the paradoxes of the learned, or the habitual
convictions of his own mind. He moves in an unaccountable
diagonal between truth and falsehood, sense and nonsense,
sophistry and common-place, and only assents to any opinion
when he knows that all the reasons are against it. A matter of
fact is abhorrent to his nature : the very air of truth repels him.
He is only saved from the extremities of absurdity by combining
them all in his own person. Two things are indispensable to him
— to set out from no premises, and to arrive at no conclusion.
The consciousness of a single certainty would be an insupportable
weight upon his mind. He slides out of a logical deduction by
the help of metaphysics : and if the labyrinths of metaphysics did
not afford him " ample scope and verge enough," he would resort
to necromancy and the cabbala. He only tolerates the science of
astronomy for the sake of its connection with the dreams of
judicial astrology, and escapes from the Principia of Newton to
the jargon of Lily and Ashmole. All his notions are floating
and unfixed, like what is feigned of the first forms of things
flying about in search of bodies to attach themselves to ; but his
ideas seek to avoid all contact with solid substances. Innumerable
evanescent thoughts dance before him, and dazzle his sight, like
insects in the evening sun. Truth is to him a ceaseless round of
contradictions : he lives in the belief of a perpetual lie, and in
affecting to think what he pretends to say. His mind is in a
constant estate of flux and reflux : he is like the Sea-horse in the
Ocean ; he is the Man in the Moon, the Wandering Jew. — The
reason of all this is, that Mr. Coleridge has great powers of
thought and fancy, without will or sense. He is without a strong
feeling of the existence of any thing out of himself; and he has
neither purposes nor passions of his own to make him wish it to
be. All that he does or thinks is involuntary ; even his perversity
and self-will are so. They are nothing but a necessity of yielding
t23
to the slightest motive. Everlasting inconsequentiality marks all
that he attempts. All his impulses are loose, airy, devious, casual.
The strongest of his purposes is lighter than the gossamer, " that
wantons in the idle summer-air: " the brightest of his schemes a
bubble blown by an infant's breath, that rises, glitters, bursts in
the same instant : —
" Or like the Boiealis race,
That flit ere you can mark their place :
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever."
His mind has infinite activity, which only leads him into number-
less chimeras ; and infinite resources, which not being under the
guidance of his will, only distract and perplex him. His genius
has angel's wings ; but neither hands nor feet. He soars up to
heaven, circles the empyrean, or dives to the centre of the earth,
but he neither lays his hands upon the treasures of the one, nor
can find a resting place for his feet in the other. He is no sooner
borne to the utmost point of his ambition, than he is hurried away
from it again by the same fantastic impulse, or his own specific
levity. He has all the faculties of the human mind but one, and
yet without that one, the rest only impede and interfere with each
other — " Like to a man on double business bound who both
neglects." He would have done better if he had known less.
His imagination thus becomes metaphysical, his metaphysics fan-
tastical, his wit heavy, his arguments light, his poetry prose, his
prose poetry, his politics turned — but not to account. He belongs
to all parties and is of service to none. He gives up his in-
dependence of mind, and yet does not acquire independence of
fortune. He offends others without satisfying himself, and
equally by his servility and singularity, shocks the prejudices of all
about him. If he had had but common moral principle, that is,
sincerity, he would have been a great man ; nor hardly, as it is,
appears to us —
*' Less than arch-angel ruined, and the excess
" Of glory obscur'd."
124
We lose our patience when we think of the powers that he has
wasted, and compare them and their success with those, for
instance, of such a fellow as the , all whose ideas,
notions, apprehensions, comprehensions, feelings, virtues, genius,
skill, are comprised in the two words which Peachum describes
as necessary qualitications in his gang, " To stand himself and
bid others stand ! "
When his six Irish friends, the six Irish gentlemen, Mr.
Makins, Mr. Dimkley, Mr. Monaghan, Mr. Gollogher, Mr.
Gallaspy, and Mr. O'Keeffe, after an absence of several years,
discovered their old acquaintance John Buncle, sitting in a mixed
company at Harrowgate Wells, they exclaimed wiih one accord —
" There he is — nmkiug love to the finest woman in the universe ! "
So we may say at a venture of Mr. Coleridge — " There he is, at
this instant (no matter where) talking away among his gossips, as
if he were at the Court of Semiraniis, with the Soplii or Prestor
John." The place can never reach the height of his argument.
He should live in a world of enchantment, that things might
answer to his descriptions. His talk would suit the miracle of
the Conversion of Constantine, or Raphael's Assembly of the
Just. It is not short of that. His face would cut no figure
there, but his tongue would wag to some purpose. He is fit to
take up the deep pauses of conversation between Cardinals and
Angels — his cue would not be wanting in presence of the beatific
vision. Let him talk on for ever in this world and the next ; and
both worlds will be the better for it. But let him not write, or
pretend to write, nonsense. Nobody is the better for it. It was
a fine thought in Mr. Wordsworth to represent Cervantes at the
day of judgment and conflagration of the world carrying off the
romance of Don Quixote under his arm. We hope that Mr.
Coleridge, on the same occasion, will leave " the Friend " to
take its chance, and his " Lay Sermon " to get up into the
Limbo of Vanity, how it can.
125
The Statesman's Manual; or the Bible the best Guide
to Political Skill and Foresight. A Lay Sermon, addressed
to the Higher Classes of Society. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq.
Gale and Fenuer.
i)<rc. 29, 1S16.
Here is the true Simon Pure. We have by anticipation given
some account of this Sermon. We have only to proceed to spe-
cimens in illustration of what we have said.
It sets out wilh the following sentence: —
" If our own knowledge and information concerning the Bible
had been confined to the one fact of its immediate derivation from
God, we should still presume that it contained rules and assist-
ances for all conditions of men under all circumstances; and
therefore for communities no less than for individuals."
Now this is well said ; " and 'tis a kind of good deed to say
well." But why did not Mr. Coleridge keep on in the same
strain to the end of the chapter, instead of himself disturbing the
harmony and unanimity which he here very properly supposes to
exist on this subject, or que&tioning the motives of its existence
by such passages as the following, p. 23 of the Appendix:
" Thank heaven! notwithstanding the attempts of Mr. Thomas
Paine and his compeers, it is not so bad with us. Open infidelity
has ceased to be a means even of gratifying vanity ; for the leaders
of the gang themselves turned apostates to Satan, as soon as the
number of iheir proselytes became so large, that Atheism ceased
to give distinction. Nay, it became a mark of original thinking
to defend the Belief and the Ten Commandments; so iht strong
minds veered round, and religion came again into fashion."
Now we confess we do not find in this statement much to
thank heaven for ; if religion has only come into fashion again
with the strong minds — (it will hardly be denied that Mr. Cole-
ridge is one of the number) — as a better mode of gratifying their
126
vanity than " open intidelity." Be this as it may, Mr. Coleridge
has here given a true and masterly delineation of that large class
of Proselytes or their teachers, who believe any thing or nothing,
just as their vanity prompts them. All that we have ever said of
modern apostates is poor and feeble to it. There is however one
error in his statement, inasmuch as Mr. Thomas Paine never
openly professed Atheism, whatever some of his compeers might
do.
It is a pity that with all that fund of " rules and assistances "
which the Bible contains for our instruction and reproof, and
which the author in this work proposes to recommend as the
Statesman's Manual, or the best Guide to Political Skill and
Foresight, in times like these, he has not brought forward a single
illustration of his doctrine, nor referred to a single example in the
Jewish history that bears at all, in the circumstances, or the in-
ference, on our own, but one, and that one he has purposely
omitted. Is this to be credited ? Not without quoting the
passage.
*' But do you require some one or more particular passage
from the Bible that may at once illustrate and exemplify its
application to the changes and fortunes of empires ? Of the
numerous chapters that relate to the Jewish tribes, their enemies
and allies, before and after their division into two kingdoms, it
would be more difficult to state a single one, from which some
guiding light nught not be struck." [Oh, very well, we shall have
a few of them. The passage goes on,] *' And in nothing is
Scriptural history more strongly contrasted with the histories of
highest note in the present age, than in its freedom from the
hollowness of abstractions." [Mr. Coleridge's admiration of the
inspired writers seems to be very much mixed with a dislike of
Hume and Gibbon ] — " While the latter present a shadow-fight
of Things and Qiautities, the former gives us the history of Men,
and balances the mipurtant influence of individual minds with the
previous state of national morals and manners, in which, as con-
stituting a specific susceptibility, it presents to us the true cause,
127
bolh of the influence itself, and of the Weal or Woe that were
its consequents. How should it be otherwise'^ The histories
and political economy of the present and preceding century par-
take in the general contagion of its mechanic philosophy," [' still
harping on my daughter '] " and are the product of an unenlivened
generalizing understanding. In the Scriptures they are the living
educts of the Imagination ; of that reconciling and mediatory
power, which incorporating the reason in Images of the Sense,
and organizing (as it were) the flux of the Senses by the per-
manence and self-circling energies of the Reason, gives birth to
a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consub-
stantial with the truths, of which they are the conductors. These
are the Wheels which Ezekiel beheld when the hand of the Lord
was upon him, and he saw visions of God as he sat among the
captives by the river of Chebar. Whither soever the Spirit was
to go, the wheels went, and thither was their spirit to go ; for the
spirit of the living creature was in the wheels also. The truths
and the symbols that represent them move in conjunction, and
form the living chariot that bears up (for us) the throne of the
Divine Humanity. Hence by a derivative, indeed, but not a
divided influence, and though in a secondary, yet in more than
a metaphorical sense, the Sacred Book is worthily entitled the
Word of God," p. 36.
So that, after all, the Bible is not the immediate word of God,
except according to the German philosophy, and in something
between a literal and metaphorical sense. Of all the cants that
ever were canted in this canting world, this is the worst ! The
autlior goes on to add, that " it is among the miseries of the
present age that it recognises no medium between literal and
metaphorical," and laments that " the mechanical understanding,
in the blindness of its self-complacency, confounds Symbols
with Allegories." — This is certainly a sad mistake, which he
labours very learnedly to set right, " in a diagonal sidelong
movement between truth and falsehood." — We assure the reader
that the passages which we have given above are given in the
128
order in which they are strung together in the Sermon ; and so he
goes on for several pages, concluding his career where the Allies
have concluded theirs, with the doctrine of Divine Right ; which
he does not however establish quite so successfully with the pen,
as they have done with the sword. " Herein " (says this profound
writer) ** the Bible differs from all the books of Greek phi-
losophy, and in a two-fold manner. It doth not affirm a Divine
Nature only, but a God ; and not a God only, but the living God.
Hence in the Scriptures alotie is the Jus Divinum or direct
Relation of the State and its Magistracy to the Supreme Being,
taught as a vital and indispensable part q/' all moral and
ALL POLITICAL WISDOM, even as the Jewish alone was a true
theocracy ! "
Now it does appear to us, that as the reason why the Jus
Divinum was taught in the Jewish state was, that that alone was
a true theocracy, this is so far from proving this doctrine to be a
part of all moral and all political wisdom, that it proves just
the contrary. This may perhaps be owing to our mechanical
understanding. Wherever Mr. C. will shew us the theocracy, we
will grant him the Jus Divinum. Where God really pulls down
and sets up kings, the people need not do it. Under the true
Jewish theocracy, the priests and prophets cashiered kings ; but
our lay-preacher will hardly take this office upon himself as a part
of the Jus Divinum, without having any thing better to hhew for
it than his profound moral and political wisdom. Mr. Southey
hints at something of the kind in verse, and we are not sure that
Mr. Coleridge does not hint at it in prose. For after his extraordi-
nary career and hiterminable circumnavigation through the heaven
of heavens, after being rapt in the wheels of Ezekiel, and sitting
with the captives by the river of Chebar, he lights once more on
English ground, and you think you have him.
" But I refer to the demand. Were it my object to touch on
the present state of public affairs in this kingdom, or on the pro-
spective measures in agitation respecting our Sister Island, I would
direct your most serious meditations to the latter period of the
129
reign of Solomon, and the revolutions in the reign of Rehoboam
his son. But I tread on glowing embers. 1 will turn to a
subject on which all men of reflection are at length in agreement —
the causes of the Revolution and fearful chastisement of France,"
— Here Mr. Coleridge is ofl" again on the wings of fear as he
was before on those of fancy. — ^This trifling can only be compared
to that of the impertinent barber of Bagdad, who being sent for
to shave the prince, spent the whole morning in preparing his
razors, took the height of the sun with an astrolabe, sung the song
of Zimri, and danced the dance of Zamtout, and concluded by
declining to perform the operation at all, because the day was
unfavourable to its success. As we are not so squeamish as
Mr. Coleridge, and do not agree with him and all other men of
reflection on the subject of the French Revolution, we shall turn
back to the latter end of the reign of Solomon, and that of his
successor Rehoboam, to find out the parallel to the present
reign and regency which so particularly strikes and startles
Mr. Coleridge. — Here it is for the edification of the curious^
from the First Book of Kings : —
" And the time that Solomon reigned over all Israel was forty
years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in
the city of David his father : and Rehoboam his son reigned in
his stead. And Rehoboam went to Shechem : for all Israel
were come to Shechem to make him king.* And Jeroboam and
all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam,
saying, Thy father (Solomon) made our yoke grievous ; now,
therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his
heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee.
And he said unto them. Depart yet for three days, then come
again to me. And the people departed. And King Rehoboam
consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his father
while he yet lived, and said. How do ye advise, that I may answer
this people ? And they spake unto him, saying, JJ" thou wilt be a
* Does thii verse coroe under Mr.C.'s version of Jus Divinum?
K
servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer
them, and speak good words unto them, then they will be thy
servants for ever. But he forsook the counsel of the old men,
which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that
were grozvn np with him, and which stood before him : And
he said unto them. What counsel give ye, that we may answer
this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which
thy father did put upon us lighter? And the young men that
were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shall thou
speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father
made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us ; thus
shalt thou say unto them. My little finger shall be thicker than
my father's loins. And now, whereas my father did lade you
with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke : my father hath
chastised you with whips: but I will chastise you with scorpions.
So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third
day, as the king had appointed, saying, come to me again the
third day. And the king answered the people roughly, and for-
sook the old men's counsel that they gave him : And spake to
them after the counsel of the young men,-saying. My father made
your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke; my father also
chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people ; for the cause
was from the Lord, that he might perform his saying which the
Lord spake by Ahijah, the Shilonite, unto Jeroboam the son of
Nebat." [We here see pretty plainly how the principle of " a
true theocracy " qualified the doctrine of Jus Divinum among
the Jews ; but let us mark the sequel.] " So when all Israel
saw that the King hearkened 7iot unto them, the people answered
the king, saying, What portion have we in David : neither have
we inheritarice in the son of Jesse : to your tents, O Israel :
nozi) see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto
their tents. Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over
the tribute ; and all Israel stoned him with stones that he died ;
therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot
to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel rebelled against the house of
David unto this day. And it came to pass when all Israel heard
that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto
the congregation, and made him king over all Israel."
Here is the doctrine and practice of divine right, with a ven-
geance. We do not wonder Mr. Coleridge was shy of instances
from his Statesman's Manual, as the rest are like this. He does
not say (neither shall we, for we are not salamanders any more
than he, to tread on glowing embers) whether he approves of the
conduct of all Israel in this case, or of the grand, magnificent,
and gracious answer of the son of Solomon ; but this we will say,
that his bringing or alluding to a passage like this immediately after
his inuendo (addressed to the higher classes) that the doctrine of
divine right is contained par excellence in the Scriptures alone, is
we should suppose, an instance of a power of voluntary self-
delusion, and of a delight in exercising it on the most ticklish
topics, greater than ever was or ever will be possessed by any
other individual that ever did or ever will live upon the face of the
earth. " Imposture, organized into a comprehensive and self-
consistent whole, forms a world of its own, in which inversion
becomes the order of nature." Compared with such powers of
inconceivable mental refinement, hypocrisy is a great baby, a
shallow dolt, a gross dunce, a clumsy devil !
Among other passages, unrivalled in style and matter' Bj^^^riy
other author, take the following : —
" When 1 named this Essay a Sermon, I sought to prepare the
inquirers after it for the absence of all the usual softenings sng-
gested by worldly prudence, of all compromise between truth and
courtesy. But not even as a Sermon would I have addressed the
present Discourse to a promiscuous audience : atid for this reason
I likewise announced it in the title-page, as exclusively adclerum,
i. e. (in the old and wide sense of the word*) to men of clerkli/
acquirements, of whatever profession." [All that we know is,
* That is, in a sense not used and without any intelligible meaning.
K 2
132
that there is no such title-page to our copy,] " I would that the
greater part of our publications could be thus directed, each to
its appropriate class of readers. But this cannot be ! For among
other odd burs and kecksies, the misgrovvth of our luxuriant
activity, we have a Reading Public, as strange a phrase, me-
thinks, as ever forced a splenetic smile on the staid countenance
of meditation ; and yet no fiction I For our readers have, in good
truth, multiplied exceedingly, and have waxed proud. It would
require the intrepid accuracy of a Colquhoun " — [Intrepid and
accurate applied to a Colquhoun ! It seems that whenever an
objection in matter of fact occurs to our author's mind, he in-
stinctively applies the flattering unction of words to smooth it over
to his conscience, as you apply a salve to a sore] — " to venture
at the precise number of that vast company only, whose heads
and hearts are dieted at the two public ordinaries of literature,
the circulating libraries and the periodical press. But what is the
result ? Does the inward man thrive on this regimen ? Alas !
if the average health of the consumers may be judged of by the
articles of largest consumption " — [Is not this a side-blow at the
Times and Courier'^^ — " if the secretions may be conjectured
from the ingredients of the dishes that are found best suited to
their palates ; from all that I have seen, either of the banquet or
the guests, I shall utter my profaccia " — [* Oh thou particular
fellow !']— " with a desponding sigh : From a popular philosophy,
and philosophic populace, good sense deliver us 1 "
Why so, any more than from a popular religion or a religious
populace, on Mr. Coleridge's own principle, p. 12, "Reason
and religion are their own evidence ? " We should suspect that
our unread author, the " Secret Tattle " of the Press, is thus
fastidious, because he keeps an ordinary himself which is not fre-
quented. He professes to be select: but we all know the secret
of " seminaries for a limited number of pupils." Mr. Coleridge
addresses his Lay-Sermon " to the higher classes," in his printed
title-page : in that which is not printed he has announced it to be
directed ad clerum, which might imply the clergy, but no : he
133
issues another extent for the benefit of the Reading Public,
and says he means by the annunciation ad clerum, all persons of
clerkly acquirements, that is, who can read and write. What
wretched stuff is all this ! We well remember a friend of his and
ours saying, many years ago, on seeing a little shabby volume of
Thomsons Seasons lying in the window of a solitary ale-house,
at the top of a rock hanging over the British Channel, — " That
is true fame!" If he were to write fifty Lay-Sermons, he could
not answer the inference from this one sentence, which is, that
there are books that make iheir way wherever there are readers,
and that there ought every where to be readers for such books !
To the words Reading Public, in the above passage, is
the following note, which in wit and humour does not fall short
of Mr. Southey's " Tract on the Madras System :" —
" Some participle passive in the diminutive form, eruditorum
natio for instance, might seem at first sight a fuller and more
exact designation : but the superior force and humour of the
former become evident whenever the phrase occurs, as a step or
stair in the climax of irony. . . .Among the revolutions worthy of
notice, the change in the introductory sentences and prefatory
matter in serious books is not the least striking. The same gross
flattery, which disgusts us in the dedications to individuals, in the
elder writers, is now transferred to the nation at large, or the
Reading Public; while the Jeremiads of our old moralists,
and their angry denunciations against the ignorance, immorality,
and irreligiou of the people appear (mutatis mutandis, and with
an appeal to the worst passions, envy, discontent, scorn, vindic-
tiveness,* Sec.) in the shape of bitter libels on ministers, parlia-
ment, the clergy; in short, on the state and church, and all per-
sons employed in them. Likewise, I would point out to the
reader's attention the marvellous predominance at present of the
words. Idea and Demonstration. Every talker now-a-days has
an Idea ; aye, and he will demonstrate it too ! A few days ago^
* If these are tlie worst passions, there is plenty of them ia this Lay-SermoD<>
134
I heard one of the Reading Public, a thinking and indepen-
dent smuggler, euphonise the latter word with much significance,
in a tirade against the planners of the late African expedition :
' As to Algiers, any man that has half an Idea in his scull
must know, that it has been long ago dey-monstered, I should
say, dey-monstrijied,' Sfc. But the phrase, which occasioned
this note, brings to my mind the mistake of a lethargic Dutch
traveller, who, returning highly gratified from a showman's cara-
van, which he had been tempted to enter by the words Learned
Pig, gilt on the pannels, met another caravan of a similar shape,
with the Reading Fly on it, in letters of the same size and
splendour. ' Why, dis is voonders above voonders,' exclaims
the Dutchman, takes his seat as first comer, and soon fatigued
by waiting, and by the very hush and intensity of his expectation,
gives way to his constitutional somnolence, from which he is
roused by the supposed showman at Hounslow, with a ' In z&hat
name. Sir, was your place taken '^ are you hooked all the way
for Reading'^' Now a Reading Public is (to my mind) more
marvellous still, and in the third tier of * Voonders above voon-
ders/"
A public that could read such stuflf as this with any patience
would indeed be so. We do not understand how, with this
systematic antipathy to the Reading Public, it is consistent in
Mr. Coleridge to declare of " Dr. Bell's original and unsophis-
ticated plan," that he " himself regards it as an especial gift of
Providence to the human race, as an incomparable machine, a
vast moral steam-engine." Learning is an old University mistress,
that he is not willing to part with, except for the use of the
church of England; and he is sadly afraid she should be de-
bauched by the " liberal ideas" of Joseph Lancaster ! As to his
aversion to the prostitution of the word Idea to common uses and
in common minds, it is no wonder, from the very exalted idea
which he has given us of this term.
" What other measures I had in contemplation it has been my
endeavour to explain elsewhere O what treasures of practi-
135
cal wisdom would be once more brought into open day by the
solution of this problem/' to wit, " a thorough recasting of the
moulds in which the minds of our gentry, the characters of our
future land-owners, magistrates, and senators, are to receive their
shape and fashion. Suffice it for the present to hint the master-
thought. The first man, on whom the light of an Idea dawned,
did in that same moment receive the spirit and the credentials of
a Lawgiver; and as long as man shall exist, so long will the
possession of that antecedent knowledge which exists only in the
power of an idea, be the one lawful qualification for all domi-
nion in the world of the senses," p. 52. Now we do think this
a shorter cut towards the undermining of the rotten boroughs,
and ousting the present ministry, than any we have yet heard of.
One of the most extraordinary ideas in this worK is where the
Author proves the doctrine of free will from tlie existence of
property ; and again, where he recommends the study of the
Scriptures, from the example of Heraclitus and Horace. To
conclude this most inconclusive piece of work, we find the distant
hopes and doubtful expectations of the writer's mind summed up
in the following rare rhapsody. " Oh what a mine of undisco-
vered treasures, what a new world of power and truth would the
Bible promise to our future meditation, if in some gracious mo-
ment one solitary/ text of allits inspired contents should but dawn
upon us in the pure untroubled brightness of an idea, that most
glorious birth of the godlike within us, which even as the light,
its material symbol, reflects itself from a thousand surfaces, and
flies homeward to its parent mind, enriched with a thousand
forms, itself above form, and still reinaining in its own simpli-
city and identity ! O for a flash of that same light, in which the
first position of geometric science that ever loosed itself from the
generalizations of a groping and insecure experience, did for the
first time reveal itself to a human intellect in all its evidence and
in all its fruitfulness. Transparence without Vacuum, and Pleni-
tude without Opacity! O! that a single gleam of our own in-
ward experience would make comprehensible to us the rapturous
136
Eureka, and the grateful hecatomb of the philosopher of Satnos:
or that vision which, from the contemplation of an arithmetical
harmony, rose to the eye of Kepler, presenting the . planetary
world, and all their orbits in the divine order of their ranks and
distances ; or which, in the falling of an apple, revealed to the
ethereal intuition of our own Newton the constructive principle
of the material universe. The promises which I have ventured
to hold forth concerning the hidden treasures of the Law and
the Prophets will neither be condemned as paradox, or as
exaggeration, by the mind that has learnt to understand the pos-
sibility that the reduction of the sands of the sea to number should
be found a less stupendous problem by Archimedes than the sim-
ple conception of the Parmenidean One. What, however, is
achievable by the human understanding without this light may be
comprised in the epithet xiK><77ra^ot ; and a melaricholy comment
on that phrase would the history of the human Cabinets and
Legislatures for the last thirty years furnish ! The excellent
Barrow, the last of the disciples of Plato and Archimedes among
our modern mathematicians, shall give the description and state
the value ; and, in his words, I shall conclude : —
*' Aliud agere, to be impertinently busy, doing that which
ccnduceth to no good purpose, is, in some respect, worse than to
do nothing. Of such industry we may understand that of the
Preacher, ' The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of
them:"
A better conclusion could not be found for this Lay-Sermon :
for greater nonsense the author could not write, even though he
were inspired expressly for the purpose.
137
MR. COLERIDGE'S LJY-SERMOl^.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER.
Jan. 12, 1817.
SIR,
Your last Sunday's " Literary Notice" has given nae some
uneasiness on two points.
It was in January, 1798, just 19 years ago, that I got up one
morning before day-light to walk 10 miles in the mud, and went
to hear a poet and a philosopher preach. It was the author of
the " Lay-Sermon." Never, Sir, the longest day I have to live,
shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one
in the winter of the year 1798. Mr. Examiner, II y a des
impressions que ni le terns ni les circonstances peuvent effacer.
Dusse-je vivre des siecles entiers, le doux terns de ma jeunesse
ne pent renaitre pour moi, ni s' effacer jamais dans ma memoire.
When I got there. Sir, the organ was playing the 100th psalm,
and when it was done, Mr. C. rose and gave out his text, " And
he went iip into the mountain to pray, himself, alone."
As he gave out this text, his voice " rose like a steam of rich
distill'd perfumes," and when he came to the last two words,
which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me.
Sir, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the
bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have
floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St.
John came into my mind, " of one crying in the wilderness, who
had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild
honey." The preacher then launched into his subject, like an
eagle dallying with the wind. That sermon, like this Sermon,
was upon peace and war ; upon church and state — not their alii-
138
ance, but their separation — on the spirit of the world and the
spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one
another. He talked of those who had " inscribed the cross of
Christ on banners dripping with human gore." He made a
poetical and pastoral excursion, — and to shew the fatal effects of
war, drew a striking contrast between the simple shepherd boy,
driving his team afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to
his flock, as though he should never be old, and the same poor
country-lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk
at an alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his
hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at
his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the profession
of blood.
" Such were the notes our once-Iov'd poet suug. "
And for myself. Sir, I could not have been more delighted if I
had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had
met together. Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye
and with the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond my
hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was still
labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists,
seemed an emblem of the good cause: and the cold dank drops
of dew that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle, had
something genial and refreshing in them ; for there was a spirit
of hope and youth in all nature, that turned every thing into good.
The face of nature had not then the brand of Jus Divinum on it;
" Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe."
Now, Sir, what 1 have to complain of is this, that from read-
ing your account of the " Lay-Sermon," I begin to suspect that
my notions formerly must have been little better than a decep-
tion : that my faith in Mr. Coleridge's great powers must have
been a vision of my youth, that, like other such visions^ must
139
'pass away from me ; and that all his genius and eloquence is voX
et preterea nihil: for otherwise how is it so lost to all common
sense upon paper ?
Again, Sir, I ask Mr. Coleridge, why, having preached such
a sermon as I have described, he has published such a sermon as
you have described ? What right. Sir, has he or any man to
make a fool of me or any man ? I am naturally. Sir, a man of
a plain, dull, dry understanding, without flights or fancies, and
can just contrive to plod on, if left to myself: what right then
has Mr. C, who is just going to ascend in a balloon, to offer
me a seat in the parachute, only to throw me from the height of
his career upon the ground, and dash me to pieces ? Or again,
what right has he to invite me to a feast of poets and philoso-
phers, fruits and flowers intermixed, — immortal fruits and amaran-
thine flowers, — and then to tell me it is all vapour, and, like Timorif
to throw his empty dishes in my face ? No, Sir, I must and
will say it is hard. I hope, between ourselves, there is no breach
of confidence in all this ; nor do I well understand how men's
opinions on moral, political, or religious subjects can be kept a
secret, except by putting them in The Correspondent.*
SEMPER EGO AUDITOR.
BONAPARTE AND MVLLER,
THE CELEBRATED HISTORIAN OF SWITZERLAND.
l^From, Mailer's Posthumous fForks.]
" On the 19lh May 1 was informed by the Minister Secretary
of State, Maret, that at seven o'clock of the evening of the fol-
lowing day I must wait on the Emperor Napoleon. I waited
accordingly on this Minister at the appointed hour, and was pre-
sented. The Emperor sat on a sofa : a few persons whom I
did not know stood at some distance in the apartment. The £m-
* A paper set up about this time by Dr. Stoddart.
140
peror began to speak of the History of Switzerland ; told me that
I ought to complete it ; that even the more recent times had their
interest. He came to the work of mediation, discovered a very
good will, if we do not meddle with any tiling foreign, and remain
quietly in the interior. He proceeded from the Swiss to the old
Greek Constitution and History, to the Theory of Constitutions,
to the complete diversity of those of Asia, (and the causes of this
diversity in the climate, polygamy, Sic.) the opposite characters of
the Arabian (which the Emperor highly extolled), and the Tar-
tarian Races (which led to the irruptions that all civilization had
always to dread from that quarter, and the necessity of a bulwark) :
the peculiar value of European culture (never greater freedom,
security of property, humanity, and better laws in general, than
since the 15th century); then how every thing was linked to-
gether, and in the inscrutable guidance of an invisible hand ; and
how he himself had become great through his enemies : the great
confederation of nations, the idea of which Henry the 4lh. never
had : the foundation of all religion, and its necessity ; that man
could not well bear completely clear truth, and required to be
kept in order ; the possibility, however, of a more happy condi-
tion, if the numerous feuds ceased, which were occasioned by
too complicated constitutions (such as the German), and the into-
lerable burden suffered by States from excessive armies. A great
deal more besides was said, and indeed we spoke of almost every
country and nation. The Emperor spoke at first in his usual
manner ; but the more interesting our conversation became, he
spoke in a lower and lower tone, so that I was obliged to bend
myself quite down to his face ; and no man can have understood
what he said (and therefore many things I will not repeal). — I
opposed him occasionally, and he entered into discussion. Quite
impartially and truly, as before God, I must say, that the variety
of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of
his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive
views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to
me, with love for him. A couple of Marshals, and also the Duke
141
of Benevento, had entered in the mean time ; he did not break
off. After five quarters, or an hour and a half, he allowed the
concert to begin ; and I know not, whether accidentally or from
goodness, he desired pieces, which, one of them especially, had
reference to pastoral life and the Swiss (Runs des Vaches).
After this, he bowed in a friendly manner and left the room. —
Since the audience with Frederick (1782), I never had a conver-
sation on such a variety of subjects, at least with any Prince : if
I can judge correctly from recollection, I must give the Emperor
the preference in point of solidity and comprehension ; Frederick
was somewhat Voltairian. Besides, there is in his tone much firm-
ness and vigour, but in his mouth something as attractive and fas-
cinating as in Frederick. It was one of the most remarkable days
of my life. By his genius and his disinterested goodness he has
also conquered me."
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.
ON MODERN APOSTATES.
" Out of these convertites
There is much matter to be heard and learnt." — As you like it.
Dec. 15, 1816.
This is an age in which, to hear some people talk, you would
suppose there is no such thing as literary prostitution or political
apostacy, in the sense in which those vices used formerly to be
practised and condemned. We live in a liberal age ; and a very
different and much more liberal turn has been given to the whole
matter. Men do indeed change sides, but then it is proper at
present that they should. They go from one extreme to another,
they proceed to the utmost lengths of violence and abuse, both
against the principles they formerly held and the persons they
formerly agreed with ; but then this is entirely owing to the force
142
of reason and honest conviction. " All honourable men"-^^i^Q
hypocrites amongst them —
" But all is conscience and tender heart."
They have deserted the cause of liberty in as far as it deserted
them ; but no farther. No sinister motives, no disappointed exr
pectations from a new order of things, no places to be got under
the old, no laureatships, no editorships, no popular odium to con-
tend with, no court-smiles to inveigle, have had any weight with
them, or can be supposed to have had any. They could not
tolerate wrong on any side, on the side of kings, or of the people.
That's all. They have changed sides to preserve the integrity of
their principles and the consistency of their characters. They
have gone over to the strong side of the question, merely to shew
the conscious purity of their motives ; and they chose the moment
of the total failure of all hopes from the weaker side to desert to
the stronger, to put the matter out of all doubt. They are not
only above corruption, but above suspicion. They have never
once been at fault, have neither sneaked nor shuffled, botched or
boggled, in their politics. They who were loud against the abuses
of a principle which they set out with considering as sacred, the
right of a people to chuse their own form of government, have
not turned round to flatter and to screen, with the closeness of
their fulsome embraces, the abuses of a power which they set out
with treating as monstrous, the right of a discarded family to
reign over a nation in perpetuity by the grace of God. They
" whose love of liberty was of that dignity that it went hand in
hand even with the vow they made this virgin bride," have not
stooped to " commit whoredom greedily" with that old harlot.
Despotism. They " who struck the foremost man of all this
world but for supporting robbers," have not contaminated
their lingers with base bribes, nor turned receivers of stolen
goods for paltry knaves and licensed freebooters. Nice, scrupu-
lous, firm, inflexible, uncorrupted, incapable of injustice or dis-
guise ; patriots in 1793, and royalists in 1816; at all times ex-
143
treme and at all times consistent in their opinions ; converts to
the cause of kings, only because kings were converts (unac-
countable converts) to the cause of the people : they have not
become, nor are they in danger of becoming, thorough-paced
time-servers, regular-bred courtiers, trammelled tools of des-
potism, hired pimps and panders of power. Nothing of the sort.
They have not been made (not they) the overweening dupes of
their own conceit and cunning. These political innocents have
not, like the two poor devils in the Recruiting Officer, been laid
hold of, entrapped, kidnapped, by that fell serjeant. Necessity,
and then, in the height of their admiration of *' the wonderful
works of nature" and the King's picture, been eiilisted for life in
his Majesty's service, by some Court crimp, some Treasury scout
in the shape of a well-bred baronet or booby Lord. Our maiden
poets, patriots, and philanthropists, have not, it is to be hoped,
like Miss Lucy Lockitt, been bilked of their virtue, " bam-
bouzled and bit." They have got into a house of ill fame in the
neighbourhood of Pali-Mall, like Miss Clarissa Hnrlowe, but
they will defend their honour to the last gasp with their pens
against that old bawd. Legitimacy, as she did hers with a pen-
knife against the old Lady in Duke's place ; or if the opiates and
provocatives unfairly administered, and almost unavoidable when
people get into such company and such situations, should for an
instant rob them of what they hold most dear, their immaculate
purity, they will, like Richardson's heroine, die a lingering death
of grief and shame for the trick that has been played upon their
unsuspecting credulity ! — See, here comes one of them to answer
for himself. It is the same person who in the year 1800 was for
making an example of the whole House of Commons (in spite of
the humble petition and remonstrance of the writer of this article
in favour of a small minority), for being the echoes of the King's
speeches for carrying on the war against the French Revolution.
What is that thing he has in his hand ? It is not, nor it cannot
be, a sonnet to the King, celebrating his " royal fortitude," in
having brought that war to a successful close fourteen years after !
144
« Snch recantation had no charms for him,
" Nor could he brook it."
Nor is it the same consistent person whose deep-toned voice rehel-
lows among the mountain echoes with peals of ideot rage and
demon laughter —
" Proud Glaramara northward canght the sound,
" And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head,
" That there was strange commotion in the hills," —
at the infamy and madness of Sir Robert Wilson's gallant conduct
in having rescued one of its victims from the fangs of that Bourbon
despotism which that royal fortitude had restored. — Is not that
Mr. Southey, with something of the glow on his cheek which he
had in writing Joan of Arc, and with the beaked curl of his nose
which provoked him to write the Inscription on Old Sarum, re-
turning in disgrace from the Prince's Levee, for having indig-
nantly noticed in one of his Birth-day Odes, Ferdinand's treat-
ment of the Spanish Patriots ? — Just yonder, at the corner of
Paternoster-row, you may see Mr. Coleridge, the author of the
eclogue called Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, who has
been to his bookseller's to withdraw his "Lay Sermon," or States-
man's Manual in praise of Fire, Slaughter, and Famine ! But
who is he " whose grief
" Bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow
" Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
*' Like wonder-wounded hearers ?"
'Tis the editor of The Times, (poor man, his virtuous indignation
must cost him a great deal of pains and trouble !) as hard at it as
ever, about liberty and independence without respect of persons ;
in a most woundy passion, we warrant now, at finding legitimacy
at some of its old tricks, caught flagranti delicto, so that the
poor gentleman could not hush the matter up, if he would, and
would not, if he could, he is a man of such a nice morality, and
such high notions of honour ; — thrown into daily and hourly cold
sweats and convulsions at the mention of daily and hourly acts of
145
tyranny and base submission to it ; flying into the same heats and
hysterics as ever, for he has all the reason now, that he used to
say he had ; laying it on, thick and threefold, upon the magnani-
mous deliverers of Europe ; still in the old King Cambyses' vein,
** horrors on horror's head accumulating ;" heaping up epithets
and compound epithets of abuse against his new friends, as he
used to do against his old ones, till Mr. Koenig's new press
groans under the weight of both together; ordering in a new set
of types with a new set of unheard-of nicknames to be applied
everlastingly to the present candidates for newspaper fame, as
the worn-out, feeble, and now insignificant ones of Monster,
Tyrant, Fiend, Upstart, Usurper, Rebel, Regicide, Traitor,
Wretch, Villain, Knave, Fool, Madman, Coward, Impostor,
Unnatural Monster, Bloody Tyrant, Hellish Fiend, Corsican
Upstart, Military Usurper, Wicked Rebel, Impious Regicide,
Perfidious Traitor, Vile Wretch, Base Villain, Low-born
Knave, Rank F"ool, Egregious Madman, Notorious Coward,
Detestable Impostor, were applied to the old ; swearing as
he picks his way to court along the streets, (so that the people
ask who the honest, angry gentleman is) that Ferdinand alone has
done more acts of baseness, treachery, cruelty, oppression, infamy,
and ingratitude, in one year, than Napoleon did in his whole
reign ; teaching a parrot to call jade and rogue to all legitimate
princes and princesses that deserve it, as he used himself to rail
at all the illegitimate ones, whether they deserved it or not; re-
peating over and over, till he is black in the face, Dr. Slop's curse
upon the Allies and their proceedings ; cursing them in Spain,
cursing them in Italy, cursing them in Genoa, cursing them in
Saxony, cursing them in Norway, cursing them in Finland,
cursing them in Poland, cursing them in France, cursing them
every where as they deserve, and as the people every where curse
them ; sending the Pope and the Inquisition to the Devil ;
swooning at the extinction of Spanish liberty under the beloved
Ferdinand ; going into a shivering fit at the roasting of Protestants
under Louis the Desired ; biting his lips at Lord Castlereagh's
L
146
Letter to 3Ioii Prince; horror-struck at the transfer of so many
thousand souls, Hke so many head of horned cattle, from one
legitimate proprietor of the species to another, after all his
vapouring about tlie liberties of the people and the independence
of states ; learned and lofty, sad and solemn, on the Convention
of Paris ; looking big at the imposing attitude of Russia, and
going stark staring mad at the application of the torture and the
thumb-screw to the brave Cortes; gnashing his teeth, rolling his
eyes, and dashing his head against the wall, at the total falsi-
fication, and overthrow of every one of his hopes and his prog-
nostics in every corner of Europe where the Allies have got
footing, and there is no corner which they have not got under
their feet, like a toad under a harrow ; and roaring out like Pe-
rillus's bull against the partitions and repartitions of the coalesced
Sovereigns, their invasions, conquests, seizures, transfers of men
and lands ; the murders, massacres, imprisonments, pillagings,
frauds, treacheries, breaches of written treaties and of verbal pro-
mises; usurpations, pretensions, and overt acts of legitimacy,
since it was restored to itself, to one and the self-same tune that he
used to lift up his voice, " his most sweet voice," against Bona-
parte's wars and conquests, till the Stock Exchange was stunned
with the clamour, and Mr. Walter well-nigh fainted ! The only
fault of this account is, that not one word of it is true.
" Thy stone, oh Sisyphus, stands still :
" Ixion rests upon his wheel!"
Once a Jacobin and always a Jacobin, is a maxim, which,
notwithstanding Mr. Coleridge's see-saw reasoning to, the con-
trary, we hold to be true, even of him to this day. Once an
Apo&tate and always an Apostate, we hold to be equally true ;
and the reason why the last is true, is that the first is so. A
person who is what is called a Jacobin (and we apply this term
in its vulgarest sense to the persons here meant) that is, who has
shaken off certain well-known prejudices with respect to kings or
priests, or nobles, cannot so easily resume them again, whenever
147
his pleasure or his convenience may prompt him to attempt it.
And it is because he cannot resume them again in good earnest,
that he endeavours to make up for his want of sincerity by vio-
lence, either by canting till he makes your soul sicken, like the
author of The Friend, or by raving like a Bedlamite, as does the
Editor of The Times. Why does be abuse Bonaparte and
call him an upstart ? Because he is himself, if he is any thing at
all, an upstart ; and because Bonaparte having got the start of him
one way, he turned back to gain the race another, by trying for a
court-livery, and to recommend himself to the house of Bruns<
wick, by proclaiming the principles of the house of Stuart. Why
does he make such a route about Kings and Queens, and Dukes
and Duchesses, and old women of all ages and both sexes ? Be-
cause he cares no more for them in his heart than we do. How
should he ? " What's Hecuba to him or be to Hecuba ?" What
motive has he, or what ground of passion, that he should
" Cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
*' And, like a whore, unpack his heart with words !"
None in the world, any more than the poor player in Hamlet,
who tried to " work his soul to his conceit, tears in his eyes, dis-
traction in his looks," because it was his cue to do so. He
blusters and hectors, and makes a noise to hide his want of con-
sistency, as cowards turn bullies to hide their want of courage.
He is virulent and vulgar in proportion as he is insincere ; and yet
it is the only way in which he can seem himself not to be a hypo-
crite. He has no blind prejudices to repose on; no unshaken
principles to refer to ; no hearty attachment to altars or to
thrones. You see the Jacobinical leaven working in every line
that he writes, and making strange havoc with his present pro-
fessions. He would cashier Louis and Ferdinand, Alexander and
Frederick, to-morrow, and hurl them headlong from their thrones
with a stroke of his pen, for not complying with any one of his
favourite dogmas. He has no regard for any thing but his own
will ; no feeling of any thing but of hatred to the cause he has
14B
deserted, and of the necessity of keeping from liis mind, by every
demonstration of outward scorn and horror, whatever might recal
his old, unprofitable, exploded errors. His hatred and dread of
the principles of others, proceeds from his greater hatred and
dread of his own. The spectre of his former opinions glares per-
petually near him, and provokes his frantic zeal. For close behind
him stalks the ghost of the French Revolution, that unfortunate
Miss Bailey of modern politicians, their mistress and their saint,
what time
« Society became tlieir glittering bride
" And airy hopes their children," —
which, if he was once to turn round, would stare him in the face
with self-conviction, and make his pen drop from his hands. It
is this morbid conflict with his own feelings that many persons do
not know what to make of, and which gives such a tragic, and at
the same time, ludicrous air to his writings. He is obliged to
wink and shut his apprehension up, so that he is blind, stupidly
blind to all that makes against him, and all that makes for him.
His understanding seems to labour under a quinsy; and instead
of the little bonnet rouge of 1793, wears a huge pair of Bourbon
blinkers for 1816. Hence the endless inconsistencies in which
he involves himself; and as it is his self-will that makes him in-
sensible to all objections, it is the same headstrong obstinacy
which makes him regardless of contradictions, and proof against
conviction.
In a word, to conclude this part of the subject, the writer of The
Times is governed entirely by his will ; and this faculty is strong,
and bears sway in him, as all other principles are weak. He
asserts a fact the louder, as he suspects it to be without proof: and
defends a measure the more lustily, as he feels it to be mischievous.
He listens only to his passions and his prejudices, not to truth or
reason. Prove to him that any thing is the most idle fiction that
ever was invented, and he will swear to it : prove to him that it
is fraught with destruction to the liberties of mankind in all places
149
and in all time to come, and he is your own for ever. Sed heec
hactenus. Goelhe has given to one of his heroes this motto —
" Mad but wise." We would give the following to the hero of
The Times — Mad but not wise.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF " THE TIMES" NEWSPAPER.
ON MODEKN LAWYERS AND I'OETS.
" Facilis descensus Averni ;
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad aurai,
Hoc opus, hie labor est,"
December 2% 1816.
Th e meaning of which passage is, that it is easier to sail with
the stream, than to strive against it. Our classical reformers
should have known this passage in Virgil. They should have
known themselves too; but they did not. " Let no man go about
to cozen honesty," or to be a knave by halves. The man, as
well as the woman, who deliberates between his principle and the
price of its sacrifice, is lost. The same rule holds with respect
to literary as to any other kind of prostitution. It is the first
false step that always costs the most; and which is, for that reason,
always fatal. It requires an effort of resolution, or at least ob-
stinate prejudice, for a man to maintain his opinions at the ex-
pense of his interest. But it requires a much greater effort of
resolution for a man to give up his interest to recover his inde-
pendence ; because, w ith the consistency of his character, he has
lost the habitual energy of his mind, and the indirect aid of pre-
judice and obstinacy, which are sometimes as useful to virtue as
they are to vice. A man, in adhering to his principles in con-
tradiction to the decisions of the world, has many disadvantages.
He has nothing to support him but the supposed sense of right ;
150
and any defect in the justice of his cause, or the force of liis con-
viction, must prey on his mind, in proportion to the delicacy and
sensitiveness of its texture : he is left alone in his opinions ; and,
like Sam Sharpset, in Mr. Morton's new comedy (when he gets
into solitary confinement in the spunging- house,) grows nervous,
melancholy, fantastical, and would be glad of somebody or ani/-
body to sympathize with him ; but when he has once gone over
to the strong side of the question (perhaps from these very scru-
ples of conscience, suggested by weakness and melancholy, as
" the Devil is very potent with such spirits, and abuses them to
damn them") our wavering sceptic no longer finds the same
scruples troublesome ; the air of a court promotes their digestion
wonderfully; the load on his conscience falls off at the foot of the
throne. The poet-laureate, standing with his laurel-wreath
amidst " Britain's warriors, her statesmen, and her fair," thinks
no more or says no more about the patriots of Spain pining in
dungeons or consigned to the torture, though it was his zeal, his
virtuous, patriotic, romantic, disinterested zeal for them, which
brought them there, and him to court. His Prince's smile
soothes the involuntary pang of sympathy rising in his breast ;
and Mr. Croker's whispers drown their agonizing shrieks. When
we are at Rome, we must do as the people at Rome do. A
man in a crowd must go along with the crowd, and cannot stop
to pick his way ; nor need he be so particular about it. He has
friends to back him : appearances are for him ; the world is on
his side ; his interest becomes surety for his honour, his vanity
makes him blind to objections, or overrules them, and he is not
so much ashamed of being in the v\'rong in such good company.
It requires some fortitude to oppose one's opinion, however right,
to that of all the world besides ; none at all to agree with it, how-
ever wrong. Nothing but the strongest and clearest conviction
can support a man in a losing minority : any excuse or quibble
is sufficient to salve his conscience, when he has made sure of the
main chance, and his understanding has become the stalking-horse
of bis ambition. It is this single circumstance of not beinjr
151
answerable for one's opinions one's-self, but being able to put them
off to other men's shoulders in all crowds and collections of men,
that is the reason of the violence of mobs, the venality of courts,
aud the corruption of all corporate bodies. It is also the reason of
the degeneracy of modern apostates and reformed Jacobins, who
find the applause of their king and country doubly cheering afler
being so long without it, and who go all lengths in adulation and
servility, to make up for their former awkward singularity.
Many of the persons we have known, who have deserted the
cause of the people to take a high tone against those who did
not chuse to desert it, have been lawyers or poets. The last
took their leave of it by a poetic license ; the first slunk out of
it by some loop-hole of the law. We shall say a word of each.
" Our's is an honest employment," says Peachum; " and so
is a lawyer's." It is a lawyer's business to confound truth and
falsehood in the minds of his hearers ; and the natural consequence
is, that he confounds them in his own. He takes his opinion of
right and wrong from his brief: his soul is in his fee. His
understanding is upon the town, and at the service of any cause that
is paid for beforehand. He is not a hired suborner of facts, but
of reasons; and though he would not violate the sacred obligation
of an oath, as Lord Ellenborough calls it, by swearing that black
is white, he holds himself at all times in readiness and bound in
duty, to prove it so. He will not swear to an untruth to get
himself hanged, but he will assert it roundly by the hour together
to hang other persons, however innocent, — if he finds it in his re-
tainer. We do not wish to say any thing illiberal of any profes-
sion or set of men in the abstract. But we think it possible, that
they who are employed to argue away men's lives at a venture in
a court of justice, may be tempted to write them away delibe-
rately in a newspaper. They who find it consistent with their
lionour to do this under the sanction of the court, may find it to
their interest to do the same thing at the suggestion of a court.
A lawyer is a sophist by profession; that is, a person who barters
Jiis opinion, and speaks what he knows to be false in defence of
152
wrong, and to the prejudice of rigbt. Not only the confirmed
habit of looking at any side of a question with a view to make
the worse appear the better reason, from a motive always foreign
to the question itself, must make truth and falsehood sit loose
upon him, and lead him to " look on both indifferently," as his
convenience prompts ; but the quibbles and quillets of the law
give a handle to all that is petty and perverse in his understanding,
and enable him to tamper with his principles with impunity.
Thus the intricacy and verbal distinctions of the profession
promote the practical duplicity of its professors ; and folly and
knavery become joint securities for one another. The bent of a
lawyer's mind is to pervert his talents, if he has any, and to keep
down his feelings, if they are at all in his way. He lives by
forging and uttering counterfeit pretexts; he says not what he
believes to be true, but any thing that by any trick or sleight he
can make others believe ; and the more petty, artificial, and far-
fetched the contrivance, the more low, contemptible, and despe-
rate the shift, the more is he admired and cried up in his profes-
sion. A perfect lawyer is one whose understanding always keeps
pace with the inability of words to keep pace with ideas : who
by natural conformation of mind cannot get beyond the letter to
the spirit of any thing ; who, by a happy infirmity of soul, is sure
never to lose the form in grasping at the substance. Such a one
is sure to arrive at the head of his profession ! Look at the lawyers
in the House of Commons (of course at the head of their pro-
fession) — look at Garrow. We have heard him stringing contra-
dictions there with the fluency of water, every third sentence giving
the lie to the two former ; gabbling folly as if it were the last
opportunity he might ever have, and as regularly put down as he
rose up — not for false statements, not for false reasoning, not for
common-place absurdities or vulgar prejudices, (there is enough
of these to be found there without going to the bar), but for such
things as nobody but a lawyer could utter, and as nobody (not
even a lawyer) could believe. The only thing that ever gave us a
good opinion of the House of Commons was to see the contempt
153
with which they treat lawyers there. The reason is, that no one
there but a lawyer fancies himself holding a brief in his hand as a
carte blanche for vanity and impertinence — no one else thinks he
has got an ad libitum right to express any absurd or nonsensical
opinions he pleases, because he is not supposed to hold the opi-
nions he expresses — no one else thinks it necessary to confound
the distinctions of common-sense to subject them to those of
the law (even Lord Castlereagh would never think of maintain-
ing it to be lawful to detain a person kidnapped from France,
on the special plea, that the law in that case not provided had
not declared it lawful to detain persons so kidnapped, if not re-
claimed by their own country) — no one else thinks of huddling
contradictions into self-evident truths by legal volubility, or of
sharpening nonsense into sense by legal acuteness, or of covering
shallow assumptions under the solemn disguises of the long robe.
The opinions of the gentlemen of the bar go for nothing in the
House of Commons : but their votes tell ; and are always sure —
in the end ! The want of principle makes up for the want of
talent. What a tool in the hands of a minister is a whole profes-
sion, habitually callous to the distinctions of right and wrong,
but perfectly alive to their own interest, with just ingenuity enough
to be able to trump up some fib or sophistry for or against any
measure, and with just understanding enough to see no more of
the real nature or consequences of any measure than suits their
own or their employer's convenience ! What an acquisition to
" the tried wisdom of parliament" in the approaching hard
season !
But all this, though true, seems to fall short of the subject
before us. The weak side of the professional character is rather
an indiflference to truth and justice, than an outrageous and inve-
terate hatred to them. They are chargeable, as a general class of
men, with levity, servility, and selfishness ; but it seems to be
quite out of their character to commence furious and illiberal
fanatics against those who have more principle than themselves.
But not when this character is ingrafted on that of a true Jacobin
154
renegade. Such a person (and no one else) would be fit to write
the leading article in The Times. It is this union of rare ac-
complishments (there seems, after all, to be nothing contradic-
tory in the coalition of the vices) that enables that non-descript
person to blend the violence of the bravo with the subtlety of a
pettifogging attorney — to interlard his furious appeals to the
lowest passions of the middle and upper classes, with nice points
of law, reserved for the opinion of the adepts in the profession
■ — to appeal to the passions of his city readers when any thing
wrong is to be done, and to their cooler and dispassionate judg-
ments when any thing right is to be done — that makes him stick
(speil-bouiid) to the letter of the law when it is in his favour,
and set every principle of justice and hmnanity at defiance when
it interferes with his pragmatical opinion — that makes him disre-
gard all decency as well as reason out of " the lodged hatred" he
bears to the cause he has deserted, and to all who have not, like
himself, deserted it — that made him urge the foul death of the
brave Marshal Ney, by putting a legal interpretation on a mili-
tary convention — that tempted him to make out his sanguinary
list of proscribed rebels and regicides (he was not for making out
any such list in the year 1793, nor long after the event he now
deplores with such well-timed indignation) — that makes him des-
perately bent on hanging wretches at home in cobweb chains spun
from his own brains — that makes him stake the liberty of nations
or the independence of states on a nickname or a law-quillet, as
his irritable humour or professional habits prevail — that sets him
free from all restraints or deference to others in forming his own
opinions, and which would induce him to subject all the rest of
the world to his unprincipled and frantic dogmas, by entangling
them in the quirks and technicalities of the law I No one else
would heroically consign a whole continent to the most odious
and despicable slavery in the world, on the strength of a flaw in
a proclamation : or call that piece of diplomatic atrocity, the
declaration of the 2.5th of March, a delicious declaration. Such
a man might sell his country, or enslave his species, and justify
155
it to his conscience and the world by some law-term ! Such
men are very dangerous, unless when they are tied up in the
forms of a profession, where form is opposed to form, where no-
meaning baffles want of sense, and where no great harm is done,
because there is not much to do: but when chicane and want of
principle are let loose upon the world, " with famine, sword, and
fire at their heels, leashed in like hounds," when they have their
prey marked out for them by the passions, when they are backed
by force — when the pen of the Editor of The Times is seconded
by eleven hundred thousand bayonets — then such men are very
mischievous.
" My soul, turn from them: turn we to survey" where poe-
try, joined hand in hand with liberty, renews the golden age in
1 793, during the reign of Robespierre, which was hardly thought
a blot in their escutcheon, by those who said and said truly, for
what we know, that he destroyed the lives of hundreds, to save
the lives of thousands : (Mark ; then, as now, " Carnage was the
daughter of Humanity." It is true, these men have changed sides,
but not parted with their principles, that is, with their presump-
tion and egotism) — let us turn where Pantisocracy's equal hills and
vales arise in visionary pomp, where Peace and Truth have kissed
each other " in Philarmonia's undivided dale ;" and let us see
whether the fictions and the forms of poetry give any better as-
surance of political consistency than the fictions and forms of law.
The spirit of poetry is in itself favourable to humanity and li-
berty : but, we suspect, not in times like these — not in the present
reign. The spirit of poetry is not the spirit of mortification or of
martyrdom. Poetry dwells in a perpetual Utopia of its own, and
is, for that reason, very ill calculated to make a Paradise upon
earth, by encountering the shocks and disappointments of the
world. Poetry, like the law, is a fiction ; only a more agreeable
one. It does not create difficulties where they do not exist; but
contrives to get rid of them, whether they exist or not. It is not
entangled in cobwebs of its own making, but soars above all ob-
stacles. It cannot be " constrained by mastery." It has the
156
range of the universe ; it traverses the empyreum, and looks down
on nature from a higher sphere. When it lights upon the earth,
it loses some of its dignity and its use. Its strength is in its wings ;
its element the air. Standing on its feet, jostling with the crowd,
it is liable to be overthrown, trampled on, and defaced ; for its
wings are of a dazzling brightness, " heaven's own tinct," and the
least soil upon them shews to disadvantage. Sunk, degraded as
we have seen it, we shall not insult over it, but leave it to time
to take out the stains, seeing it is a thing immortal as itself.
" Being so majeslical, we should do it wrong to offer it but the
shew of violence." But the best things, in their abuse, often
become the worst ; and so it is with poetry when it is diverted
from its proper end. Poets live in an ideal world, where they
make every thing out according to their wishes and fancies.
They either find things delightful, or make them so. They feign
the beautiful and grand out of their own minds, and imagine all
things to be, not what they are, but what they ought to be.
They are naturally inventors, creators not of truth but beauty :
and while they speak to us from the sacred shrine of their own
hearts, while they pour out the pure treasures of thought to the
world, they cannot be too much admired and applauded: but
when, forgetting their high calling, and becoming tools and pup-
pets in the hands of others, they would pass off the gewgaws of
corruption and love-tokens of self-interest, as the gifts of the
Muse, they cannot be too much despised and shunned. We do
not like novels founded on facts, nor do we like poets turned cour-
tiers. Poets, it has been said, succeed best in fiction : and they
should for the most part stick to it. Invention, not upon an im-
aginary subject, is a lie : the varnishing over the vices or deform-
ity of actual objects, is hypocrisy. Players leave their finery at
the stage-door, or they would be hooted : poets come out into the
world with all their bravery on, and yet they would pass for bona
fide persons. They lend the colours of fancy to whatever they
see: whatever they touch becomes gold, though it were lead.
With them every Joan is a lady : and kings and queens are hu-
157
man. Matters of fact they embellish at their will, and reason is
the plaything of their passions, their caprice, or interest. There
is no practice so base of which they will not become the panders:
no sophistry of which their understanding may not be made the
voluntary dupe. Their only object is to please their fancy. Their
souls are effeminate, half man and half woman : they want forti-
titude, and are without principle. If things do not turn out ac-
cording to their wishes, they will make their wishes turn round to
things. They can easily overlook whatever they do not approve, and
make an idol of any thing they please. The object of poetry is
to please : this art naturally gives pleasure, and excites admira-
tion. Poets, therefore, cannot do well without sympathy and
flattery. It is, accordingly, very much against the grain that they
remain long on the unpopular side of the question. They do not
like to be shut out when laurels are to be given away at court — or
places under government to be disposed of, in romantic situations
in the country. They are happy to be reconciled on the first op-
portunity to prince and people, and to exchange their principles
for a pension. They have not always strength of mind to think
for themselves ; nor honesty enough to bear the unjust stigma of
the opinions they have taken upon trust from others. Truth alone
does not satisfy their pampered appetites, without the sauce of
praise. To prefer truth to all other things, it requires that the
mind should have been at some pains in finding it out, and that it
should feel a severe delight in the contemplation of truth, seen by
its own clear light, and not as it is reflected in the admiring eyes
of the world. A philosopher may perhaps make a shift to be
contented with the sober draughts of reason : a poet must have
the applause of the world to intoxicate him. Milton was how-
ever a poet, and an honest man ; he was Cromwell's secretary.
We have here described the spirit of poetry when it comes in
contact with the spirit of the world. Let us see what results
from it when it comes in coptact with the spirit of Jacobinism.
The spirit of Jacobinism is essentially at variance with the spirit
of poetry : it has " no figures nor no fantasies," which the preju-
158
dices of superstition or the world draw in the brains of men: " no
trivial fond records :" it levels all distinctions of art and nature :
it has no pride, pomp, or circumstance, belonging to it ; it con-
verts the whole principle of admiration in the poet (which is the
essence of poetry) into admiration of himself. The spirit of Ja-
cobin poetry is rank egotism. We know an instance. It is of
a persori who founded a school of poetry on sheer humanity, on
ideal boys and mad mothers, and on Simon Lee, the old hunts-
man. The secret of the Jacobin poetry and the anti jacobin
politics of this writer is the same. His lyrical poetry was a cant
of humanity about the commonest people to level the great with
the small ; and his political poetry is a cant of loyalty to level
Bonaparte witli kings and hereditary imbeciUty. As he would put
up the commonest of men against kings and nobles, to satisfy his
levelling notions, so for the same reason, he would set up the
meanest of kings against the greatest of men, reposing once more
on the mediocrity of royalty. This person admires nothing that
is admirable, feels no interest in any thing interesting, no gran-
deur in any thing grand, no beauty in any thing beautiful. He
tolerates nothing but what he himself creates; he sympathizes
only with what can enter into no competition with him, with " the
bare earth and mountains bare, and grass in the green field."
He sees nothing but himself and the universe. He hates all
greatness, and all pretensions to it but his own. His egotism is
in this respect a madness ; for he scorns even the admiration of
himself, thinking it a presumption in any one to suppose that he
has taste or sense enough to understand him. He hates all science
and all art ; he hates chemistry, he hates conchology ; he hates
Sir Isaac Newton ; he hates logic, he hates metaphysics, which
he says are unintelligible, and yet lie would be thought to under-
stand them ; he hates prose, he hates all po^ry but his own ; he
hates Shakespeare, or what he calls " those interlocutions between
Lucius and Caius," because he would have all the talk to himself,
and considers the movements of passios in Lear, Othello, or
Macbeth, as impertinent, compared •with the Moods of his own
159
Miud ; he thinks every thing good is contained in the " Lyrical
Ballads," or, if it is not contained tliere, it is good for nothing ;
he hates music, dancing, and painting ; he hates Rubens, he hates
Rembrandt, he hates Raphael, he hates Titian, he hates Van-
dyke ; he hates the antique ; he hates the Apollo Belvidere ; he
hates the Venus de Medicis. He hates all that others love and
admire but himself. He is glad that Bonaparte is sent to St.
Helena, and that the Louvre is dispersed for the same reason
— to get rid of the idea of any thing greater, or thought greater
than himself. The Bourbons, and their processions of the Holy
Ghost, give no disturbance to his vanity ; and he therefore gives
them none.
THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.
ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN TOAD-EATERS AND
TYRANTS.
" Doubtless, the pleasure is as great
•' In being cheated as to cheat."
Jfm. 12, 1817.
We some time ago promised our friend, Mr. Robert Owen,
an explanation of some of the causes which impede the natural
progress of liberty and human happiness. We have in part
redeemed this pledge in what we said about Coriolanus, and we
shall try in this article to redeem it still more. We grant to
our ingenious and romantic friend, that the progress of knowledge
and civilization is in itself favourable to liberty and equality, and
that the general stream of thought and opinion constantly sets in
this way, till power finds the tide of public feeling becoming too
strong for it, ready to sap its rotten foundations, and " bore
through its castle-walls ; " and then it contrives to turn the tide
of knowledge and sentiment clean the contrary way, and either
bribes human reason to take part against human nature, or knocks
it on the head by a more summary process. Thus, in the year
160
1792, Mr. Burke became a pensioner for writing his book against
the French Revolution, and Mr. Thomas Paine was outlawed
for his Rights of Man. Since that period, the press has been
the great enemy of freedom, the whole weight of that immense
engine (for the purposes of good or ill) having a fatal bias given
to it by the two main springs of fear and favour.
The weak sides of human intellect, by which power effects its
conversion to the worst purposes, when it finds the exercise of
free opinion inconsistent with the existence and uncontrouled
exercise of arbitrary power, are these four, viz, the grossness of
the imagination, which is seduced by outward appearances from
the pursuit of real ultimate good ; the subtlety of the understanding
itself, which palliates by flimsy sophistry the most flagrant abuses ;
interest and advancement in the world ; and lastly, the feuds and
jealousies of literary men among one another. There is no class
of persons so little calculated to act in corps as literary men.
All their views are recluse and separate (for the mind acts by
individual energy, and not by numbers) : their motives, whether
good or bad, are personal to themselves, their vanity exclusive,
their love of truth independent; they exist not by the preservation,
but the destruction of their own species ; they are governed not
by the spirit of unanimity, but of contradiction. They will hardly
allow any thing to be right or any thing to be wrong, unless they
are the first to find out that it is so ; and are ready to prove the
best things in the world the worst, and the worst the best, from
the pure impulse of splenetic over-weening self-opinion, much
more if they are likely to be well paid for it — not that interest is
their ruling passion, but still it operates, silent and unseen, with
them as with other men, when it can make a compromise with
their vanity. This part of the character of men of letters is so well
known, that Shakespear makes Brutus protest against the fitness
of Cicero to be included in their enterprize on this very principle :—
" Oh, name him not : let us not break with him ;
For he will never follow any thki^,
That other men begin."
161
The whole of Mr. Burke's 'Reflections on the French 'Revolution *
is but an elaborate and damning comment on this short text.
He quarrelled with the French Revolution out of spite to Rous-
seau, the spark of whose genius had kindled the flame of liberty
in a nation. He therefore endeavoured to extinguish the flame — •
to put out the light ; and he succeeded, because there were others
like himself, ready to sacrifice every manly and generous principle
to the morbid, sickly, efi'eminate, little, selfish, irritable, dirty
spirit of authorship. Not only did such persons, according to
Mr. Coleridge's valuable and competent testimony (see his Lay-
Sermon) make the distinction between Atheism and Religion a
mere stalking-horse for the indulgence of their idle vanity, but
they made the other questions of Liberty and Slavery, of the
Rights of Man, or the Divine Right of Kings to rule millions of
men as their Slaves for ever, they made these vital and paramount
questions (which whoever wilfully and knowingly compromises, is
a traitor to himself and his species), subordinate to the low,
whiffling, contemptible gratification of their literary jealousy.
We shall not go over the painful list of instances ; neither can we
forget them. But they all or almost all contrived to sneak over
one by one to the side on which " empty praise or solid pudding "
was to be got; they could not live without the smiles of the
great (not they), nor provide for an increasing establishment
without a loss of character ; instead of going into some profitable
business and exchanging their lyres for ledgers, their pens for the
plough (the honest road to riches), they chose rather to prostitute
their pens to the mock-heroic defence of the most bare-faced of
all mummeries, the pretended alliance of kings and people! We
told them how it would be, if they succeeded ; it has turned out
just as we said ; and a pretty figure do these companions of Ulysses
C Compagnons du Lys), these gaping converts to despotism, these
* Wlien this work was first piiblishecl, the King had copies of it bound in
Morocco, and gave tliem away to his favourite courtiers, saying, " It was a
book which every gentleman ought to read."
M
162
well-fed victims of the chairas of the Bourbons, now make,
nestling under their laurels in the stye of Corruption, and snnk in
torpid repose (from which they do not like to be disturbed by
calling on their former names or professions), in l;izy sinecures
and good warm births! Such is the history and mystery of literary
patriotism and prostitution for the last twenty years. — Power is
subject to none of these disadvantages. It is one and indivisible ;
it is self-centered, self-willed, incorrigible, inaccessible to temp-
tation or entreaty ; interest is on its side, passion is on its side,
prejudice is on its side, the name of religion is on its side ; the
qualms of conscience it is not subject to, for it is iron-nerved ;
humanity it is proof against, for it sets itself up above humanity ;
reason it does not hearken to, except that reason which panders
to its will and flatters its pride. It pursues its steady way, its un-
deviating everlasting course, '' unslacked of motion," like that
foul Indian idol, the Jaggernaut, and crushes poor upstart poets,
patriots, and philosophers (the beings of an hour) and the suc-
cessive never-ending generations of fools and knaves, beneath
its feet ; and mankind bow their willing necks to the yoke, and
eagerly consign their children and their children's children to be
torn in pieces by its scythe, or trampled to death by the gay,
gaudy, painted, blood-stained wheels of the grim idol of
power !
Such is the state of the Eastern world, where the inherent
baseness of man's nature, and his tendency to social order, to
tyrannize and to be tyrannized over, has had full time to develope
itself. Our turn seems next. We are but just setting out, it is
true, in this bye-nook and corner of the world — but just recover-
ing from the effects of the Revolution of 1688, and the defeated
Rebellions of the years 1715 and J 745, but we need hardly de-
spair under the auspices of the Editor of The Times, and with the
example of the defeat " of the last successful instance of a
democratic rebellion," by the second restoration of the Bourbons,
before our eyes and close under our noses. Mr. Owen may think
163
the example of New Lanark more inviting, but the persons
to whom he has dedicated his work turn their eyes another
way !*
Man is a toad-eating animal. The admiration of power in
others is as common to man as the love of it in himself: the
one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. It is not he alone,
who wears the golden crown, that is proud of it: the wretch who
pines in a dungeon, and in chains, is dazzled with it ; and if he
could but shake oif his own fetters, would care little about the
wretches whom lie left behind him, so that he might have an op-
portunity, on being set free himself, of gazing at this glittering
gew-gaw " on some high holiday of once a year." The slave,
who has no other hope or consolation, clings to the apparition of
royal magnificence, which insults his misery and his despair;
stares through the hollow eyes of famine at the insolence of pride
and luxury which has occasioned it, and hugs his chains the closer,
because he has nothing else left. The French, under the old
regime, made the glory of their Grand Monarque a set-off
against rags and hunger, equally satisfied with shows or bread;
and the poor Spaniard, delivered from temporary to permanent
oppression, looks up once more with pious awe, to the time-hal-
lowed towers of the Holy Inquisition. As the herd of mankind
are stripped of every thing, in body and mind, so are they thankful
for what is left; as is the desolation of their hearts and the
wreck of their little all, so is the pomp and pride which is built
upon their ruin, and their fawning admiration of it.
" I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning :
* Our loyal Editor used to bluster a great deal some time ago about putting
down James Madison, and " the last example of democratic rebellion in Ame-
rica." In tliis he was consistent and logical. Could he not, however, find out
another example of this same principle, by going a little farther back in his-
tory, and coming a little nearer home? If he has forgotten this chapter in our
history, others who have profited more by it have not. He may understand
what we mean, by turning to tiie story of tiie two elder Jilifils in Tom Jones.
n 2
164
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has oftener set me mourning." *
There is something in the human mind, which requires an ob-
ject for it to repose on ; and, driven from all other sources of
pride or pleasure, it falls in love with misery, and grows ena-
moured of oppression. It gazes after the liberty, the happiness,
the comfort, the knowledge, which have been torn from it by the
unfeeling gripe of wealth and power, as the poor debtor gazes
with envy and wonder at the Lord Mayor's show. Thus is the
world by degrees reduced to a spital or lazar-house, where the
people waste away with want and disease, and are thankful if they
are only suffered to crawl forgotten to their graves. Just in pro-
portion to the systematic tyranny exercised over a nation, to its loss
of a sense of freedom and the spirit of resistance, will be its loyalty;
the most abject submission will always be rendered to the most
confirmed despotism. The most wretched slaves are the veriest
sycophants. The lacquey, mounted behind his master's coach,
looks down with contempt upon the mob, forgetting his own
origin and his actual situation, and comparing them only with
that standard of gentility which he has perpetually in his eye.
The hireling of the press (a still meaner slave) wears his livery,
and is proud of it. H^ measures the greatness of others by his
own meanness ; their lofty pretensions indemnify him for his ser-
vility ; he magnifies the sacredness of their persons to cover the
laxity of his own principles. He offers up his own humanity,
and that of all men, at the shrine of royalty. He sneaks to
court ; and the bland accents of power close his ears to the voice
of freedom ever after ; its velvet touch makes his heart marble to
a people's sufferings. He is the intellectual pimp of power, as
* Simon Lee, the old Huntsman, a tale by Mr. Wordsworth, of which he
himself says,
" It is no tale, but if you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it."
In this view it is a tale indeed, not " of other times," but of these.
165
others are the practical ones of the pleasures of the great, and
often on the same disinterested principle. For one tyrant, there
are a thousand ready slaves. Man is naturally a worshipper of
idols and a lover of kings. It is the excess of individual power,
that strikes and gains over his imagination : the general misery and
degradation which are the necessary consequences of it, are spread
too wide, they lie too deep, their weight and import are too great,
to appeal to any but the slow, inert, speculative, imperfect faculty
of reason. The cause of liberty is lost in its own truth and mag-
nitude ; while the cause of despotism flourishes, triumphs, and is
irresistible in the gross mixture, the Belle Alliance, of pride and
ignorance.
Power is the grim idol that the world adore ; that arms itself
with destruction, and reigns by terror in the coward heart of man ;
that dazzles the senses, haunts the imagination, confounds the un-
derstanding, and tames the will, by the vastness of its pretensions,
and the very hopelessness of resistance to them. Nay more, the
more mischievous and extensive the tyranny — the longer it has lasted,
and the longer it is likely to last — the stronger is the hold it takes
of the minds of its victims, the devotion to it increasing with the
dread. It does not satisfy the enormity of the appetite for ser-
vility, till it has slain the mind of a nation, and becomes like the
evil principle of the universe, from which there is no escape. So
in some countries, the most destructive animals are held sacred,
despair and terror completely overpowering reason. The preju-
dices of superstition (religion is another name for fear) are always
the strongest in favour of those forms of worship which require
the most bloody sacrifices ; the foulest idols are those which are
approached with the greatest awe ; for it should seem that those
objects are the most sacred to passion and imagination, which
are the most revolting to reason and common sense. No wonder
that the Editor of The Times bows his head before the idol of
Divine Right, or of Legitimacy, (as he calls it) which has had
more lives sacrificed to its ridiculous and unintelligible pretensions,
in the last twenty-five years, than were ever sacrificed to any other
160
idol in all preceding ages. Never was there any thing so well
contrived as this fiction of Legitimacy, to suit the fastidious deli-
cacy of modern sycophants. It hits their grovelling servility and
petulant egotism exactly between wind and water. The con-
trivers or re-modellers of this idol, beat all other idol- mongers,
whether Jews, Gentiles or Christians, hollow. The principle of
all idolatry is the same : it is the want of something to admire,
without knowing what or why : it is the love of an effect without
a cause ; it is a voluntary tribute of admiration which does not
compromise our vanity : it is setting something up over all the
rest of the world, to which we feel ourselves to be superior, for
it is our own handy-work ; so that the more perverse the homage
we pay to it, the more it pampers our self-will : the meaner the
object, the more magnificent and pompous the attributes we be-
stow upon it ; the greater the lie, the more enthusiastically it is
believed and greedily swallowed : —
" Of whatsoever race his godhead be,
Stock, stone, or other homely pedit^ree,
Til his defence his servants are as bold
As if he had been made of beaten gold,"
In this inverted ratio, the bungling impostors of former times,
and less refined countries, got no further than stocks and stones :
their utmost stretch of refinement in absurdity went no further than
to select the most mischievous animals or the most worthless ob-
jects for the adoration of their besotted votaries : but the framers
of the new law-fiction of legitimacy have started a nonentity.
The ancients sometimes worshipped the sun or stars, or deified
heroes and great men : the moderns have found out the ima^-e of
the divinity in Louis XVII [. ! They have set up an object for
their idolatry, ^^hich tliey themselves must laugh at, if hypocrisy
were not with them the most serious thing in the world. They
offer up thirty millions of men to it as its victims, and yet they
know that it is nothing but a scare-crow to keep the world in sub-
jection to their renegado whimsies and preposterous hatred of the
liberty and happiness of mankind. They do not think kings gods,
167
but they make believe that they do so, to degrade their fellows to
the rank of brutes. Legiiimacy answers every object of their
meanness and malice — omue tu/ii punctum. — ^Tliis mock-doc-
trine, this little Hunchback, which our resurrection-men, the
Humane Society of Divine Right, have foisted on the altar of
Liberty, is not only a phantom of the imagination, but a contra-
diction in terms; it is a prejudice, but an exploded prejudice; it
is an imposture, that imposes on nobody; it is powerful only in
impotence, safe in absurdity, courted from fear and hatred, a
dead prejudice linked to the living mind ; the sink of honour, the
grave of liberty, a palsy in the heart of a nation ; it claims the
species as its property, and derives its right neither from God nor
man ; not from the authority of the Church, which it treats cava-
lierly, and yet in contempt of the will of the people, which it
scouts as opposed to its own : its two chief supporters are, the
sword of the Duke of Wellington and the pen of the Editor of
The Times ! The last of these props has, we understand, just failed
it.
We formerly gave the Editor of The Times a definition of a
true Jacobin, as one " who had seen the evening star set over a
poor man's cottage, and connected it with the hope of human
happiness." The city-politician laughed this pastoral definition
to scorn, and nicknamed the person who had very innocently laid
it down, " the true Jacobin who writes in the Chronicle," — a
nickname by which we profited as little as he has by our Illus-
trations. Since that time our imagination has grown a little less
romantic : so we will give him another, which he may chew the
cud upon at his leisure. A true Jacobin, then, is one who does
not believe in the divine right of kings, or in any other alias for
it, which implies that they reign " in contempt of the will of the
people ;" and he holds all such kings to be tyrants, and their sub-
jects slaves. To be a true Jacobin, a man must be a good hater ;
but this is the most difficult and the least amiable of all the
virtues : the most trying and the most thankless of all tasks. The
love of liberty consists in the hatred of tyrants. The true Ja-
168
cobin hates the enemies of liberty as they hate hberty, with ali
his strength and with all his might, and with all his heart and with
all his soul. His memory is as long, and his will as strong as
theirs, though his hands are shorter. He never forgets or forgives
an injury done to the people, for tyrants never forget or forgive
one done to themselves. There is no love lost between them.
He does not leave them the sole benefit of their old motto, Odia
in longum Jaciens qua corideret auctaque promeret. He makes
neither peace nor truce with them. His hatred of wrong only
ceases with the wrong. The sense of it, and of the barefaced
assumption of the right to intlict it, deprives him of his rest. It
stagnates in his blood. It loads his heart with aspics' tongues,
deadly to venal pens. It settles in his brain — it puts him beside
himself. Who will not feel all this for a girl, a toy, a turn of the
dice, a word, a blow, for any thing relating to himself; and will
not the friend of liberty feel as much for mankind? The
love of truth is a passion in his mind, as the love of power is a
passion in the minds of others. Abstract reason, unassisted by
passion, is no match for power and prejudice, armed with force
and cunning. The love of liberty is the love of others ; the love
of power is the love of ourselves. The one is real ; the other
often but an empty dream. Hence the defection of modem
apostates. While they are looking about, wavering and dis-
tracted, in pursuit of universal good or universal fame, the eye of
power is upon them, like the eye of Providence, that neither
slumbers nor sleeps, and that watches but for one object, its own
good. They take no notice of it at first, but it is still upon them,
and never off them. It at length catches theirs, and they bow to
its sacred light ; and like the poor fluttering bird, quail beneath
it, are seized with a vertigo, and drop senseless into its jaws, that
close upon ihem for ever, and so we see no more of them, which
is well.
" And we saw three poets in a dream, walking up and down
on the face of the earth, and holding in their hands a human
heart, which, as they raised their eyes to heaven, they kissed and
169
worshipped ; and a mighty shout arose and shook the air, for
the towers of the Bastile had fallen, and a nation had become, of
slaves, freemen ; and the three poets, as they heard the sound,
leaped and shouted, and made merry, and their voice was
choaked with tears of joy, which they shed over the human heart,
which thev kissed and worshipped. And not long after, we saw
the same three poets, the one with a receipt-stamp in his hand,
the other with a laurel on his head, and the third with a symbol
which we could make nothing of, for it was neither literal nor
allegorical, following in the train of the Pope and the Inquisition
and the Bourbons, and worshipping the mark of the Beast, with
the emblem of the human heart thrown beneath their feet, which
they trampled and spit upon !" — This apologue is not worth
finishing, nor are the people to whom it relates worth talking of.
We have done with then).
Interesting Facts relating to the Fall and Death of Joa-
chim Marat, King of Naples; the Capitulation of Paris in
1815; and the Second Restoration of the Bourbons : Origi-
nal Letters from King Joachim to the Author, with some
Account of the Author, and of his Persecution by the French
Government. By Francis Macirone, late Aid-de-camp to
King Joachim ; Knight of the Order of the Two Sicilies, S^c.
Sfc. London: Ridgways, 1817.
" Come, draw the curtain ; shew the picture."
February 3, 1817.
We have here a pretty peep behind " the dark blanket" of
Legitimacy. We thank Mr. Macirone for having introduced us
once more to the old lady of that name in her dressing-room.
What a tissue of patches and of paint ! What a quantity of
wrinkles and of proud flesh ! What a collection of sickly per-
170
fumes and slow poisons, with her love-powders and the assassin's
knife placed side by side ! What treacheries and lies upon her
tongue ! What meanness and malice in her heart ! What an old
hypocritical hag it is ! What a vile canting, mumbling, mischiev-
ous witch ! " Pah ! and smells so." The very wind that kisses
all it meets, stops the nose at her. We wonder how any prince
should take a fancy to such an old rotten demirep ! Yet this is
the heroine of all heroines (Mr. Southey will tell you in hobbling
illegitimate verse), a greater heroine than even his Joan of Arc —
the heroine of Leipsic, of Saragossa, and of Waterloo! ft is
indeed the same. Look at her again, look at her well, look at
her closely, and you will lind that it is " that harlot old,"
" The sarae that was, that is, and is to be ;" —
the mother of abominations, the daughter of lies. Dig up the
bones of a few of her wretched favourites you may, in Carmelite
dresses or any other trumpery; but can you dig up the bones of
the men that she has murdered, from the earliest time? can you
collect the blood of the millions of men that she has sacriticed in
the last tweirty-five years alone, and pour it into the Thames,
while our merchant-men ride freighted with gold upon the gory
stream, and the Editor of The Times (without being called to
account for it) applauds with the " sweet thunder" of his pen the
proud balance of our exports and our imports, blood and gold ?
or can you collect the sighs and dried-up tears of wretches that
she. Legitimacy, has doomed to pine without a cause in dun-
geons, to prove that she is the dread sovereign of the human
heart ? or the groans and shrieks of victims stretched on the rack,
or consumed by slow fire, to prove that the minds of men belong
to her ? or the cries of hunger and pinching cold, the sweat, the
rags, the diseases, the emaciated wan looks, by which she proves
that the bodies of men are her's ? or can you conjure up the wide
spreading desolation which she breathes from her nostrils, the famine
and pestilence which she scatters before her for her sport and wan-
tonness, the ruins of cities and of countries which she makes her
171
throne, and from which, amidst the groans of the dying and the
dead, she utters, laughing, the sacred doctrine of " millions made
for one !" — One thing contents us, and sits light upon our hearts,
that we have always seen through her di?:guises : we have known
her from first to last, though " she has changed shapes with Pro-
teus," and now gone' by the name of Religion, now of Social
Order, now of Morality, now been personified at Guildhall as
Trade and Commerce, or sat in the Speaker's chair as the Eng-
lish Constitution (the most impudent trick of all) — under none of
these respectable alias's and swindling characters, nor when she
towered above the conflagration of Moscow, dressed in a robe of
flame-coloured taffeta, or sat perched as Victory on the crests of
British soldiers, nor when she hovered over the frightened country
as the harpy of Invasion ; no, nor at any other time did we ever
take her for any thing but what we knew she was, the patron-saint
of tyrants and of slaves ; an adulteress, an impostor, and a mur-
deress. The world, whom she has juggled, begin to find her out
too : it will hardly " stand now with her sorceries and her lies,
and the blood of men, with which she has made herself drunk ;"
and we may yet live to see her carted for a bawd.
Having thus vented the overflowings of our gall against the old
lady above-mentioned, we shall proceed to a detail of some of
her fraudulent transactions, as they are stated with great clearness
and command cf temper, in Mr. Macirone's " Interesting Facts."
Interesting indeed ! But no more comments for the present. We
have not time to grace our narrative or confirm our doctrine of
" the uses of legitimacy" by giving Mr. Macirone's history of
the treatment of his family by the Holy See, which brought his
father to this country, and eventually led to his connexion with
Murat. It appears that his grandfather, the head of a noble and
wealthy family at Rome, was ruined in a large concern, and then
robbed of his right by Monsignore Banchieri, treasurer to the
Pope, a " gentleman and man of honour" in those times;
and that, though the tribunals awarded him reparation, the deci-
sions in his favour were constantly defeated by the interposition
^
172
of the papal power. The consequence was, that the elder Ma-
cirone, after a fruitless struggle of several years with legitimate
power and injustice, died of grief and chagrin, and his family
were dispersed in various directions : his eldest son came to
England and married an English lady, of which union our author
was the issue. This short episode shews what Legitimacy, that
is, a power above the law, and accountable only to heaven for
its exercise, its use or its abuse, always was, and always will be.
These tricks were played long before the French revolution, and
with a million other tricks of the same legitimate, that is, lawless
kind, produced it. — We have here an account of some of the
tricks resorted to by the wielders and abettors of mild paternal
sway to restore the old right to do wrong with impunity, and to
put down the principles and partizans of the revolution, as an
example of successful rebellion against power held in contempt of
the people, and exercised in disregard of law. Mr. Macirone, a
native of England, went to Italy at the age of fifteen, and re-
mained there from 1803 till 1812. Part of this time he was
detained as an English prisoner. He was afterwards employed
as an aid-de-camp to Murat, and gives the following narrative of
his transactions with the Allies : —
1 . A Treaty of Alliance, offensive and defensive, was signed
between Austria and Naples, on the 11th of Jan. 1814, and the
Austrian Plenipotentiary declared that England was ready to ac-
cede to a similar Treaty with King Joachim.^-2. A Convention
was signed by Lord William Bentinck with the Neapolitan Go-
vernment, which opened the ports of Italy to the British fleet,
and placed affairs on a footing of perfect peace. — 3. Murat, on
the strength of these engagements, opened the campaign in concert
with the Allies, when instantly objections were made to the ratifi-
cation of the Treaty with Austria, not by Austria, but by Eng-
land, on some pretence of the territorial indemnifications to be
granted to Murat at the expense of the Pope. — 4. Murat assented
to the proposed modifications, and Lord W. Bentinck declared,
that the English Government now agreed entirely to the Treaty
173
between Austria and Naples. — 5. This declaration of Lord W.
Bentinck was confirmed by a declaration of Lord Castlereagh,
that it was only from motives of delicacy to the King of Sicily
that the English Government delayed the conclusion of a special
and separate Treaty with Naples, that a Treaty of Indemnities
to the King of Sicily and of Peace with King Joachim might
go hand in hand. — 6. Murat now joined the campaign of 1814,
and turned the scale against France and Napoleon. — In this state
of things, Mr. Macirone observes, —
" A variety of circumstances had now combined to induce the
King to doubt the sincerity of the Allies. The Emperor of Aus-
tria had delayed for many days the tranimission of the ratifica-
tion of the Treaty of the 11 th January. Ferdinand of Sicily
had published an order of the day to some Sicilian troops about
to land at Leghorn, in which they were informed that they were
going to recover his kingdom of Naples, which he had never
ceded, and never would cede. The English general, Lord Wil-
liam Bentinck, had landed with these troops, under instructions
to excite a revolution in Italy, and had insisted on the mainte-
nance of a position ( Tuscany) which intercepted the communica-
tion between the Neapolitan army and Naples; propositions
at the same time zoere made in a foreign camp to Neapolitan
generals and other officers, for the expulsion of the then reign-
ing dynasty from the throne of Naples. The doubts which
these circumstances had excited were removed by a declaration
of General Sir Robert Wilson, at Bologna ; that he considered
the letter of Lord Castlereagh, containing the promise of a for-
mal treaty, as of equal value and force with a treaty already
signed. And that neither the executive authority, nor the
parliament, would hesitate to recognize the validity of such an
engagement. Indeed, it was in his opinion more imperative, if
possible, than a regular treaty, because it connected an appeal to
honour with an obligation on good faith. From that moment
the King again made the most zealous efforts in the common
cause." — p. 20.
174
AJasi Sir Robert. "How little knew'st thou of Calista!" as a
body may say. But you have in part redeemed your errors^ and
revenged the trick that was thus put upon your preux chevalier
notions of honour ! — One would think there was shuffling and pal-
tering and evasion and cant and cunning enough in the foregoing
part of this transaction. What follows is worse. After the cam-
paigns which so providentially delivered France and Europe from
the hands of illegitimate into those of legitimate power en plein
droit, and while the immortal congress was yet assembled at Vi-
enna, " Prince Talleyrand, on the part of King Louis," says Mr.
Macirone, " was indefatigable in his exertions to induce the
Austrian government to withdraw their alliance from the King of
Naples, from whom the allied powers had so recently received
the most efiicient support. The Austrian government being
warmly urged to undertake the holy war of legitimacy against its
ally, the King of Naples, at length expressed its willingness to
comply, but alleged the exhausted state of the finances of the
country. This difficulty was, it is said, immediately removed by
the British ministers, who offered to defray all the expense of
the expedition, and moreover to furnish a British fleet, in pre-
ference to a French fleet, as proposed by Talleyrand in his fa-
mous note, which fleet should act in concert with and assist the
movements of the Austrian forces."
One would think that after this open and profligate breach of
faith, the legitimates had made up their minds to keep no terms
with illegitimacy. But, no : expediency turns round once more,
and British honour, simplicity, and good faith, with it ! Murat;,
in consequence of the preparations against him, attacked the Aus-
trians " at the very moment, as it afterwards turned out, that the
apprehensions of his union with Napoleon, who had just returned
to France from Elba, had determined the British cabinet to at-
tend to the invocations of justice in his favour. Lord Castlereagh
had written to the Duke of Wellington, who was at that time the
plenipotentiary of the British court at Vienna, and informed him,
that in consequence of the reappearance of Napoleon at the head
175
of the French nation, tlie British ministers thought it adviseable
to unite all the force they could collect, and had consequently
come to a determination immediately to conclude a treaty of alli-
ance with the King of Naples."
Bravo, my Lord Castlereagh ! you may one day find, after all,
that honesty is the best policy ; and we hope the Editor of The
Times, in the next number of The Correspondent, will relieve
his praises of the allies and his comphments to the Duke of Levis,
by a criticism to prove that Jonathan Wild and Count Fathom
were " gentlemen and men of honour !"
But the tale of blushins; British honour is not ended. At the
time when Murat was at the height of his success against the
Austrians, " Colonel Dalrymple arrived at Bol<'gna, King Joa-
chim's head-quarters, commissioned by Lord William Benlinck,
to request that the tenitojy of his Britannic mcijestys ally, the
King of Sardinia, might not he violated by the Neapolitan
irmy." — In consequence of Murat's polite atteniion to tins deli-
cate request, he lost his campaign, his crown, and his life; for
no sooner was he defeated in his attempts to force the passage of
tht Po, which he might easily have effected, by infringing upon
a snail corner of the Piedmontese territory, than " he was sur-
prized at receiving a notification from Lord William Bentinck,
that 'tis instructions were to join the Austrians against him."-^
We kiow the consequences of this exquisite simplicity of pro-
ceeding on both sides. Poor Murat ! he well deserved his fate,
but not tt the hands from which he received it. Foolish fellow !
He did not know that legitimacy keeps no faith with illegitimacy.
At present, we suppose that point is pretty well settled.
Murat was senseless enough to believe that he, who had been
made a king by Bonaparte, would be cordially received in the
list of kings by those who were so by divine right; and he was
base enough to turn against his benefactor, his country, and the
human race \ but in himself he appears to have been a gallant,
generous, and heroic-minded man. The account of his escape
from the Austrians, and of his landing in France, is interesting : —
176.
" On the king's approach to Naples with a small remnant of
his army, six thousand of the national guard, with General Mac-
donald, minister of war, at their head, marched forth to meet
him. They greeted his return in the most loyal and affectionate
manner, exhorting him still to hope for success in the love and
devotedness of his subjects, swearing that they were all ready to
perish in defence of their king and country; but in consequence
of the part England had taken against him, he declined making
any further efforts, which would only tend to involve the brave
and loyal in his own catastrophe.
" He entered Naples unknown, in the evening of the IQth May,
accompanied by his nephew, who was colonel of the Qth regiment
of lancers, and four privates. He immediately proceeded to his
palace, where he appeared before the queen, pale and emaciated,
in the habit of a lancer ; tenderly embracing her, he said, * All
is lost, madam, but my Hfe; that I have not been able to lose.'*
" Having taken farewell of his children, he caused his hair
which he had hitherto worn in long ringlets, to be cut short, anJ
habited in a plain grey suit, accompanied by his nephew, tie
colonel, he proceeded on foot to the sea-shore, opposite to ;he
island of Nisida. He there embarked in a little boat, and oro-
ceeded to the neighbouring island of Ischia. There he remtined
three days without being known, and on the fourth, as Ve was
walking on the sea-shore on the southern side of the ishnd, in
company with the colonel, consulting about the means of effecting
their escape to France, they discovered a small vessel to the east,
in full sail, approaching the spot where they were standing.
" The king immediately hailed the vessel, and getting into a
fishing-boat which was on the shore, ordered the crew to row
* During the retreat, the king was ever seen where the danger was greatest.
Foremost in the ranks, he continually charged the Austrians in psrson. When
his affairs grew desperate, it became evident that he sought for death in the
field. At the head of a few of his cavalry, whom he constant'y preceded, he
often charged the enemy to their very cannons' mouth. How he escaped amidst
so many dangers appears miraculous. He might well say that " he had sought
death, but had not been able to find it."
177
towards it, and, as soon as they were perceived, a boat was sent
from the vessel to meet them. The feelings of all parlies may
easily be imagined, when, in one of the persons on board, the
king recognized his attached and faithful servant the Duke of
Roccaromana, to whom the vessel belonged, and who, in com-
pany with the Marquis Giuliano, the king's aid-de-camp, had
escaped from Naples, and was proceeding in this vessel in search
of the king, under the greatest anxiety and apprehension, lest
some accident might have befallen him, although, previously to
quitting the palace, the king had divided with the duke and mar-
quis a considerable sum in gold, and acquainted them with his
plan of going to Ischia, accompanied only by his nephew, and of
embarking from thence to France.
" The duke could not succeed in effecting his escape from
Naples until three days after the departure of the king. The
enemy's flag had been hoisted in Ischia ; and it appeared highly
improbable, under all circumstances, that the king could have
remained there concealed for those three days. It was unsafe for
the duke to attempt landing on the island, and yet there appeared
no other means of ascertaining whether the king was there or had
proceeded on his voyage. In this embarrassment, it happened
that the duke, who was most anxiously examining the shore of
the island with a glass, perceived and recognized the king. The
rest of their voyage proved most prosperous and expeditious.
They landed at Cannes the 27th or 28th of May." — p. 30.
We shall in our next give the particulars of Mr. Macirone's
interviews with the Duke of Wellington, relating to the conven-
tion of Paris; and we shall be cautious what we say of his Grace's
observations and conduct on that occasion ; for if we were to say
what we think of that noble person, there might be some ofl^ence
in it. But we cannot help having an opinion of him, which all
that we hear of him confirms.
N
178
Interesting Facts relating to the Fail of Murat, Sse.
By F. Macirone, &;c.
(concluded.)
Sta viator, beroeni calcas.
Feb. 9, 1S17.
We proceed to Mr. Macirone's account of the surrender of
Paris. Let it speak for itself : —
" Immediately after the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon returned
to Paris, and abdicated the throne in favour of his son, who
would have been accepted and proclaimed by the French people,
but for the opposition of two celebrated individuals.
" On this abdication, a commission of government, as it was
called, was formed, consisting of Fouche, the President, Caulin-
court, Carnot, Quinette, and Grenier.
" On the 26th of June, 1 believe, the Duke of Wellington, at
the head of his victorious army, reached Compeigne. In the
course of the following night, a deputation of five persons was
.sent to him from Paris by the two Chambers, to solicit an armis-
tice for a few days. The avowed purpose of this mission was to
afford time for the return of another deputation, which had been
dispatched to the Allied Sovereigns, to assert the right of the
French people to choose their own government, in conformity to
the Declaration of the Allies, that they warred against the
person of 'Napoleon only, and not against the French people, or
to force upon them any particular government.
" The Chamber of Deputies, the majority of the Com-
missioners of Government, and the Army, now in great strength
in Paris, were determined to resist any attempt to force the
Bourbons upon them ; while the avowed opinion of Fouch6 and
Caulincourt was, that such a determination could only lead to
the destruction of Paris, and the loss of thousands of lives.
They therefore sought the means of opening a communication
J79
with the Duke of Wellington, in which they might impart to him
their views, and avert the calamity which they apprehended from
the projects of the other parties. In the expediency of procuring
an armistice for a few days, all parties concurred ; and Fouche,
who had become acquainted with me in my interviews with him
respecting King Joachim, solicited me to undertake the task of
carrying on a communication between him and the Duke of Wel-
lington, it was sufficient for me to know that the service in
which I was to be engaged had for its object the prevention of a
sanguinary conflict, which an attempt to take Paris by force would
have occasioned, and I therefore consented to be the bearer of
Fouche's message to the Duke.
*' My feelings as an Englishman entirely influenced my conduct
in this instance. I exulted in the success of our army, and in
the military glory which the English name had acquired ; and it
appeared to me, that whatever might tend to prevent the further
effusion of blood, must be highly acceptable to my country ; and
to be selected as an instrument, by which so humane and desirable
an object might be accomplished, was highly gratifying to my
mind, and I should not have thought myself at liberty to refuse
to engage in it, from any opinion I might entertain of the private
views of the persons by whom I should be employed. Impressed
with these sentiments, I left Paris at midnight. 1 proceeded to
the Barriere de la Villette, where 1 found some difliculty in getting
my carriage over the different entrenchments and abattis, but
still more from the French officers, who evinced the greatest re-
luctance in permitting me to pass, observing that I was probably
a person sent out to treat with the enemy, and to betray them ;
but on my assuring them that the purport of my mission was
entirely analogous to their views and interests, I was suffered to
proceed without a trumpet. Before I had got beyond the French
lines, I was again stopped by a picquet of cuirassiers, who refused
to let me pass without an order from the officer commanding the
inner posts ; and while I was asserting my right to proceed, a
cuirassier fortunately happened to hold a light to my face, and
N 2
180
very lespecUully accosted me with the salutation of " bon voyage,
Major:" his comrades immediately asked him who 1 was? he
answered, " it's the Major of the 9th Hussars," for whom I
suppose he had mistaken me. This was instantly beheved ; and,
greeted by the sahitations and good wishes of the whole troop,
1 was allowed to continue my journey.
" The Prussian advanced posts were at less than two miles
dibtant, and I was consequently very soon stopped by a Prussian
lancer, who, upon my telling him that I was an English officer,
proceeding with dispatches to the Duke of Wellington, immedi-
ately accompanied me to the next post. Here I learnt with
great pleasure, that this advanced guard of cavalry was commanded
by Prince William of Prussia, whose first Aid-de-camp, Baron
Rochovv, was my particular friend.
" I soon arrived at the spot where Prince William and his Staff
were sleeping in a field, before a large fire, under some trees. [
inquired for my friend. Baron Rochow. His name was called,
and I immediately had the pleasure of seeing him. After a few
urgent questions, he proposed to introduce me to Prince William,
who by this time had raised himself upon his mattrass. The
Prince received me with the greatest politeness, and directed that
1 should be presented with refreshments. On my taking leave,
he ordered me to be furnished with an escort to General Baron
Bulow. I arrived at this General's quarters at break of day, and
was soon after introduced to him. While I was at breakfast with
him, he told me that he wished me to see Prince Blucher on
my way to the Duke of Wellington ; and added, that he would
send his Aid-de-camp with me. He then ordered his servant to
call his Aid-de-camp, Baron Echardslein, to whom I was also
particularly known.
" On our arrival at Prince Blucher's, my companion. Baron
Echardstein, informed him that I was going on a mission from
the French Government to the Duke of Welhngton : this did not
seem to please the Prince, who immediately retired to rest, and
left me to converse with his Chef-d'etat-Major. This gentleman,
181
whose name I believe was Gneisenau, was very indignant on being
informed of the desire of the French to treat with the Duke of
Wellington ; and he completely lost his temper when he observed
the coolness with which 1 listened to his indiscreet and auihorita-
live language.
" On my quitting this choleric soldier, my friend Echardstein
thought it necessary to apologise to me for the indelicate behaviour
of his countryman. I proceeded on my journey, and soon met
numerous columns of English cavalry, and found the five French
Deputies, waiting for the Duke's arrival, at a village called Fres-
noy. I thought it expedient to endeavour to see the Duke before
the Deputies, and therefore passed them on the road. I shortly
after met the Duke, and imparted to him the purport of my
mission, and delivered to him also a sealed dispatch from Fouch6,
upon which he desired me to accompany him to the village where
the Deputies were. He asked me if I was acquainted with the
nature of the mission. I told him that I knew that one part of
it, at least, was to request an armistice of some days, until news
could arrive from other Deputies, who had been sent to treat with
the united Sovereigns.
" On the Duke's arrival at the village of Fresnoy, he conferred
with the Deputies for five hours. They adduced, in support of
their mission, the solemn Declaration of the British Ministers,
" that it was not the intention of the Allies to force the Bourbons,
or any other government, on the French people; that they had
made war against Napoleon only, and not against the nation,"
&c. Their mission failed. They received for answer, that the
only thing left for the Chambers to do was to proclaim Louis
18th.
" The Duke then proceeded to Plessis, the head-quarters for
that day. The Deputies remained behind. 1 was desired by
the Duke to accompany him to Plessis, where I dined with him,
and during dinner conversed with him on the object I bad to pro-
pose respecting an armistice. Before 1 took my leave of the
Duke, 1 requested that he would give me some answer to the
182
remonstrances of the Commission of Government, which stated,
" that as the jellies had declared their hostility to be directed
against the person of Napoleon only, it would he hut just to
await the result of the mission to the Sovereigns, hefore his
Grace undertook to replace Louis I8th on the throne." The
Duke, in the presence of Lord March, Colonels Hervey, Free-
mantle, Abercromby, and several other officers, replied, — *' I Cjan
give no other answer than that which you know / have just given
to the Deputies. Tell them (the Commission of Government)
that they had better immediately proclaim the King (Louis 1 Sth).
I cannot treat till then, nor upon any other condition. Their
King is here at hand : let them send their submission to him."
We are glad the Duke is not an Englishman ? *
" The Duke was at this time in constant communication with
King Louis and Talleyrand, who were together in the rear of the
army; and I saw one of the messengers of Louis 18th at the
Duke's head -quarters. — I returned to Paris the next morning.
Davoust had taken the chief command of the French army, and
had fixed his head-quarters at the Barriere de la Villette, by
which I entered Paris. On my being introduced to him, he de-
manded to know the object of my mission to the enemy, and
said, that as he then held the supreme command, 1 must com-
municate to him any dispatches of which I might be the bearer ?
I answered him, that 1 had no written message ; that my mission
had been nearly similar to that of the Deputies ; that I had been
sent out by the Commission, and therefore thought it ray duty to
* Let no country go about to enslave another with impunity. For out of the
very dregs of rottenness and debasement will arise a low creeping fog of ser-
vility, a stench of corrnption to choak the life of liberty, wherever it comes —
a race of fortune-hunting, dastard, busy, hungry, heartless slaves and blood-
suckers, eager to fawn upon power and trample upon weakness, with no other
pretensions than want of principle, and a hatred of those who possess what
they want. Ireland has given us Castlereagh, Wellington, Burke. Is she not
even with us ? Let her smile now from her hundred hills, let her shake with
laughter through her thousand bogs ! Ireland, last of the nations, repose in
peace upon thy green western wave ! Thou and the world are quits.
183
account with its members only for my proceedings. I could,
however, inform him of the declaration, which, in common
with the Deputies, 1 had received from the Duke of Wellington.
Hereupon I reported to him the Duke's sine qua ncn. He im-
mediately declared that my intelligence was incredible, and ex-
pressed his disbelief of it in the strongest terms. Then, with the
greatest emotion, and with uplifted hands and eyes, he called
heaven to witness the perfidy and arrogant injitstice of the
English Ministry, and of the Allies. " The Duke of Welling-
ton" said he, " surely could never dare to make a declaration
so directly contrary to the avowed and solemnly protested inten-
tions of the British Ministry, and of the other Allies. Have
not they sworn that they would not impose a sovereign on the
French people'^ However, they will find to their cost, that we
are unanimous in our resolution. Napoleon can no longer be
the pretext for their hostilities. We will all perish rather than
submit to the hateful yoke that Lord Castlereagh zaould impose
upon us! is a traitor ! he was about to compromise
with the enemy — I have taken his command from him — he shall
never again command a corporal's guard — we are an independent
nation — England should be the last power to tyrannise over us
in our choice of a government." — He then desired me to proceed
to lay before the Commission at the Thuilleries the result of my
mission, adding, " they know very well that 1 have now with
me more than 100,000 men, with 500 pieces of cannon, and
25,000 cavalry."
" I proceeded to the palace of the Thuilleries, where I was
introduced to the Commission. Carnot immediately asked, what
my errand to the enemy had been ? Fouche quickly answered,
that he had sent me. Quinette and Grenier looked as if they
were not satisfied with this answer. Carnot continued to address
me, and asked whether I had seen the Deputies at the Duke of
Wellington's head-quarters ? I answered in the affirmative, and
that 1 could give him an account of the result of their mission :
upon this they became attentive, and heard my account with
184
dismay and indignation. Carnot expressed the same sentiments
that Davoust had recently done ; and added, rather roughly, that
he could by no means give credit to my account, either as to the
Duke of Wellington's sine qua non, or as to the force of the
enemy in the vicinity of Paris : he further said, with a sneer,
" we shall have, I hope, a very different account on the return
of the Deputies." Fouch6 defended me, and reproved him for
so uncivilly questioning my veracity, and assured him that he
might put implicit confidence in me. Carnot and Grenier then
took me to a topographical map, and questioned me as to the
movements of the Duke of Wellington ? 1 answered their
interrogatories to the extent to which I thought myself warranted :
and it appeared that I informed them of nothing with which they
were not already acquainted. Carnot then, in a polite manner,
told me I might retire.
"It would appear, that in consequence of having learned from
me the nature of the communication which the Deputies would
have to make to the Chambers, and dreading its discouraging
effects on the members, and on the people at large, their return
to Paris had been prevented. Some private orders seem to have
been given to that effect ; for on the same day that I entered
Paris by the Barriere de la Villette, the Deputies approached that
part, preceded by Colonel Latour Maubourg, who was attached
to their mission, when the French out-posts fired, killed the
Prussian trumpeter's horse, and a ball grazed the epaulette of the
Colonel. The Deputies turned back, and attempted to enter by
the Barriere de St. Dennis, but were refused. They there re-
ceived fresh instructions to treat, and it was so managed, that
they did not return to Paris till after the capitulation.
" In the mean time Fouche and his coadjutors, who opposed
the views of the other parties, were in great persona! danger.
The three other Members of the Commission more than sus-
pected them of duplicity and treachery ; and in consequence im-
peached them before the Chamber of Deputies. The Duke of
Wellington being acquainted with these proceedings, sent a
185
message to the Members of the Commission, as I was informed,
assuring them that if any harm befel Foiiche or Caulincourt, he
would infallibly hang up the other three on his arrival in
Paris. *
" It was proposed in the Chamber of Deputies, that its Mem-
bers should quit Paris with the army, and rally round them all
those who would oppose the enemy and the Bourbons. But
this measure Fouch6 was particularly anxious to thwart, whilst
Davoust, feeling himself confident in the strength of his army,
insisted on attacking Blucher and the Duke of Wellington before
other reinforcements should arrive ; but as I understood at the
time, Fouche succeeded in somewhat softening and in giving a
new direction to the policy of Carnot : and it is certain that he
managed to gain over Davoust by urging the force of the enemy,
and the dreadful consequences that would ensue if Paris should
be taken by assault. He pleaded the reliance which might be
placed OH the faith of the English (for with the Prussians the
French would not have treated on any terms). He therefore
recommended Davoust to evacuate Paris, and not to listen to the
desperate suggestions of the Chambers, observing, that so long as
his army remained entire, he might obtain favourable terms for
all parties.
" The day before the capitulation of Paris (2d July), I re-
paired to the British camp with the following memorandum, as
my instructions, from Fouche to the Duke of Wellington : —
" * The army opposes, because uneasy — assure it, it will even
become devoted.
" * The Chambers are counter for the same reason. Assure
everi/ bodi/y you will have every body.
" ' The army sent away, the Chambers will agree, on accord-
ing them the guarantee, as added to the charter and promised by
the king. In order to be well understood, it is necessary to ex-
plain ; therefore not to enter Paris before three days, and in the
meantime every thing may be arranged.
* Here the reader may, if he pleases, read over again the last uote.
186
<t
' The Chambers will be gained, will believe in their inde-
pendence, and will agree to every thing. Persuasion, not force,
must be used with the Chambers.*
" On my arrival at the British advanced posts, which, owing
to the obstructions I met with from the French, I was not able
to effect till early in the morning of the 3d July, I was informed
that the most positive orders had been given by the duke, not
to allow any messenger to pass from Paris without his special
permission. I was therefore detained at the English advanced
post of guards, commanded by Lord Saltowu. I dined with the
officers of the advanced piquet, among whom 1 well remember
Captain Fairfield, of the foot guards. These gentlemen informed
me that the Duke of Wellington was at Gonnesse, with Sir C.
Stuart, Pozzo di Borgo, and Talleyrand. I wrote a letter to the
duke, which was forwarded by Lord Saltown. In my letter, I
entered into a detail of the line of conduct recommended by
Fouch6, and contained in the foregoing memorandum. On the
receipt of my dispatch, the duke immediately proceeded to St.
Cloud, General Blucher's head-quarters ; there the capitulation
of Paris was signed. The duke returned to Gonnesse and dis-
patched Lord March to bring me to him : I arrived very early on
the morning of the 4th, and found Sir C. Stuart, Talleyrand, and
Pozzo di Borgo ; they assembled in council, and my presence
was required by the duke. Talleyrand observed to me, that this
was already settled, and, turning to the Duke of Wellington, re-
quested him to read to me the capitulation that t/iei/ had Just
concluded. On my urging the adoption of the line of conduct
which Fouch6 recommended towards the Chambers, the Duke
of Wellington proceeded to give me his sentiments in writing,
which were as follow : —
" ' Je pense, que les Allies ayant declare le Gouvernment de
Napoleon une Usurpation et non legitime, toute autorite qui
emane de lui, doit etre regardee comme nulle et d'aucun pou-
voir.* Ainsi, ce qui reste a /aire aiix Chambres et a la comniis-
* Encore un couy. Tliis Duke is an Iiisliman. Pray, suppose the Allies were
187
sion, est, de donner de suite leur demission, et de declarer, qu'ih
riont pris siir eux les responsib'dites de gouvernement , que pour
assurer la tranquilite publique, et I'integrite du royaume de S.
M. Louis XV III:
" Talleyrand, Sir Charles Stuart, and Pozzo di Borgo, each
took a copy of this document, and each, by way of memoran-
dum, put their names and mine to the paper, by way of record-
ing, as 1 suppose, the parties present at the discussion.
" I forthwith mounted my horse and returned to Paris ; Lord
March was appointed by the duke to accompany me. On our
arrival at the Barriere de la Villette, we found the French sol-
diery perfectly frantic, and vociferating "Vive V Empereur !" "A
bas les Anglais!" "A bas les Bourbons!" They were on the
point of firing at the Belgian trumpeter who preceded us : it was
with the greatest difficulty that some French hussars, under whose
escort we had approached the barriers, could prevent the soldiers
from firing at Lord March as he was riding off. They were also
obliged to exert themselves strenuously in my defence, as many
of the infantry pointed their muskets at me, vociferating "Five
I'Empereur !" " Vive Napoleon !" " We are betrayed !" " We
have been sold !" " We will fight to the last drop of our blood !"
" Down with the Bourbons!" " Let us kill this traitor !" " He
has assisted in selling us !" " We have seen him pass before !"
The hussars took me between them, some of the infantry also as-
sisted in parrying off the blows aimed at me, and turning aside
the muzzles of the muskets. Thus, after great peril, T was for-
tunate enough to gain the quarters of a general officer, with only
a sabre cut on my left leg. The general dispersed the men, and
gave me a strong escort to conduct me to the Thuilleries.
" In consequence of my communicating the documents and as-
surances I had received from Talleyrand and the Duke of Wel-
to declare the Protestant succession illegitimate, and the King of Sardinia, not
the Prince Regent, the hereditary proprietor of the English throne and people
ID perpetuity and in a right line, would this annul the validity of his Grace**
grants P
J8B
lington, the commission of government abdicated its powers that
evening ; but the Chambers slill refused to comply ; they conti-
nued their sittings, which they declared should be permanent, till
the morning of the 6th, when the doors of the Chamber were
closed, and guarded by a party of the national guards.
*' On this, above one hundred and fifty of the deputies pro-
ceeded to the house of M. Lanjuinais, their president, and there
framed a solemn protest against the arbitrary and illegal violence
which had been used towards them, in violation of the most so-
lemn declarations.
" I have now no doubt that some extraordinary scheme had
been contrived to seduce Napoleon into the measure of abdicating
the throne in favour of his son. His resources were at that mo-
ment immense. The regular army in Paris alone, amounted to
more than 80,000 men, every individual of which was animated
with the most enthusiastic ardour. The national guard, above
30,000 strong, displayed the firmest resolution to obey the direc-
tions of the constituted authorities ; numerous volunteers of all
classes had taken up arms in the defence of their country. In the
departments, the spirit of opposition to the invaders was still
greater, particularly in the north, west, and east : in fine. Napo-
leon, who could not possibly be ignorant of the state of his re-
sources, would never, I am convinced, have sheathed his sword,
and abdicated the crown even in favour of his son, had he not
been most confidently assured of the validity of the measure, and
its being approved and supported by the French senate and peo-
ple, and by at least some part of the coalition.
" What were the precise representations by which Napoleon
was influenced to take this step, is perhaps known only to its con-
trivers, and their victim. Some future historian may probably
unfold this mystery. As far as regards the share 1 had in the
negociations between the provisional government, the allied ar-
mies, and Talleyrand, as minister of Louis XVIII., I feel it
due to myself to declare, that I had no suspicion of any deception
or intended breach of engagements. I was requested to open a
189
communication between Fouche and the Duke of Wellington, for
the avowed purpose of negociating an armistice, as a preliminary
measure to the capitulation of Paris ; and it was obvious that
such a negociation might save the lives of thousands of my coun-
trymen."
The Play is over, now let us go to Supper.
John Bull, John Bull, John Bull, read the above account
twice over, think well of it, and then say why you should not
wear the yoke, which you have put round the neck of others,
round your own. Ah ! John, thou art not a metaphysician: thou
dost lack a concatenation of ideas ! — We are not proud of the
share which as Englishmen we had in the proceedings recorded
by Mr. Macirone : but we have one consolation for our national
pride, Fouche and Talleyrand are Frenchmen. These two pet-
tifogging miscreants seem to have made themselves perfect in the
advice of the fool in Lear: " Let go thy hold, when a great
wheel runs down hill, lest it should break thy neck with following
it : but the great one that goes upwards, let it draw thee after.
When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again :
I would have none but knaves follow it." The great wheel, how-
ever, in this instance, kicked off the two knaves, that followed the
fool's advice. One of these famous persons now writes letters of
apology to the Duke of Wellington, and the other to Lord Castle-
reagh. They are not so well off as Murat and Berthier, one of
whom was legitimately shot through the head, and the other legi-
timately thrown out of a window, if we are to believe Mr. Ma-
cirone, that he might die in the good cause — " a master-leaver,
and a fugitive."
190
WJT TYLER; a Dramatic Poem.
THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: Article, " On Pak-
LIAMENIARY ReFORM."
*< So was it wlien my life began,
So is it now I am a man :
So shall it be when I grow old and die.
The child's the father of the man:
Our years flow on
Link'd each to each by natural piety."— -Wordsworth.
March 9, 1817.
According to this theory of personal continuity, the author of
the Dramatic Poem, to be here noticed, is the father of Parlia-
mentary Reform in the Quarterly Review. It is said to be a wise
child that knows its own father ; and we understand Mr. Southey
(who is in this case reputed father and son) utterly disclaims the
hypostatical union between the Quarterly Reviewer and tfie Dra-
matic Poet, and means to enter an injunction against the latter,
as a bastard and impostor. Appearances are somewhat stag-
gering against the legitimacy of the descent, yet we perceive a
strong family-likeness remaining, in spite of the lapse of years
and alteration of circumstances. We should not, indeed, be able
to predict that the author of Wat Tyler would ever write the
article on Parliamentary Reform ; nor should we, either at first
or second sight, perceive that the Quarterly Reviewer had ever
written a poem like that which is before us : but if we were told
that both performances were literally and bona fide by the same
person, we should have little hesitation in saying to Mr. Southey,
" Thou art the man." We know no other person in whom " fierce
extremes " meet with such mutual self-complacency : whose opi-
nions change so much without any change in the author's mind ;
who lives so entirely in the " present ignorant thought," without
the smallest " discourse of reason looking before or after."
Mr. Southey is a man incapable of reasoning connectedly on any
191
subject. He has not strength of mind to see the whole of any
question ; he has not modesty to suspend his judgment till he has
examined the grounds of it. He can comprehend but one idea
at a time, and that is always an extreme one ; because he will
neither listen to, nor tolerate any thing than can disturb or mo-
derate the petulance of his self-opinion. The woman that deli-
berates is lost. So it is with the effeminate soul of Mr. Soulhey.
Any concession is fatal to his consistency ; and he can only keep
out of one absurdity by the tenaciousness with which he stickles
for another. He calls to the aid of his disjointed opinions a pro-
portionate quantity of spleen; and regularly makes up for the
weakness of his own reasons, by charging others with bad motives.
The terms knave and fool, wise and good, have undergone a total
change in the last twenty years : the former he applies to all those
who agreed with him formerly — the latter to all those who agree
with him now. His public spirit was then a prude and a scold ;
and *' his poor virtue," tinned into a literary prostitute, is grown
more abusive than ever. Wat Tyler and the Quarterly Revievir
are an illustration of these remarks. The author of Wat Tyler
was an Ultra-jacobin ; the author of Parliamentary Reform is an
Ultra-royalist ; the one was a frantic demagogue ; the other is a
servile court-tool : the one maintained second-hand paradoxes ;
the other repeats second-hand common-places : the one vented
those opinions which gratified the vanity of youth ; the other
adopts those prejudices which are most conducive to the conve-
nience of age : the one saw nothing but the abuses of power ;
the other sees nothing but the horrors of resistance to those
abuses : the one did not stop short of general anarchy ; the other
goes the whole length of despotism : the one vilified kings, priests,
and nobles ; the other vihfies the people : the one was for uni-
versal suffrage and perfect equality ; the other is for seat-selling,
and the increasing influence of the Crown : the one admired the
preaching of John Ball ; the other recommends the Suspension
of the Habeas Corpus, and the putting down of the Examitier
by the sword, the dagger, or the thumb-screw ; for the pen,
192
Mr, Southey tells us, is not sufficient. We wonder that in all this
contempt which our prose-poet has felt at different times for different
persons and things, he has never felt any dissatisfaction with him-
self, or distrust of his own infallibility. Our differing from others
sometimes staggers our confidence in our own conclusions : if we
had been chargeable with as many contradictions as Mr. Southey,
we suppose we should have had the same senseless self-sufficiency.
A changeling is your only oracle. Those who have undergone a
total change of sentiment on important questions, ought certainly
to learn modesty in themselves, and moderation towards others ;
on the contrary, they are generally the most violent in their own
opinions, and the most intolerant towards others ; the reason of
which we have shewn elsewhere, to the satisfaction of the pro-
prietor of the Old Times. Before we have done, we shall, per-
haps, do the same thing to the satisfaction of the publisher of the
Quarterly Review; for the Mr. Murrays and the Mr. Walters,
the patrons of the band of gentlemen-pensioners and servile
authors, have " a sort of squint" in their understanding, and look
less to the dirty sacrifices of their drudges, or the dirtier they are
ready to make, than to their standing well with that great keeper,
the public, for purity and innocence. The band of gentlemen-
pensioners and servile authors do not know what to make of this,
and hardly believe it : we shall in time convince them.
But to proceed to our extracts :—
MORCEAU I.
Wat Tyler. Hob — I have only six groats in the world,
And they must soon by law be taken from me.
Hob. Curse on these taxes — one succeeds another—
Our ministers — panders of a king's will —
Drain all our wealth away — waste it in revels —
And lure or force away our boys, who should be
The props of our old age ! — to fill their armies.
And feed the crows of France ! Year follows year,
Aud still we madly prosecute the war ; —
Draining our wealth — distressing our poor peasants—
193
Slaughtering our youths — and all to crown our Chiefs
With glory ! — I detest the hell-sprung name.
Tyler. What matters me who wears the crown of France ?
Whether a Richard or a Charles possess it ?
They reap the glory — they enjoy the spoil —
We pay — we bleed ! The sun would shine as cheerly.
The rains of heaven as seasonably fall,
Tho' neither of these royal pests existed.
Hob. Nay — as for that, we poor men should fare better !
No legal robbers then should force away
The hard-earn'd wages of our honest toil.
The Parliament for ever cries tnore money.
The service of the State demands more money.
Just Heaven ! of what service is the State ?
Tyler. Oh! 'tis of vast importance ! Who should pay for
The luxuries and riots of the court ?
Who should support the flaunting courtier's pride.
Pay for their midnight revels, their rich garments.
Did not the State enforce i — Think ye, my friend.
That I — a humble blacksmith, here at Deptford,
Would part with these six groats— earn'd by hard toil.
All that I have ! to massacre the Frenchmen ;
Murder as enemies men I never saw.
Did not the State compel me !
{Tax-gatherers pass by.) There they go,
Privileged r s I
MORCEAU II.
Piers. Fare not the birds well, as from spray to spray
Blithsome they bound — yet find their simple food
Scattered abundantly ?
Tyler. No fancied boundaries of mine and thine
Restrain their wanderings : Nature gives enough
For all ; but Man, with arrogant selfishness.
Proud of his heaps, hoards up superfluous stores
Robb'd from his weaker fellows, starves the poor.
Or gives to pity what he owes to justice !
Piers. So I have heard our good friend John Ball preach.
o
Alice. My father, wherefore was John Ball imprisoned?
Was he not charitable, good, and pious ?
I have heard him say that all mankind are brethren.
And that like brethren they should love each other ; —
Was not that doctrine pious?
Tyler. Rank sedition —
High treason, every syllable, my child !
The priests cry out on him for heresy;
The nobles all detest him as a rebel;
And this good man, this minister of Christ,
This man, the friend and brother of mankind.
Lingers in the dark dungeon !
MoRCEAU III.
Tyler. Piers, I have not been idle,
I never ate the bread of indolence —
Could Alice be more thrifty than her mother ?
Yet but with one child, and that one, how good
Thou knowest ; I scarcely can provide the wants
Of nature : look at these wolves of the law.
They come to drain me of my hard-earn'd wages.
I have already paid the heavy tax
Laid on the wool that clothes me — on my leather —
On all the needful articles of life !
And now three groats (and I work'd hard to earn them)
The Parliament demands — and I must pay them,
Forsootlj, for liberty to wear my head.
Enter Tax-gatherers.
Collector. Three groats a-head for all your family.
Piers. Why is this money gathered ? — 'tis a hard tax
On the poor labourer ! — it can never be
That government should thus distress the people.
Go to the rich for money — honest labour
Ought to enjoy its fruits.
Col. The State wants money.
War is expensive— 'tis a glorious war.
195
A war of honour, and must be supported. —
Three groats a -head.
Tyler. There, three for my own head.
Three for my wife's ! — what will the State tax next ?
Col. You have a daughter.
Tyler. She is below the age — not yet fifteen.
Col. You would evade the tax. —
Tyler. Sir Officer,
I have paid you fairly what the law demands.
[Alice and her Mother enter the Shop. The Tax-gatherers go
to her. One of them lays hold of her. She screams. Tyler
goes in.'\
Col. You say she's under age.
[Alice screams again. Tyler knocks out the Tax-gatherer's
brains. His Companions Jly.]
Piers. A just revenge.
Tyler, Most just indeed ; but in the eye of the law
'Tis murder — and the murderer's lot is mine.
MoRCEAU IV. — Song.
" When Adam delv'd and Eve span,
" Who was then the gentleman ?"
Wretched is the infant's lot.
Born within the straw-roof'd cot !
Be he generous, wise, or brave,
He must only be a slave.
Long, long labour, little rest.
Still to toil to be oppress'd ;
Drain'd by taxes of his store,
Punish'd next for being poor :
This is the poor wretch's lot.
Born within the straw-roof'd cot
While the peasant works — to sleep ;
What the peasant sows — to reap ;
On the couch of ease to lie.
Rioting in revelry ;
o 2
196
Be he villain, be he fool.
Still to hold despotic rule.
Trampling on his slaves with scorn ;
This is to be nobly born.
" When Adam delv'd and Eve span,
" Who was then the gentleman ? "
MORCEAU V.
John Ball. Friends ! Brethren ! for ye are my brethren all ;
Englishmen met in arms to advocate
The cause of freedom ! hear me ! pause awhile
In the career of vengeance ; it is true
I am a priest ; but, as these rags may speak,
Not one who riots in the poor man's spoil.
Or trades with his religion. I am one
Who preach the law of Christ, and in my life
Would practise what he taught. The Son of God
Came not to you in power : — humble in mien.
Lowly in heart, the man of Nazareth
Preach'd mercy, justice, love : " Woe unto ye.
Ye that are rich : — if that ye would be saved.
Sell that ye have, and give unto the poor."
So taught the Saviour : oh, my honest friends !
Have ye not felt the strong indignant throb
Of justice in your bosoms, to behold
The lordly baron feasting on your spoils ?
Have you not in your hearts arraign'd the lot
That gave him on the couch of luxury
To pillow his head, and pass the festive day"
In sportive feasts, and ease, and revelry ?
Have you not often in your conscience ask'd
Why is the difference, wherefore should that man
No worthier than myself, thus lord it over me.
And bid me labour, and enjoy the fruits ?
The God within your breasts has argued thus !
The voice of truth has murmur'd j came he not
As helpless to the world ? — shines not the sun
197
With equal ray on both ? — do ye not feel
The self-same winds of heaven as keenly parch ye ?
Abundant is the earth — the Sire of all
Saw and pronounced that it was very good.
Look round : the vernal fields smile with new flowers^
The budding orchard perfumes the soft breeze.
And the green corn waves to the passing gale.
There is enough for all, but your proud baron
Stands up, and, arrogant of strength, exclaims,
" I am a lord — by nature I am noble :
These fields are mine, for I was born to them,
I was born in the castle — you, poor wretches,
Whelp'd in the cottage, are by birth my slaves."
Almighty God ! such blasphemies are uttered !
Almighty God ! such blasphemies believ'd !
Tom Miller. This is something like a sermon.
Jack Straw. Where's the bishop
Would tell you truths like these ?
Hob. There was never a bishop among all the apostles.
John Ball. My brethren !
Piers. Silence, the good priest speaks.
John Ball. My brethren, these are truths, and weighty ones
Ye are all equal ; nature made ye so.
Equality is your birth-right ; — when I gaze
On the proud palace, and behold one man
In the blood-purpled robes of royalty.
Feasting at ease, and lording over millions;
Then turn me to the hut of poverty,
And see the wretched labourer, worn with toil,
Divide his scanty morsel with his infants ;
I sicken, and, indignant at the sight,
" Blush for the patience of humanity."
Jack Straw. We will assert our rights.
MORCEAU VI.
Tyler. King of England,
Petitioning for pity is most weak.
The sovereign people ought to demand justice.
198
I killed your officer, for his lewd hand
Insulted a maid's modesty ; your subjects
I lead to rebel against the Lord's anointed.
Because his ministers have made him odious :
His yoke is heavy, and his burden grievous.
Why do we carry on this fatal war.
To force upon the French a king they hate ;
Tearing our young men from their peaceful homes ;
Forcing his hard-earn'd fruits from the honest peasant ;
Distressing us to desolate our neighbours ?
Why is this ruinous poll-tax imposed.
But to support your court's extravagance.
And your mad title to the crown of France ?
Shall we sit tamely down beneath these evils.
Petitioning for pity ?
King of England !
Why are we sold like cattle in your markets —
Deprived of every privilege of man ?
Must we lie tamely at our tyrant's feet.
And, like your spaniels, lick the hand that beats us ?
You sit at ease in your gay palaces.
The costly banquet courts your appetite.
Sweet music sooths your slumbers ; we the while.
Scarce by hard toil can earn a little food.
And sleep scarce shelter'd from the cold night wind ;
While your wild projects wrest the little from us
Which might have cheered the wintry hour of age:
The parliament for ever asks more money :
We toil and sweat for money for your taxes j
Where is the benefit, what food reap we
From all the councils of your government ?
Think you that we should quarrel with the French ?
What boots to us your victories, your glory ?
We pay, we fight, you profit at your ease.
Do you not claim the country as your own ?
Do you not call the venison of the forest.
The birds of heaven your own ? — prohibiting us.
Even tho' in want of food, to seize the prey
199
Which nature ofFers ? — King ! is all this just ?
Think you we do not feel the wrongs we suffer?
The hour of retribution is at hand.
And tyrants tremble — mark me. King of England.
MORCEAU VII.
Hob. 'Twas well order'd,
I place but little trust in courtly faith.
John Ball. We must remain embodied ; else the king
Will plunge again in royal luxury ;
And when the storm of danger is past over.
Forget his promises.
Hob. Aye, like an aguish sinner.
He'll promise to repent when the fit's on him ;
When well recover'd, laugh at his own terrors.
Piers. Oh ! I am griev'd that we must gain so little !
Why are not all these empty ranks abolish'd.
King, slave, and lord, " ennobl'd into MAN ?"
Are we not equal all ? — have you not told me.
Equality is the sacred right of man.
Inalienable, tho' by force withheld ?
John Ball Even so; but Piers, my frail and fallible judgment
Knows hardly to decide if it be right.
Peaceably to return, content with little.
With this half restitution of our rights.
Or boldly to proceed thro' blood and slaughter,
Till we should all be equal and all happy.
I chose the milder way : — perhaps I erred.
Piers. I fear me— by the mass, the unsteady people
Are flocking homewards ! how the multitude
Diminishes !
MORCEAU THE LaST,
John Ball. Why, be it so. I can smile at your vengeance :
For I am arm'd with rectitude of soul.
The truth, which all my life I have divulg'd.
And am now doom'd in torment to expire for.
Shall still sutvive— the destin'd hour must come.
200
When it shall blaze with sun-surpassing splendor.
And the dark mists of prejudice and falsehood
Fade in its strong effulgence. Flattery's incense
No more shall shadow round the gore-dyed throne
That altar of oppression, fed with rites
More savage than the priests of Moloch taught,
Sliall be consumed amid the fire of Justice :
The ray of truth shall emanate around.
And the whole world be lighted !
This will do.
THE COURIER AND " THE WAT TYLER."
Doth not the appetite alter ? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he
cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences, and these paper bullets
of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour ?-—M«c/i Ado about
Nothivg,
March 30, 1817.
Instead of applying for an injunction against Wat Tyler j
Mr. Southey would do well to apply for an injunction against
Mr. Coleridge, who has undertaken his defence in The Courier.
If he can escape from the ominous patronage of that gentleman's
pen, he has nothing to fear from his own. " The Wat Tyler"
as Mr. Coleridge has personified it, can do the author no great
harm : it only proves that he was once a wild enthusiast : of the
two characters, for which Mr. Southey is a candidate with the
public, this is the most creditable for him to appear in. At
present his reputation *' somewhat smacks." A strong dose of
the Jacobin spirit of Wat Tyler may be of use to get the sickly
taste of the Poet-laureate and the Quarterly Reviewer out of our
mouths.
The best thing for Mr. Southey (if we might be allowed to
advise) would be for his friends to say nothing about him, and for
him to say nothing about other people. We have nothing to do
201
with Mr. Soiuhey " the man," or even with Mr. Southey the
apostate; but we have something to do with Mr. Southey the
spy and informer. Is it not a little strange, that while this gentle-
man is getting an injunction against himself as the author of PVat
Tyler, he is recommending gagging bills against us, and the
making up by force for his deficiency in argument ! There is a
want of keeping in this ; but Mr. Southey and his friends delight
in practical and speculative contradictions. What are we to think
of a man who is " now a flagitious incendiary," (to use the epi-
thets which Mr. Southey applies to the Editor of the Examiner)
" a palliater of murder, insurrection, and treason," and anon a
pensioned scribbler of court poetry and court politics ? If the
writer of the article on Parliamentary Reform thinks the Editor of
this Paper " a flagitious incendiary," " a palliater of murder, in-
surrection, and treason," what does the Quarterly Reviewer think
of the author of Wat Tyler '^ What, on the other hand, does
the author of Wat Tyler think of the Quarterly Reviewer?
What does Mr. Southey, who certainly makes a very aukward
figure between the two, think of himself? Mr. Coleridge in-
deed steps in to the assistance of his friend in this dilemma, and
says (unsaying all that he says besides) that the ultra-jacobinical
opinions advanced in Wat Tyler were " more an honour to
the writer's heart than an imputation on his understanding ?" Be
it so. The Editor of this Paper will, we dare say, agree to this
statement from disinterested motives, (for he is not answerable for
any ultra-jacobinical opinions) as we suppose Mr, Southey will
accede to it from pure self-love. He hardly thinks that he was
" a knave and fool" formerly, as he calls all those who formerly
agreed or now differ w ith him : he only thinks with Mr. Coleridge
and The Courier, that he was not quite so " wise and virtuous"
then, as he is at present ! Why then not extend the same cha-
ritable interpretation to those who have held a middle course
between his opposite extravagances? We are sure, that to be
thought a little less wise and virtuous than that celebrated person
thinks himself, would content the ambition of any moderate man.
202
Will he allow of nothing short of the utmost intolerance of jaco-
binism or anti-jacobinism ? Or will he tolerate this intolerance
in nobody but himself ? This seems to be his feeling : and it
also seems to be Mr. Coleridge's opinion, whose maudlin metho-
distical casuistry leads him to clothe Mr. Southey's political sins
with apostacy as with a garment, and to plead one excess of folly
and indecency as a competent set-off against another. To be a
renegado, is, with him, to be virtuous. The greater the sinner
the greater the saint, says The Courier. Mr. Southey's Muse is
confessedly not a vestal ; but then she is what is much better, a
Magdalen. Now a Magdalen is a person who has returned to
her first habits and notions of virtue : but Mr. Southey's laurelled
Muse is at present in high court-keeping, and tosses up her nose
at the very mention of reform. Nor do we think Mr. Southey
has a fairer claim to the degree of respectability good-naturedly
assigned him by his friends, that of a pickpocket or highwayman
turned thief-taker or king's evidence ; for he in fact belies his
own character to blacken every honest principle, and takes the
government reward for betraying better men than himself. There
are, as The Courier observes, youthful indiscretions ; but there
are also riper and more deliberate errors. A woman is more
liable to prostitute her person at nineteen — a man is more likely
to prostitute his understanding at forty. We do not see the exact
parallel which The Courier sets up between moral repentance
and political profligacy. A man, says The Courier, may surely
express an abhorrence of his past vices, as of drunkenness. Yes ;
and he may also express a great abhorrence of his present vices,
because his own opinion, as well as that of all impartial persons,
condemns his conduct ; but it would be curious if a man were to
express a great abhorrence of his present opinions, and it is only
a less degree of absurdity for a man to express a great abhor-
rence of his past opinions ; for if he was not a hypocrite, he must
have held those opinions, as he holds his present ones, because he
thought them right. A man is at liberty to condemn his errors
in practice as much as he pleases : it is a point agreed upon.
203
But he is not at liberty to condemn his errors in theory at the
same unmerciful rate, because many people still think them right ;
because it i^ the height of arrogance in him to assume his own
forfeited opinion as the invariable standard of right and wrong,
and the height of indecency to ascribe the conclusions of others to
bad motives, by which he can only arraign his own. Certainly,
all the presumption of indirect and dishonest motives lies against
Mr. Southey's unlooked-for conversion, and not against his ori-
ginal principles. Will he deny this himself? He must then
retract what he says in the Quarterly Review ; for he there says,
that " the late war was so popular for three and twenty years
together, that for any one to be against it," (and much more, to be
a Jacobin, as he was, half that time,) " exposed him to contempt,
insult, persecution, the loss of property, and even of life." The
odds, we grant, were against Mr. Southey's pure reason ; they
proved too much for it. According, however, to the new
theory of political integrity, to be a steady, consistent, conscien-
tious Whig or Tory, is nothing. It is the change of opinion that
stamps its value on it ; and the more outrageous the change, the
more meritorious the stigma attached to it. It is the sacrifice of
all principle, that is the triumph of corruption ; it is the shameless
effrontery of a desertion of the people, that is the chief recom-
mendation to the panders of a court; it is the contempt, the
grinning scorn and infamy, which is poured on all patriotism and
independence, by shewing the radical baseness and fickleness of
its professors in the most startling point of view, that strengthens
the rotten foundations of power, by degrading human nature.
Poor Bob Southey ! how they laugh at him ! What are the abuse
and contumely which we are in the habit of bestowhig upon him,
compared with the cordial contempt, the flickering sneers, that
play round the lips of his new-fangled friends, when they see
" the Man of Humanity" decked out in the trappings of his
prostitution, and feel the rankling venom of their hearts soothed
by the flattering reflection that virtue and genius are mere mar-
ketable commodities! What a squeeze must that be which
204
Mr. Canning gives the hand that wrote the Sonnet to Old Sarum,
and the Defence of Rotten Boroughs in the Quarterly Review !
Mr. Canning was at first suspected of being the author of this
last article : no one has attributed Wat Tyler to the classical pen
of that glib orator and consistent anti-jacobin. Yet what are the
pretensions of that gentleman's profligate consistency opposed to
Mr. Soulhey's profligate versatility ; what a pitiful spectacle does
his sneaking, servile adherence to a party make, compared with
Mr. Southey's barefaced and magnanimous desertion of one !
Mr. Canning has indeed served a cause ; Mr. Southey has be-
trayed one. Mr. Canning threw contempt on the cause of liberty
by his wit ; Mr. Southey has done it by his want of principle.
" This, this is the unkindest blow of all." We should not mind
any thing but that ; — that is the reflection that stabs us :
« That the law
By which niankind now suffers, is most just.
For by superior energies ; more strict
Affiance with each other; faith more firm
In their unballow'd principles ; the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good."
Mr. Coleridge thinks that this triumph over himself and the
Poet-laureate is a triumph to us. God forbid ! It shews that he
knows as little about us as he does about himself. This qtiestion
of apostacy may be summed up in a very few words : — First, if
Mr. Southey is not an apostate, we should hke to know who ever
was ? Secondly, whether the term, apostate, is a term of re-
proach ? If it has ceased to be so, it is another among the
triumphs of the present king's reign, and a greater proof than any
brought forward in the Quarterly Review, of the progress of
pubhc spirit and political independence among us of late years !
A man may change his opinion. Good. But if he changes his
opinion as his interest or vanity would prompt, if he deserts the
weak to go to the stronger side, the change is a suspicious one ;
and we shall have a right to impute it rather to a defect of moral
205
principle llian to an accession of intellectual strength. Again, no
man, be he who he may, has a right to change his opinion, and
to be violent on opposite sides of a question. For the only ex-
cuse for dogmatical intolerance is, that- the person who holds an
opinion is totally blinded by habit to all objections against it, so
that he can see nothing wrong on his own side, and nothing right
on the other ; which cannot be the case with ahy person who has
been sincere in the opposite opinion. No one, therefore, has a
right to call another " the greatest of scoundrels" for holding the
opinions which he himself once held, without first formally ac-
knowledging that he himself was the greatest of hypocrites when
he maintained those opinions. When Mr. Southey subscribes to
these conditions, we will give him a license to rail on whom and
as long as he pleases: but not — till then! Apostates are violent
in their opinions, because they suspect their truth, even when
they are most sincere : they are forward to vilify the motives of
those who differ from them, because their own are more than
suspected by the world ! We proceed to notice the flabby de-
fence of " the Wat Tyler" from the well-known pen of Mr.
Coleridge, which, as far as we can understand it, proceeds upon
the following assumptions : —
1. That Mr. Southey was only 19 when he wrote it, and had
forgotten, from that time to this, all the principles and senti-
ments contained in it.
Answer. A person who forgets all the sentiments and prin-
ciples to which he was most attached at nineteen, can have no
sentiments ever after worth being attached to. Further, it is not
true that Mr. Southey gave up the general principles of Wat
Tyler, which he wrote at nineteen, till almost as many years
after. He did not give them up till many years after he had re-
ceived his Irish pension in 1800. He did not give them up till
with this leaning to something beyond " the slides of his magic
lanthorn," and " the pleasing fervour of his imagination," he was
canted out of them by the misty metaphysics of Mr. Coleridge,
Mr. Southey being no conjurer in such matters, and Mr, Cole-
206
ridge being a great quack. The dates of his works will shew this :
as it was indeed excellently well shewn in The Morning Chronicle
the other day. His Joan of Arc, his Sonnets and Inscriptions,
his Letters from Spain and Portugal, his Annual Anthology, in
which was published Mr. Coleridj^e's " Fire, Famine, and
Slaughter," are a series of invectives against Kings, Priests, and
Nobles, in favour of the French Revolution, and against war and
taxes, up to the year 1803. Why does he not get an injunction
against all these ? To set aside all Mr. Southey's jacobin publi-
cations, it would be necessary to erect a new court of Chancery.
Mr. Coleridge's insinuation, that he had changed all his opinions
the year after, when Mr. S. and Mr. C, in conjunction, wrote
the Fall of Robespierre, is, therefore, not true. But Mr. Cole-
ridge never troubles himself about facts or dates ; he is only
" watching ihe slides of his magic lanthorn," and indulging in
" the pleasing fervour of poetical inspiration."
2. That Mr. Southey was a mere hoy when he wrote Wat
Tyler, and entertained Jacobin opinions : that being a child, he
felt as a child, and thought slavery, superstition, war, famine^
bloodshed, taxes, bribery and corruption, rotten boroughs, places
and pensions, shocking things; but that now he is become a
man, he has put away childish things, and thinks there is no-
thing so delightful as slavery, superstition, war, famine, blood-
shed, taxes, bribery and corruption, rotten boroughs, places and
pensions, and particularly, his own.
Answer. Yet Mr. Coleridge tells us that when he wrote Wat
Tyler, he was a man of genius and learning. That Mr. Southey
was a wise man when he wrote this poem, we do not pretend :
that he has ever been so, is more than we know. This we do
know, and it is worth attending to ; that all that Mr. Southey has
done best in poetry, he did before he changed his political creed ;
that all that Mr. Coleridge ever did in poetry, as the Ancient
Mariner, Christabel, the Three Graves, his Poems and his
Tragedy, he had written when, according to his own account, he
must have been a very ignorant, idle, thoughtless person ; that
207
much the greater part of what Mr. Wordsworth has done best in
poetry was done about the same period ; and if what these persons
have done in poetry, in indulging the " pleasing fervour of a
lively imagination," gives no weight to their political opinions at
the time they did it, what they have done since in science or phi-
losophy to establish their authority, is more than we know. All
the authority that they have as poets and men of genius must be
thrown into the scale of Revolution and Reform. Their Jacobin
principles indeed gave rise to their Jacobin poetry. Since they
gave up the first, their poetical powers have flagged, and been
comparatively or wholly " in a state of suspended animation.'*
Their genius, their style, their versification, every thing down to
their spelling, was revolutionary. Their poetical innovations un-
happily did not answer any more than the French Revolution.
As their ambition was baulked in this first favourite direction, it
was necessary for these restless persons to do something to get
into notice ; as they could not change their style, they changed
their principles ; and instead of writing popular poetry, fell to
scribbling venal prose. — Mr. Southey's opinion, like Mr. Words-
worth's or Mr. Coleridge's, is of no value, except as it is his own,
the unbiassed, undepraved dictate of his own understanding and
feelings ; not as it is a wretched, canting, reluctant echo of the
opinion of the world. Poet-laureates are courtiers by profession ;
but we say that poets are naturally Jacobins. All the poets of the
present day have been so, with a single exception, which it would
be invidious to mention. If they have not all continued so, this
only shews the instability of their own characters, and that their
natural generosity and romantic enthusiasm, " their lofty, ima-
ginative, and innocent spirits," have not been proof against the
incessant, unwearied importunities of vulgar ambition. The
poets, we say then, are with us, while they are worth keeping.
We take the sound part of their heads and hearts, and make
Mr. Croker and the Courier a present of the rest. What the
philosophers are, let the dreaded name of modern philos&phy
answer !
208
3. Mr. Coleridge compares us to the long-eared virtuoso, the
ass, that found Apollo's lute, " left behind by him when he as-
cended to his own natural place, to sit thenceforward with all
the Muses around him, instead of the ragged cattle of Admetus."
Answer. Now it seems that Mr. Coleridge and other common
friends of his, such as the author of the Fall of Robespierre and
of Democratic Lectures, or Lectures on Democracy, in the year
1794, knew a good deal of Mr. Southey before he dropped
this lute. Were they the ragged cattle of Admetus that Mr.
Southey was fain to associate with during his obscure metamor-
phosis and strange Jacobin disguise ? Did the Coleridges, the
Wordsworlhs, the Lloyds and Lambs and Co. precede the Hunts,
the Hazlitts, and the Cobbetts, in listening to Mr. Southey
*' tuning his mystic harp to praise Lepaux," the Parisian Theo-
philanthropist ? And is it only since Mr. Southey has sat
" quiring to the young-eyed cherubim," with the Barrymores,
the Crokers, the GifFords, and the Stroehlings, that his natural
genius and moral purity of sentiment have found their proper
level and reward ? Be this as it may, we plead guilty to the
charge of some little indiscreet admiration of the Apollo of Ja-
cobinism. We did not however find his lute three and twenty
years after he had dropped it " in a thistle." We saw it in
his hands. We heard him with our own ears play upon it, loud
and long ; and we can swear he was as well satisfied with his own
music as we could be. " Asinos asinina decent," — a bad com-
pliment, in the style of Dogberry, which Mr.C. pays to his friend
and to himself, as one of his early ragged auditors. Now whether
Mr. Southey has since that period ascended to heaven or descended
to the earth, we shall leave it to Mr. Coleridge himself to decide.
For he says, that at the time when the present poet-laureate wrote
Wat Tyler, he (Mr. Southey) was " a young man full of glorious
visions concerning the possibilities of human nature, because his
lofty, imaginative, and innocent spirit, had mistaken its own
virtues and powers for the average character of mankind." —
2oy
Since Mr. Southey went to couit, he has changed his ton^.
Asinos asinma decent. Is that Mr. Coleridge's political logic?*
4. That Mr. Southey did not express his real opinions, even
at that time, in Wat Tyler, which is a dramatic poem, in which
mob-orators and rioters figure, with appropriate sentiments, as
Jack Cade may do in Shakespear.
Answer. This allusion to the dramatic characters of Shakespear
is certainly unfortunate, and Mr. Coleridge himself hints as much.
Rioters and mob-preachers are not the only persons who appear
in " the Wat Tyler." The King and the Archbishop come
forward in their own persons, according to Mr. Coleridge, with
appropriate sentiments, labelled and put into their mouths. For
example :—
Phi/pot. Every moment brings
Fresh tidings of our peril.
King. It were well
To yield them what they ask.
Archbishop, Aye, that my liege
Were politic. Go boldly forth to meet them.
Grant all they ask — however wild and ruinous ; —
Meantime, the troops you have already summoned
Will gather round them. Then my Christian power
Absolves you of your promise.
Walworth. Were but their ringleaders cut oflf^ the rabble
Would soon disperse.
* Of Uie three persons tliat Mr. Coleridge, by a most preposterous ana-
chroniom, has selected to conapose his asinine auditory, Mr. Hunt was at the
time in qnestioo a boy at" school, not a stripling bard of nineteen or nine and
twenty, bnt a real school-boy " declaiming on the patriotism of Brutus." As
to Mr. Cobbett, he would at that time, had they come in his way, with one
kick of his hard hoofs, have made a terrible crash among " tiie green corn " of
Mr. Southey's Jacobin Pan's-pipe, and gone near to knock out the musician's
brains into the bargain. The second person in this absurd trinity, who certainly
thinks it " a robbery to be made equal to the other two," was the only hearer
present at the rehearsal of Mr. Southey's overtures to Liberty and Equality,
and to that " long-continued asinine bravura," which rings in Mr. Coleridge's
ears, but which certainly was not unaccompanied, for he himself was present ;
P
210
The very burden of The Courier all last week, and for many
weeks last past and to come.
5. Mr. Coleridge sums up his opinion of the ultimate design
and secret origin of " the Wat Tyler " in these remarkable
words : — " We should have seen that the vivid, yet indistinct
images in which he had painted the evils of war and the hardships
of the poor, proved that neither the forms nor the feelings were
the result of real observation. The product of the poet's own
fancy, they " — \yiz. the evils of war and the hardships of the
poor] — " were impregnated, therefore, with that pleasurable
fervour which is experienced in all energetic exertion of intellec-
tual power. But as to any serious wish, akin to reality," [that
is, to remove these evils] " as to any real persons or events de-
signed or expected, we should think it just as wise and just as
charitable, to believe that Quevedo or Dante would have been
glad to realise ihe horrid phantoms and torments of imaginary
oppressors, whom they beheld in the infernal regions — i. e. on the
slides of their own magic laathorn."
Answer. The slides of the guillotine, excited (as we have been
told) the same pleasurable fervour in Mr. Southey's mind : and
Mr. Coleridge seems to insinuate, that the 5,800,000 lives which
have been lost to prove mankind the property of kings, by divine
right, have been lost " on the slides of a magic lanthorn ; " the
evils of war, like all other actual evils, being " the products of a
fervid imagination." So much for the sincerity of poetry.
Audrey. Is not poetry a true thing?
Touchstone. No.
Would these gentlemen persuade us that there is nothing evil in
the universe but what exists in their imagination, but what is the
product of their fervid fancy ? That the world is full of nothing
but their egotism, their vanity, and their hypocrisy ? The world
is sick of them, their egotism, their vanity, ar.d their hypocrisy.
and those who know this gentleman, know that on these occasions he performs
the part of a whole chorns.
211
6th and lastly. " Mr. Southey's darling poet from his chiJdhood
was Edmund Spenser, from whom, next to the spotless purity of
his own moral habits, he learned that reverence for
" constant chastity,
Unspotted faith, and comely womanhood,
Regard of honour and mild modesty."
" And we are strongly persuaded that the indignation which, in
his early perusal of our history, the outrage on Wat Tyler's
Daughter had kindled within him, was the circumstance that
recommended the story to his choice for the first powerful exer-
cise of his dramatic powers. It is this, too, we doubt not, that
coloured and shaped his feelings during the whole composition
of the drama.
'' Through the allegiance and jnst fealty
Which he did owe unto all womankind."
Mr. Coleridge might as well tell us that the Laureate wrote Wat
Tyler as an Epithalamium on his own marriage. There is but
one line on the subject from the beginning to the end. No ; it
is not Mr. Southey's way to say nothing on the subject on which
he writes. If this were the main drift and secret spring of the
poem, why does Mr. Southey wish to retract it now ? Has he
been taught by his present fashionable associates to laugh at
Edmund Spenser, the darling of the hoy Southey, to abjure " his
allegiance and just fealty to all womankind," and to look upon
" rapes and ravishments " as " exaggerated evils," the product
of an idle imagination, exciting a pleasurable fervour at the time,
and signifying nothing afterwards ? Is the outrage upon Wat
Tyler's Daughter the only evil in history, or in the poem itself,
which ought to inflame the virtuous indignation of the full-grown
stripling bard ? Are all the other oppressions recorded in the
annals of the world nothing but " horrible shadows, unreal
mockeries," that this alone should live " within the book and
volume of his brain unmixed with baser matter ? " Or has Mr.
p 2
212
Soulliey, the historian and the politician, at last discovered, that
even this evil, the greatest and the only evil in the world, and not
a mere illusion of his boyish imagination, is itself a bagatelle,
compared with the blessings of the poll-tax, feudal vassalage,
popery, and slavery, the attempt to put down which by murder,
insurrection, and treason, in the reign of Richard II. the poet-
laureate once celebrated con arnore in " the Wat Tyler '^ " — In
courtly malice and servihty Mr. Southey has outdone Herodias's
daughter. He marches into Chancery " with his own head in a
charger," as an offering to Royal delicacy. He plucks out the
heart of Liberty within him, and mangles his own breast to stifle
every natural sentiment left there : and yet Mr. Coleridge would
persuade us that this stuffed figure, this wretched phantom, is the
living man. The finery of birlh-day suits has dazzled his senses,
so that he has " no speculation in those eyes that he does glare
with ; " yet Mr. Coleridge would persuade us that this is the
clear-sighted politician. Famine stares him in the face, and he
looks upon her with lack-lustre eye. Despotism hovers over
him, and he says, " Come, let me clutch thee." He drinks the
cup of human misery, and thinks it is a cup of sack. He has no
feeling left, but of " tickling commodity ; " no ears but for court
whispers ; no understanding but of his interest ; no passion but
his vanity. And yet they would persuade us that this non-entity
is somebody — " the chief dread of Jacobins and Jacobinism, of
quacks and quackery." If so, Jacobins and Jacobinism have not
much to fear J and Mr. Coleridge may publish as many Lay
Sermons as he pleases.
There is but one statement in the article in The Courier to
which we can hear^ly assent; it is Mr. Southey's prediction of the
fate of the French Revolution. " The Temple of Despotism,"
he said, ^^ would be rebuilt, like that of the Mexican God, with
human skulls, and cemented with human blood." He has lived
to see this ; to assist in the accomplishment of his prophecy, and
to consecrate the spectre-building with pensioned hands !
213
A Letter to William Smith, Esq. M. P. from Robert
Southey, Esq. John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1817.
Price 0.8.
Maj/4, 1817.
This is very unlike Mr. Burke's celebrated " Letter to the
Duke of Bedford." The last is the only work of the Irish orator
and patriot, in which he was in earnest, and all that he wanted
was sincerity. The attack made upon his pension, by rousing
his self-love, kindled his imagination, and made him blaze out ia
a torrent of fiery eloquence, in the course of which his tilting prose-
Pegasus darted upon the titles of the noble duke like a thunder-
bolt, reversed his ancestral honours, overturned the monstrous
straddle-legged figure of that legitimate monarch, Henry VIII.,
exploded the mines of the French revolution, kicked down the
Abbe Sieyes's pigeon-holes full of constitutions, and only reposed
from his whirling career, in that fine retrospect on himself, and
the affecting episode to Admiral Keppel. Mr. Burke was an
apostate, " a malignant renegado," like Mr. Southey ; but there
the comparison ends. He would not have been content, on such
an occasion as the present, with Mistering his opponent, and
Esquiritig himself, like the ladies in the Beggar's Opera, who
express the height of their rankling envy and dislike, by calling
each other — Madam. Mr. Southey 's self-love, when challenged
to the lists, does not launch out into the wide field of wit or ar-
gument : it retires into its own littleness, collects all its slender
resources in one poor effort of pert, pettifogging spite, makes up
by studied malice for conscious impotence, and attempts to mor-
tify others by the angry sense of his own insignificance. He grows
tenacious of his ridiculous pretensions, in proportion as they are
given up by every body else. His self-complacency riots, with a
peculiar and pointed gusto, in the universal contempt or compas-
sion of frienda and foes. In the last stage of a galloping con-
sumption, wiiiie the last expiring puff of IVie Courier makes "a
swan-like end," ni a compliment to his opponents, he is sangirine
214
of a deathless reputation — considers his soreness to the least touch
as a proof of his being in a whole skin, and his uneasiness to re-
pel every attack as a proof of his being invulnerable. In a word,
he mistakes an excess of spleen and irritability for the conscious-
ness of innocence, and sets up his own egotism, vanity, ill-humour,
and intolerance, as an answer in full to all the objections which
have been brought against him of vanity, egotism, malignity, and
intolerance. His " Letter" is a concentrated essence of a want
of self-knowledge. It is the picture of the author's mind in little.
In this respect, it is " a psychological curiosity ;" a study of hu-
man infirmity. As some persons bequeath their bodies to the
surgeons to be dissected after their death, Mr. Southey publicly
exposes his mind to be anatomized while he is living. He lays
open his character to the scalping-knife, guides the philosophic
hand in its painful researches, and on the bald crown of our petit
tondUf in vain concealed under withered bay-leaves and a few
contemptible grey hairs, you see the organ of vanity triumphant —
sleek, smooth, round, perfect, polished, horned, and shining, as
it were in a transparency. This is the handle of his intellect, the
index of his mind ; " the guide, the anchor of his purest thoughts,
and soul of all his moral being ;" the clue to the labyrinth of all
his tergiversations and contradictions ; the medius terminus of his
political logic.
-" The ruling passion once express'd,
Wharton is plain, and Cbartres stands confess'd."
Once admit that Mr. Southey is always in the right, and every one
else in the wrong, and all the rest follows. This at once recon-
ciles " Wat Tyler" and the '' Quarterly Review," which Mr.
William Smith took down to the House, in two different pockets
for fear of a breach of the peace; identifies the poet of the " Joan
of Arc" and of the " Annual Anthology" with the poet-laureate ;
and jumps the stripling into the man, whenever the latter has a
mind to jump into a place or pension. Till you can deprive him
of his personal identity, he \vili always be the same infallible per-
215
son — in liis own opinion. He is both judge and jury in liis own
cause; the sole standard of right and wrong. To differ with him
is inexcusable; for "there is but one perfect, even himself." He
is the central point of all moral and intellectual excellence ; the
way, the truth, and the life. There is no salvation out of his
pale ; and yet he makes the terms of communion so strict, that
there is no hope that way. The crime of Mr. William Smith
and others, against whom this high-priest of impertinence levels
his anathemas, is in not being Mr. Southey. What is right in
him, ie wrong in them ; what is the height of folly or wickedness
in them, is, " as fortune and the flesh shall serve," the height of
wisdom and virtue in him ; for there is no medium in his repro-
bation of others and approbation of himself. Whatever he does,
is proper : whatever he thinks, is true and profound : " I, Robert
Shallow, Esquire, have said it." Whether Jacobin or Anti-jacobin,
Theophilanthropist or Trinitarian, Spencean or Ex-Spencean, the
patron of Universal Suffrage or of close Boroughs, of the reversion
of sinecure places, and pensions, or of the abolition of all properly,
— however extreme itt one opinion or another, he alone is in the
right; and those who do not think as he does, and change their opi-
nions as he does, and go the lengths that he does, first on one side
and then on the other, are necessarily knaves and fools. Wherever
he sits, is the head of the table. Truth and justice are always at
his side. The wise and virtuous are always with him. How
should it be otherwise ^ He calls those " wise and virtuous" who
are of his way of thinking ; the rest are " sciolists, profligates,
and coxcombs." By a fiction of his own making, not by a fiction
of the law, Mr. Southey can do no wrong ; and to accuse him
of it, is a libel on the face of it, and little short of high treason.
It is not the poet-laureate, the author of " Wat Tyler" and of the
" Quarterly Review," who is to blame for his violence and apos-
tacy ; with that portion of self-sufficiency which this author pos-
sesses, " these are most virtuous ;" but it is the person w ho brings
forward the contradictions and intemperance of these two per-
formances who is never to be forgiven for questioning Mr. Sou-
216
ihey's coiisisfcency and moderation. All this . is strange, but not
new to our readers. We have said it all before. Why does Mr.
Soutuey oblige us to repeat the accusation, by furnishing us with
fresh proofs of it ? He is betrayed to his ruin by trusting to the
dictates of his personal feelings and wounded pride ; and yet he
dare not look at his situation through any other medium. " To
know my deed, 't were best not know myself." But does he ex-
pect all eyes as well as his to be " blind with the pin and web ?"
Does he pull his laurel-crown as a splendid film over his eyes,
and expect us to join in a game of political blindman's-buff with
him, with a " Hoop, do me no harm, good man ?" Are we
not to cry out while an impudent, hypocritical, malignant rene-
gado is putting his gag in our mouths, and getting his thumb-
screws ready ? *' Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there sliall be no more cakes and ale," says Sir Toby to the fan-
tastical steward Malvolio'^ Does Mr. Southey think, because
he is a pensioner, that he is to make us willing slaves ? While
he goes on writing in ihe " Quarterly," shall we give over writing
in The Examiner'!^ Before he puts down the liberty of the press,
the press shall put him down, with all his hireling and changeling
crew. In the servile war which Mr. Southey tells us is approach-
ing, the service we have proposed to ourselves to do is, to neu-
tralize the servile intellect of the country. This we have already
done in part, and hope to make clear work of it, before we have
done. — For example :
This heroic epistle to William Smith, Esq. from Robert Sou-
they, sets off in the following manner : —
" Sir, — You are represented in the newspapers as having en-
tered, during an important discussion in parliament, into a com-
parison between certain passages in the " Quarterly Review," and
the opinions which were held by the author of " Wat Tyler" ihree-
and-twenty years ago. It appears farther, according to the same
authority, that the introduction of so strange a criticism, in so
strange a place, did not arise from the debate, but was a preme-
ditated thing ; that you had prepared yourself for it, by stowing
217
the "Quarterly Review" in one pocket, and " Wat Tyler" in the
other ; and that you deliberately stood up for the purpose of re-
viling an individual who was not present to vindicate himself, and
in a place which afforded you protection." p. 2.
So that for Mr, William Smith in a debate on a bill for the
suppression of oil political opinions (as we are told by Mr. Al-
derman Smith, a very different person, to be sure, and according
to Mr. Southey, no doubt, a highly respectable character, and a
true lover of liberty and the constitution) for Mr. William Smith
on such an occasion to introduce the sentiments of a well-known
writer in a public journal, that writer being a whiffling tool of
the court, and that journal the avowed organ of the government-
party, in confirmation of his apprehensions of the objects and
probable results of the bill then pending, was quite irrelevant and
unparliamentary ; nor had Mr. William Smith any right to set an
additional stigma on the unprincipled and barefaced lengths which
this writer now goes in servility and intolerance, by shewing the
equal lengths to which he went formerly in popular fanaticism
and licentiousness. Yet neither Mr. Southey nor his friend Mr.
Wynne complained of Mr. Canning's want of regularity, or dis-
respect of the House, in lugging out of his pocket The Spen-
CE AN Pla N as an argument against Reform, and as decisive of the
views of the Friends of Reform in parliament. Nay, Mr. Southey
requoted Mr. Canning's quotation, for the purpose of reviling all
Reform and all Reformers, in the " Quarterly Review ;" — a place
in which any one so reviled can no more defend himself than Mr.
Southey can defend himself in parliament ; and which it seems af-
fords equal " protection" to those who avail themselves of it; for a
Quarterly Reviewer, according to Mr. Southey, being anonymous,
is not at all accountable for what he vvrites. He says, —
"As to the " Quarterly Review," you can have no other autho-
rity for ascribing any particular paper in that journal to one person
or to another, than common report. The " Quarterly Review"
stands upon its own merits." [Yet it was for wliat Mr. Southey
wrote in that Review, that The Courier told us at the time that
218
Mr. Southey was made Poet-laureate.] " What I may have said
or thought in any part of my life, no more concerns that journal
than it does you or the House of Commons." [What Mr. Sou-
they has said publicly any where in any part of his life, concerns
the public and every man in it, unless Mr. Southey means to say
that his opinions are utterly worthless and contemptible, a piece
of modesty of which we cannot suspect him,] " What I have
written in it is a question which you. Sir, have no right to ask,
and which certainly I will not answer. As little right have you
to take that for granted which you cannot possibly know." Now
mark. In the very paragraph before the one in which he skulks
from the responsibility of the " Quarterly Review," and with pert
vapid assurance repels every insinuation implying a breach of his
inviolability as an anonymous writer, he makes an impudent, un-
qualified, and virulent attack on Mr. Brougham as an Edinburgh
Reviewer, " This was not necessary in regard to Mr. Brougham
. . . .he only earned the quarrels as well as the practices of the
Edinburgh Review into the House of Commons. But as ca-
lumny, Sir^ has not been your vocation, it may be useful, even
to yourself, if I comment upon your first attempt." — p. 3. Such
a want of common logic is to our literal capacities quite inexpli-
cable : it is " in the third tier of wonders above wonders."
In page 5, Mr. Southey calls the person who published " Wat
Tyler" " a skulking scoundrel," with his characteristic delicacy and
moderation in the use of epithets ; and says that it was published,
" for the avowed purpose of insulting him, and with the hope of
injuring him if possible." Perhaps one object was to prevent
Mr. Southey from insulting and injuring other people. It was
supposed that " Wat Tyler" might prove an antidote to the
" Quarterly Review :" that, " the healing might come from the
same weapon that gave the wound ;" and in this instance it has
turned out so. He adds, " You knew that the transaction bore
upon its face every character of baseness and malignity. You knew
that it must have been effected either by robbery, or by breach
rf trust. These things, Mr. William Smith, you knew!" [Mr.
219
Southey at least knows no such thing, but he is here in his glory;
putting a false statement into epigrammatic phraseology; bristling
with horror at antithetical enormities of his own fabricating, and
concluding with that formidable and significant repetition of the
title, Christian and surname of Mr. William Smith.'] The above
paragraph concludes thus, with the author's usual logical precision
and personal modesty. " And knowing them as you did, I verily
believe, that if it were possible to revoke what is irrevocable,
you would at this moment be far more desirous of blotting from
remembrance the disgraceful speech which stands upon record in
your name, than I should be of cancelling the boyish composition
which gave rise to it. " Wat Tyler" is full of errors but
they are the errors of youth and ignorance ; they bear no indica-
tion of an ungenerous spirit, or of a malevolent heart." p. 6. It
seems by this passage that any attempt to fix disgrace on Mr.
Southey only recoils upon the head of his accuser. " Upon his
brow shame is ashamed to sit." He says that Mr. W. Smith's
disgraceful speech was occasioned by " Wat Tyler." That is not
true. It was occasioned by " Wat Tyler" coupled with the
*' Quarterly Review." He says, " * Wat Tyler' is full of errors."
So is the article in the " Quarterly Review ;" but the^ are not
" the errors of youth and ignorance ; they bear strong indications
of an ungenerous spirit and a malignant heart." Let not Mr. Sou-
they mistake. It is not the indiscreet and romantic extravagance
of the boy which has brought the man into this predicament: it is
the deliberate and rancorous servility of the man that has made
those who were the marks of his slanderous and cowardly invec-
tives, rake up the errors of his youth against him.
Mr. Southey next proceeds to a defence of himself for writing
" the Wat Tyler." He argues that " it is not seditious, because
it is dramatic." We deny that it is dramatic. He acknowledges
that it is mischievous, and particularly so, at the present time.
To the last part of the proposition we cannot assent. When this
poem was written, there was a rage of speculation which might be
dangerous : the danger at present arises from the rage of hunger.
•220
And the true reason why Mr. Soulhey was eager to suppress
this publicatiou was n(jt what he pretends, a fear that it might in-
culcate notions of perfect equahty and general Hcentiousness : bcTt
a feeling that it might prevent him from defending every abuse of
excessive inequality, and every stretch of arbitrary power, the end
of which must be to sink " the people" in an abyss of slavery, and
to plunge " the populace" in the depths of famine, despair, and
misery, or by a sudden and tremendous revulsion, to occasion all
that confusion, anarchy, violence, and bloodshed, which Mr.
Southey hypocritically atfects to deprecate as the consequences of
seditious and inflammatory publications. Now we /contend in
opposition to Mr. Southey and all that servile crew, that the only
possible preventive of one or other of these impending evils,
namely, lasting slavery, famine, and general misery on the one
hand, or a sudden and dreadful convulsion on the other, is the
liberty of the press, which Mr. Southey calls sedition, and the
firm, manly, and independent expression of public opinion, which
he calls rebellion. We detest despotism : we deprecate popular
commotion : but if we are forced upon an alternative, we have a
choice : we prefer temporary to lasting evils. Mr. Southey has
indeed a new-acquired and therefore lively dread of the horrors of
revolution. But his passion for despotism is greater than his
dread of anarchy ; and he runs all the risks of the one, rather
than not glut his insatiable and unnatural appetite for ihe other.
Such are his politics, and such are ours. He says, " The piece
was written under the influence of opinions which I have long
since outgrown, and repeatedly disclaimed, but for which I have
never felt either shame or contrition. They were taken up con-
scientiously in early youth, they were acted upon in disregard of
all worldly consideration*, and they were left behind in the same
strait-forward course, as I advanced in years." The latter part
of this statement is not self-evident. Mr. Southey says that while
he adhered to his first principles, he acted with a total disregard
of his worldly interest ; and this is easily understood : — but that
his desertion of those principles, so contrary to his worldly views,
221
was equally independent, disinterested and free from sinister mo-
tives, is not so plain. Nor can we take Mr. Souiliey's word for
it. And we will tell him the reason. If he had been pro<Tres-
sive, as he calls it, in his course, up to the year 1814, we should
not have found much fault with him : but why did he become
stationary then ? Has nothing happened in the three last years,
— nothing — to make Mr. Southey retreat back to some of his old
opinions, as he had advanced from them, guided, as he professes
to be in his undevialing course, by facts and experience ? Are the
actual events of the last three years nothing in the scale of Mr.
Southey 's judgment ? Is not their weight overpowering, irresis-
tible r What, do not the names of Poland, Norway, Finland,
Saxony, Italy, Spain and Portugal, the Pope, the Inquisition, and
the Cortes (to say nothing of France, Nismes, and the Bourbons)
thrown into the scale of common sense and common honesty,
dash it down, with a startling sound, upon the counter, where
Mr. Southey is reckoning his well-gotten gains, the price of his
disinterested exertions in the cause of Spanish liberty and the de-
liverance of mankind, making his hair stand on end at his own
folly and credulity, and forcing him indignantly to fling his last
year's pension and the arrears of the Quarterly in the face of Mr.
Murray's shopmen and the clerks of the Treasury, and swear,
" in disregard of all worldly considerations," never to set his foot
in Downing or Albemarle-street again .? No such thing. In ad-
vocating the cause of the French people, Mr. Southey 's principles
and his interest were at variance, and therefore he quitted his
principles when he saw a good opportunity: in taking up the
cause of the Allies, his principles and his interest became united
and thenceforth indissoluble. His engagement to his first love,
the Republic, was only upon liking ; his marriage to Legitimacy
is for better, for worse, and nothing but death shall part them.
Our simple Laureate was sharp upon his hoyden Jacobin mis-
tress, who brought him no dowry, neither place nor pension, who
'' found him poor and kept him so," by her prudish notions of
virtue. He divorced her, in short, for nothing but the spirit and
222
success with which she resisted the fraud and force to which the
old bawd Legitimacy was forever resorting to overpower her re-
solution and fidelity. He said she was a virago, a cunning gip-
sey, always in broils about her honour and the inviolability of her
person, and always getting the better in them, furiously scratch-
ing the face or cruelly tearing off the hair of the said pimping old
lady, who would never let her alone, night or day. But since
her foot slipped one day on the ice, and the detestable old hag
tripped up her heels, and gave her up to the kind keeping of the
Allied Sovereigns, Mr. Southey has devoted himself to her more
fortunate and wealthy rival : he is become uxorious in his second
matrimonial connexion ; and though his false Duessa has turned
out a very witch, a foul, ugly witch, drunk with insolence, mad
with power, a griping, rapacious wretch, bloody, luxurious,
wanton, malicious, not sparing steel, or poison, or gold, to gain
her ends — bringing famine, pestilence, and death in her train —
infecting the air with her thoughts, killing the beholders with
her looks, claiming mankind as her property, and using thera as
her slaves — driving every thing before her, and playing the devil
wherever she comes, Mr. Southey sticks to her in spite of every
thing, and for very shame lays his head in her lap, paddles with
the palms of her hands, inhales her hateful breath, leers in
her eyes and whispers in her ears^ calls her little fondling names.
Religion, Morality, and Social Order, takes for his motto,
" Be to her faults a little blind,
Be to her virtues very kind " —
sticks close to his filthy bargain, and will not give her up, be-
cause she keeps him, and he is down in her will. Faugh !
" What's here?
Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold I
^-^ The wappened widow,
Whom the spittle-house and ulcerous sores
Would heave the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again,"
223
The above passage is, we fear, written in the stvie of Aretin,
which Mr. Soiithey condemns in the Quarterly. It is at least a
very sincere style : Mr. Southey will never write so, till he can
keep in the same mind for ihree and twenty years together.
Why should not one make a sentence of a page long, out of the
feelings of one's whole life ? The early Protestant Divines wrote
such prodigious long sentences from the sincerity of their religious
and political opinions. Mr. Coleridge ought not to imitate them.
A Letter to William Smith, Esq. M. P. from Robert
Southey, Fisq. John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1817.
Price 'iLs.
" What word liath passed thy lips, Adam severe ? "
May 11, 18*17.
Has Mr. Murray turned Quaker, that he styles himself John
Murray (" Mark you his absolute John ? ") in the title-page ? Or
has Mr. Southey resigned his place and his pretensions, that he
omits in the same page his honorary titles of Poet- Laureate and
Member of the Royal Spanish Academy ? We cannot tell ; but
we should think it some sign of grace, if, without a hint from the
Lord Chamberlain, he had for a while laid by liis tattered laurel
and spattered birth-day suit : if, as the Commander in Chief
retired after the droll aflfair of Mrs. Clarke (we are not such
rigid moralists as Mr. Southey) the Poet Laureate had thought
proper to veil his blushing court favours during the dramatic
representation of Wat Tyler, and did not consider it either pru-
dent or becoming to be seen going to or coming from Carlton-
house with the mob, " the reading rabble," at his heels, and with a
shower of two-penny pamphlets sticking to the skirts of his turned
coat. Poor Morgan, the honest Welchman in Roderic Random,
reeking with the fumes of tobacco and garlic, was not more
•224
offensive to the sensitive organs of Captain Whiffle, than Mr.
Southey must be to the nice feelings of an exalted Personage,
reeking with the fumes of Jacobinism, and rolled, as he has been,
in the kennel of the newspaper press. A voyage to Italy, a
classical quarantine of a year or two, with the Pope's blessing,
seems absolutely necessary to wipe out the stains of his Wat
Tyler, " as pure as sin with baptism ; " and to restore him to the
vows of Prince and People as smug as a young novice in a
monastery, and sweet as any waiting-gentlewoman.
Mr. Southey says, in continuation of his Defence of Wat
Tyler, p. 7, " It was written when republicanism was confined
to a very small number of the educated classes : " [Is it more
common now among the intended hearers of Mr. Coleridge's
Second and Third Lay-Sermons ?j — *' when those who were
kno\Ani to entertain such opinions were exposed to personal dan-
ger from the populace ; " [The populace of course were not set
on by the higher classes, the clergy or gentry, nor can Mr. S.
mean to include the Attorney-General of that day, my Lord
Eldon, as one of the populace.'] " And when a spirit of anti-
jacobinism was predominant, which I cannot characterise more
truly than by saying that it was as unjust and intolerant, though
not quite as ferocious, as the Jacobinism of the present day'* —
Why not the anti-jacobinism of the present day ? " The col-
lusion holds in the exchange." The business is carried on to the
present hour ; and though it has changed hands, the principal of
the firm is still the same. Mr. Gifford, the present Editor of the
Quarterly Review, where Mr. Southey now writes, was formerly
the Editor of the Jnti-jacobin newspaper, where he was written at.
The above passage is however a sly passing hit at Mr. Canning's
parodies, who (shame to say it) was as wise and as witty three
and twenty years ago as he is now, and has not been making that
progressive improvement "ever since, on which Mr. Southey com-
pliments himself, congratulates his' friends, and insults over his
enemies ! How nicely this gentleman differences himself from all
225
his contemporaries, Jacobin or anti-Jacobin ! No one can come
up to liim at all points. " The lovely Marcia towers above
her sex ! "
The Letter-writer goes on to say : — " When therefore Mr.
Smith informed the House of Commons that the author of ffat
Tyler thinks no longer upon certain points as he did in his youth,
he infonned that legislative assembly of nothing more than what
the author has shown during very many years, in the course of his
writings that while events have been moving on upon the
great theatre of human affnirs, his intellect has not been sta-
tionary." — [Mr. S. here confounds a change of opinions with the
progress of intellect, a mistake which we shall correct presently.]
— " But when the Member for Norwich asserts that 1 impute
evil motives to men merely for holding the same doctrines "
[No, only a tenth part of the same doctrines] " which I myself
formerly professed, and when he charges me with the malignity
and baseness of a Renegade, the assertion and the charge are as
false, as the language in which they are conveyed is coarse and
insulting." p. 9.
Now we know of no writings of Mr. Southey's, in the course
of which he had shewn for many years the change or progress of
his opinions, but in the Quarterly Review and other anonymous
publications. We suppose he will hardly say that his Birth-day
Odes, the Carmen Nnptiale, 8cc. have shewn the progress of his
intellect. But in the same anonymous writings, in which the
public would find, to Mr. Southey's credit, that his intellect had
not been stationary, the Member for Norwich would find what
was not so much to his credit, but all that was wanting to make
good the charge — that Mr. Southey's moderation and charity to
those whose intellects had been stationary, did not keep pace with
the progress of his own — for in the articles in the Quarterly,
^vhich he claims or disclaims as he pleases, he, the writer of the
Inscription on Old Sarum, describes " a Reformer as no better
than a housebreaker:" he, the writer of the Inscription at
Chepstow Castle, calls all those who do not bow their necks to
Q
226,
the doctrine of Divine Right, Rebels and Regicides: he, the
author of IVat Tyler, calls those persons who think taxes, wars,
the wanton waste of the resources of a country, and the unfeeling
profligacy of the rich, likely to aggravate and rouse to madness
the intolerable sufferings of the poor, " flagitious incendiaries,,
panders to insurrection, murder, and treason, and the worst of
scoundrels"; he, the equalizer of all property and of popular
representation, would protect the holders of rotten boroughs and
of entailed sinecures, by shutting up all those who write against,
them in solitary confinement, without pen, ink, or paper, to
answer the unanswerable arguments of Mr. Southey— =-in short,
the author of the articles in the Quarterly Review, if he was not
always a base and malignant sycophant, shews himself to be
a base and malignant Renegade, by defending all the rotten,
and undermining all the sound parts of the system to which he
professes to be a convert, and by consigning over to a " vigour
beyond the law " all those who expose his unprincipled, prag-
matical tergiversations, or would maintain the system itself,
without maintaining those corruptions and abuses, which were all
that Mr. Soudiey at one time saw to hold up to execration in the
English Constitution, and are all that he now sees to admire and
revere in it. This is as natural in a Renegado, as it would be
unaccountable in any one else.
We must get on a little faster, for to expose the absurdities of
this Letter one by one would fill " a nice little book." In the
pages immediately following, Mr. Southey glances at the Editor
of the Edinburgh Review, whom he condemns *' to bear a gore
sinister tenm in his escutcheon," for saying that Mr. Southey
does not form an exception to the irrilahile genus vatum. He
says, that he has often refrained from exposing the ignorance and
inconsistency of his opponents, as well as " that moral turpitude,"
which, our readers must by this time perceive, can hardly fail to
accompany any difference of opinion with him. He says that
'* he has a talent for satire, but that (good soul !) he has long
since subdued the disposition." This must be since writing the
227
last QuarteAy : we thought there were some shrewd hits there,
and we suspect Sir Richard Phillips, whom he laughs at for his
dislike of war and of animal foud, for pages together, will be of
our opinion. He sa^s that " he has been lately employed, while
among the mountains of Cumberland, upon the Mines of Brazil
and the War in the Peninsula."
" Why man, he doth bestride the world
Like a Colossus, and we, petty men, peep
Under his huge legs."
*' His name, in the mean time, has served in London for the
very shuttlecock of discussion." Why should not his name be a
shuttlecock, when he himself is no better? — " He has impeded
the rising reputation of Toby, the Sapient Pig ; " — has overlaid
the posthumous birth of the young Shiloh, and perhaps prevented
Mr. Coleridge's premature deliverance of his last Lay Sermon.
After all these misfortunes, the author makes merry with Bona-
parte's '' having been exposed, like Bishop Hatto, to be devoured
by the rats ! '' The levelling rogue cares neither for Bishops nor
Emperors, but growls grave again in recounting the retrograde
progress of his own mind.
" In my youth, when my stock of knowledge consisted of such
an acquaintance with Greek and Roman history, as is acquired in
the course of a regular scholastic education," — [The Greek and
Roman history is as good as the history of rotten boroughs or
the reign of George HI.] — " when my heart was full of poetry
and romance," — [Is it so no longer?]—" and Lucan and Aken-
side were at my tongue's end." — [Instead of the red book and the
court calendar] — " I/^lf i'tto the political opinions which the
French Revolution was then scattering throughout Europe : '*
[We have here a pretty fair account of the origin and genealogy
of the opinions of the French Revolution, which opirtions of
liberty, truth, and justice, neither the French Revolution shall
destroy, nor those who destroyed it, because it was produced by
and gave birth to those opinions ; and does Mr. Southey suppose
Q 2
228
that the suppression of Wat Tyler is to suppress those opinions,
and that a l3.ing article in the Quarterly Review is to persuade us
that they who made war on those opinions from the beginning
(and by so doing, produced all the evils of those opinions, pro-
duced them purposely, in the malice of their hearts and the
darkness of their minds produced them to destroy all liberty,
truth, and justice, and to keep mankind their slaves in perpetuity
by right divine) were right from the beginning, that they deserved
well of mankind, that their boasted triumph, the triumph of kings
over the species, is ours and Mr. Soulhey's triumph ? Or would
he persuade us that the Greek and Roman History has become
obsolete, because Mr. Southey left school three and twenty years
ago ; that poetry and romance were banished from the human
heart when he look a place and pension ; that Lucan and Aken-
side will not live as long as Wat Tyler, or the Quarterly Review !
— We broke off in an interesting part. Mr. Southey proceeds :]
" Following those opinions with ardour wherever they led."
[This is an old trick of the author, he is a keen sportsman ;]
" I soon perceived tliat inequalities of rank were a light evil
compared to the inequalities of property,* and those more
* A sarcastic writer, like Mr. Southey, might here ask, whether it was a
disappointment in sharing the estate of some rich landed proprietor that made
Mr. Southey tnrn short round to a defence of sinecures and pensions ? We do
not know, but here follows a passage, which " some skulking scoundrel " in
the Quarterly Review appears to have aimed at Mr. Southey's early opinions
and character: — " As long as the smatterer in philosophy confines himself to
private practice, the mischief does not extend beyond his private circle — his
neighbour's wife may be in some danger, and his neighbour's property also ;
if the distinctions between meum and tuum should be practically inconvenient
to the man of free opinions. But when he commences professor of moral and
political philosophy for the benefit of the public — the fables of old credulity
are then verified, his very breath becomes venomous, and every page which he
sends abroad carries with it poisou to the unsuspicious reader." Such is the
interpretation given by the anonymous writer to the motives of smatterers in
philosophy ; this writer could not be Mr. Southey, for " he never imputes evil
motives to men merely for holding the opinions he formerly held," such as the
itvjls of the inequality of property, &c.
229
fearful disUnctions vvliich the want of moral and intellectual cul-
ture occasions between man and man. At that time, and with
those opinions or rather feelings (for their root was in the heart,
and not in the understanding) 1 wrote Wat Tyler as one who was
itnpatient of ' all the oppressions that are done under the sun.' "
[Here we must make another full stop. Mr. Soulhey is inca-
pable of forming any other opinions but from his feelings : he
never had any other opinions, he never will have any others, worth
a rush. When the opinions he professes ceased to be the dictates
of his heart, they became the dictates of his vanity and interest ;
they became good for nothing. When the first ebullition of
youthful ardour was over, his understanding was not competent
to maintain its independence against the artifices of sophistry,
aided by the accumulating force of " worldly considerations,"
showy or substantial, the long neglect of which he had felt to his
cost. Mr. Southey's pure reason was not steady enough to con-
template the truth in an unprejudiced and unimpassioned point
of view. His imagination first ran away with his understanding;
and now, that he is getting old, his convenience, the influence of
fashion, and the tide of opinion, rush in, and fill up ail the void
both of sense and imagination, driving him into the very vortex
of court-sycopliancy, the sinks and common sewers of corruption.
Mr. Southey is not a man to hear reason at any time of his life.
He thinks his change of opinion is owing to an increase of know-
ledge, because he has in fact no idea of any progress in intellect
but exchanging one error for another. He has no idea that a
man may grow wiser in the same opinion by discovering new
reasons for the faiih that is in him ; for Mr. Southey has no reasons
for the faith that is in him. He does not see how a man may
devote his whole life to the discovery of the principle of the most
common truth ; for he has no principles of thought, either to
guide, enlarge, or modify his knowledge. He has noihing to
shew for the wisdom of his opinions but his own opinion of their
wisdom : they are mere self-opinions : he considers his present
notions as profound and solid, because his former ones were hasty
230
and shallow ; asserts ihetn with pert, vapid assurance, because he
does not see the objections against them ; and thinks he must be
right in his premises in proportion to the violence and extravagance
of his conclusions. Because when he wrote JVat Tyler, he was
" impatient of all the oppressions that are done under the sun,"
he now thinks it his bounden Ai\Xy to justify them all, with equal
impatience of contradiction. Mr. Southey does not know himself
so well as we do ; and a greater confirmation of his ignorance in
this respect cannot well be given than the rest of the above
passage. " The subject of Wat TyJer was injudiciously chosen ;
and it was treated as might be expected by a youth of twenty, in
such times, who regarded only one side of the question." [It is
Mr. Southey 's fault or his misfortune that at all times he regards
only one side of a question.]
" There is no other misrepresentation. The sentiments of the
historical characters are correctly stated." [What, of the King,
the Judge, and die Aichbishop ?] " Were 1 now to dramatize
the same story, there would be much to add, but little to alter.
I should not express those sentiments less strongly, but 1 should
oppose to them more enlarged views of the nature of man. and
the progress of society. / should set forth with equal force the
oppressions of the feudal system, the excesses of the insurgents,
and the treachery of the government," [Doctors doubt that]
" and hold up the errors and crimes which were then committed,
as a warning for this and for future generations. I should write
as a man ; not as a stripling ; with the same heart, and the same
desires, but with a ripened understanding and competent stores
of knowledge," p. 15. Let him do it, but he dare not. He
would shew by the attempt the hollowness of his boasted inde-
pendence, the httle time-serving meanness of his most enlarged
views • in a word, that he has sliU the same understanding, but
no lono-er the same heart. What are " the ripened discoveries
and competent stores of knowledge " which Mr. Southey would
brin» to this task ? Are they the barefaced self-evident sophistries,
the wretched shuffling evasions of common sense and humanity
231
which he contributes to the Quarterly Review, the cast-off,
thread-bare, tattered excuses of Paley's Moral Philosophy, and
Willdhanl'^ hashed-up speeches ? Why, all the prodigious dis-
coveries \\hich Mr. Southey there details with such dry signifi-
cance, are familiar to every school-boy, are the common stock
in trade of every spouter at a debating society, have been bandied
about, hackneyt d, exhausted any time these thirty years ? And
yet Mr. Southey was quite ignorant of them till very lately,
they have broke upon him with a new and solemn light ; they
have come upon him by surprise, after three-and-twenty years ;
and at 'the last rebound, have overturned his tottering patri-
otism ? Where is the use of Mr. Southey 's regular scholastic
education, if he is to be thus ignorant at twenty, thus versatile at
forty ? The object of such an education is to make men less
astonished at their own successive discoveries, by putting them in
possession beforehand of what has been discovered by others.
Mr. Southey cannot, like Mr. Cobbett, plead in extenuation of
his change of sentiment, that he was a self-taught man, who had
to grope his way from error and prejudice to truth and reason ;
neither can he plead like Mr. Cobbett, in proof of the sincerity
of his motives, that he has suffered the loss of liberty and property
by his change of opinion : Mr. Southey has suffered nothing by
his— but a loss of character!
A Letteh to William Smith, Esq. M. V. from Robert
Southey, Esq, John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1817.
Price 2s.
(CONCLI'DED.)
May 18, 1817.
Mr. Southey in the next paragraph says, that, " it is a nice
question, in what degree he, as the audior, partook of the senti-
ments expressed in the dramatic poem of Wat Tyler ;— too nice
a one for Mr. Wm. Smith to decide;" and yet he accuses him
of excessive malice or total want of judgment for deciding wrong.
232
He then falls foul of the Monthh/, and other Dissenting Reviews,
for praising his Joan of Arc , and makes it the subject of a sneer
at Mr. W. Smith, that his Minor Poems were praised by the
same critical authorities on tlieir first appearance. We might ask
here, Did not Mr. Southey himself write in these Reviews at one
time ? But he might refuse to answer the question. " In these
productions, Joan of Arc" &.c. Mr. Southey observes, and ob-
serves truly, that Mr. W. Smith " might have seen expressed an
enthusiastic love of liberty," (not a cold-blooded recommendation
to extinguish the liberty of the press) " a detestation of tyranny
in whatever form," (legitimate or illegitimate, not a palliation of
all its most inveterate and lasting abuses) " an ardent abhorrence
of all wicked ambition," (particularly of that most wicked ambi-
tion which would subject mankind, as a herd of cattle, to the
power and pride of Kings) " and a sympathy not less ardent with
those who were engaged in war for the defence of iheir country,
and in a righteous cause" — to wit, the French !
Mr. Southey, however, vindicates with still more self-compla-
cency and success, the purity of his religious and moral character.
" For while I imbibed the Republican opinions of the day, I
escaped the atheism and leprous immorality which generally ac-
companied them. I cannot, therefore, join with Beatiie in
blessing
' The hour when I escap'd the wrangling crew,
From Pj'rrho's maze, and Epicurus' sty ; '
for I was never lost in the one, nor defiled in the other. My
progress was of a different kind." And Mr. Southey then tells a
story, not so good as the story of Whittington and his Cat, how
he was prevented from setting off for America to set up the Pan-
tisocracy scheme, and turned back, " from building castles in the
air, and founding Christian Commonwealths," to turn Poet Lau-
reate, and write in the Quarterly Review. The above extract is
a fine specimen of character. Mr. Southey there thanks God that
he is not, and was not, like other men. He was proof against
. 233
the worst infection of his time. Poor Doctors Price and
Priestley, who were Republicans like Mr. Southey, were reli-
gious, moral men; but they were Dissenters, and this excites as
much contempt in Mr. Southey, as if they had been aiheists and
profligates. Others again, among Mr. Southey 's political com-
peers, were atheists and immoral ; and for this, Mr. Soulhey ex-
presses the same abhorrence of them, as if they had been Dis-
senters ! He, indeed, contrives to make the defects of others so
many perfections in himself; and by this mode of proceeding,
abstracts himself into a beau ideal of moral and political egotism —
a Sir Charles Grandison, calculated for the beginning of the
nineteenth, and the latter end of the eighteenth century, upon the
true infallible principles of intellectual coxcombry. It is well for
Mr. Southey that he never was lost " in Pyrrho's maze," for he
never would have found his way out of it : — that his tastes were
not a little more Epicurean, perhaps is not so well for him.
There is a monachism of the understanding in Mr. Southey,
which may be traced to the over-severity, the prudery of his moraV
habits. He unites somewhat of the fanaticism and bigotry of the
cloister with its penances and privations. A decent mixture of
the pleasurable and the sensual, might relieve the morbid acri-
mony of his temper, and a little more indulgence of his appetites
might make him a little less tenacious of his opinions. It is his not
sympathising with the enjoyments of others, that makes him feel
such an antipathy to every difference of sentiment. We hope
Mr. Southey, when he was in town, went to see Don Giovanni^
and heard him sing that fine song, " Women and wine are the
sustainers and glory of life.'^ We do not wish to see Mr. Southey
quite a Don Giovanni, (that would be as great a change in his
moral, as to see him Poet-laureate, is in his political character) but
if he had fewer pretensions to virtue, he would, perhaps, be a better
man, — " to relish all as sharply, passioned as we !" The author,
in p. 21, informs Mr. W.Smith, that his early Poems, which
contain all the political spirit, wiihout the dramatic form, of Wat
Tyler, are continually on sale, and that he has never attempted to
^34 •
W ithdraw them r Why does he not withdraw thein, or why did he
attempt to get an Injunction against poor Wat''^ Sortie one who
does not know Mr. Southey — has suggested as an answer, — By
not withdrawing the Poems, he pockets the receipts ; and by
getting an Injunction against Wot Tyler, he would have done the
same thing. In p. 23, Mr. Southey states, that he is " in the
same rank in society" as Mr. Smith, which we have yet to learn :
and that he and Mr. Smith " were cast by nature in different
moulds," which we think was lucky for the Member for Norwich.
In p. 25, Mr. Southey rails at " the whole crew of ultra Whigs
and Anarchists, from Messrs. Brougham and Clodius, down to
Cobbett, Cethegus, and Co, ;" and in pages 26, 27, he compli-
ments himself: " 1 ask you, Sir, in which of my writings I have
appealed to the base and malignant feelings of mankind ; — and I
ask you, whether the present race of revolutionary writers appeal
to any other ? What man's private character did I stab ? Whom
did I libel ? Whom did I slander ? Whom did I traduce .''
These miscreants live by calumny and sedition:
THEY ARE LIBELLERS AND LIARS BY TRADE." After this,
Sir Anthony Absolutes " Damn you, can't you be cool, like
me?" will hardly pass for a joke! " For a man to know another
well, were to know himself."
But we must conclude, and shall do so, with some passages
taken at a venture. " I did not fall into the error of those, who,
having been the friends of France when they imagined that the
cause of liberty was implicated in her success, transferred their
attachment from the Republic to the military tyranny in which it
ended, and regarded with complacency the progress of oppression,
because France was the oppressor." What does Mr. Southey
call that military establishment which is at present kept up in
France to keep the Bourbons on the throne, and to keep down
the French people ? Mr. Southey has, it seems, transferred his
attachment from the Republic, not to Bonaparte, but to the
Bourbons. They stand Mr. Southey instead of the Republic ;
they are the true " children and champions of Jacobinism ;" the
235
legitimate heirs and successors of the Revolution. We have never
fallen into that error — into the error of preferring the monstrous
claim of hereditary and perpetual despotism over whole nations,
to a power raised to whatever height, (a gigantic, but glorious
height) in repelling that monstrous claim ; a claim set up in con-
tempt of human nature and human liberty, and never quitted for
a single instant ; the unwearied, implacable, systematic prosecu-
tion of which claim, to force the doctrine of Divine Right on the
French people, caused all the calamities of the Revolution, all
the horrors of anarchy, and all the evils of military despotism,
with loss of liberty and independence ; and the restoring and hal-
lowing of which claim, to hold mankind as slaves in perpetuity,
Mr. Southey hails as the deliverance of mankind, and " a con-
summation devoutly to be wished." '' O fool, fool, fool !" He
cannot go along with France when France becomes the oppressor ;
nor can he leave the Allies when they become the oppressors,
when they return to the point from whence they set out in 1 792.
He could not accompany the march to Paris then, but he has
run all the way by the side of it twice since, with his laurel
wreath on his head, playing tricks and antics like a Jack-of-the
Green. We explained this before. Mr. Southey was a revolu-
tionary weathercock ; he is become a court-fixture. " They (says
he, meaning us*) had turned their faces towards the East in the
morning, to worship the rising sun, and in the evening they were
looking eastward still, obstinately affirming that still the sun was
there. I, on the contrary, altered my position as the world went
round." It is not alwajs that a simile runs on all-fours ; but this
does. The sun, indeed, passes from the East to the West, but it
rises in the East again : yet Mr. Southey is still looking in the West —
for his pension. The world has gone round a second time, but he
has not altered his position — at the Treasury door. Does the sun
of Liberty still rise over the towers of the Inquisition ? Is its
glow kindled at the funeral pile of massacred Protestants ? Does
* Not the Editor of this Paper, but the writer of this Article.
236
its breath issue in vain from French dungeons, in which all those
are confined who cannot forget that for twenty-five years they
have been counted men, not slaves to Louis XVIII., under God
and the Prince Regent ? The doctrine of Divine Right has been
restored, and Mr. Soulhey is still dreaming of military usurpation.
The Inquisition has been re-established, and Mr. Southey still
talks of the deliverance of Spain and Portugal. The war was
renewed to put down Bonaparte as a military usurper, and not,
as it was stated, to force the Bourbons as the legitimate Sove-
reigns, back upon the French nation ; and yet the moment he
was put down, the Bourbons were forced back upon the French
people ; (he was the only barrier between them and the delicious
doctrine of Divine Right) and yet Mr. Southey says nothing of
this monstrous outrage and insult on them, on us, on all man-
kind : his spirits are frozen up by this word " legitimacy," as fish
are in a pond : and yet he does say something — for he dotes, and
raves, and drivels about national monuments to commemorate the
final triumph over national independence and human rights.
Mr. Southey next gives us his succedaneum to the doctrine of
Legitimacy ; and a precious piece of quackery it is : —
" Slavery has long ceased to be tolerable in Europe : the re-
mains of feudal oppression are disappearing even in those countries
which have improved the least : nor can it be much longer en-
dured, that the extremes of ignorance, wretchedness, and brutality,
should exist in the very centre of civilized society. There can be
no safety with a populace, half Luddite, half Lazzaroni. Let
us not deceive ourselves. We are far from that state in which
any thing resembling equality would be possible; but we are
arrived at iliat state in which the extremes of inequality are be-
come intolerable. They arc too dangerous, as well as too mon-
strous, to be borne much longer. Plans w hich would have led to
the utmost horrors of insurrection, have been prevented by the
government, and by the enactment of strong, but necessary laws.
Let it not however, be supposed that the disease is healed, be-
cause the ulcer may skin over. The remedies by which the body
237
politic can be restored to health, must be slow in their operatioit.
The condition of the populace, physical, moral, and intellectual,
must be improved, or a Jacquerie, a Bellum Servile, sooner or
later, will be the result. It is the people at this time who stand
in need of reformation, not the government"
We could not have said most of this better ourselves ; and yet
he adds — " The Government must better the condition of the
populace ; and the first thing necessary is" — to do what — to sup-
press the liberty of the press, and make Mr. Southey the keeper.
Tliat is, the Government must put a stop to the press, in order
that they may continue, with perfect impunity, all the other evils
complained of, which Mr. Southey says are too dangerous, as
well as too monstrous to be borne. Put down the liberty of the
press, and leave it to Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review to
remove " the extremes of inequality, ignorance, wretchedness,
and brutality, existing in the very centre of civilized society," and
they will remain there long enough. Remove them, and what
will become of Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review ? This
modest gentleman and mild reformer, proposes to destroy at
once the freedom of discussion, to prevent its ultimate loss ; to
make us free by first making us slaves ; to put a gag in the mouths
of the people instead of bread ; to increase the comforts of the
poor by laying on more taxes ; to spread abroad the spirit of li-
berty and independence, by teaching the doctrines of Passive
Obedience and Non-resistance; and to encourage the love of
peace by crying up the benefits of war, and deprecating the loss
of a war-establishment. The borough-mongers will not object
to such a helpmate in the cause of reform. In the midst of all
this desultory jargon, the author somehow scrapes acquaintance
with Mr. Owen, and we find them disputing about the erection
of a chapel of ease on a piece of waste ground. " To build
upon any other foundation than religion, is building upon sand,"
says Mr. Southey, with a sort of Do-me-good air, as if in giving
his advice he had performed an act of charity. We did not hear
Mr. Owen's answer, but we know that a nod is as good as a wink
'23a
to that gentleman. Mr. Southey then talts of the Established
Church, whom, as well as the Government, in his courtly way,
he accuses of having for centuries " neglected its first and para-
mount duty," the bettering the condition (jf the people ; of Saving
Banks ; of colonies of disbanded s)ldi«-rs and sailors ; of columns
of Waterloo and Trafalgar; of diminishing the poor-rates, and
improving the morals of the people, so that they may live without
eating ; of the glories of our war-expenditure, and of the necessity:
of keeping up the same expenditure in time of peace. " Never
indeed," he exclaims, " was there a more senseless cry than that
which is at this time raised for retrenchment in the public expen-
diture, as a means of alleviating the present distress." [This
senseless cry, however, is either an echo of, or was echoed by,
the Prince Regent in his Speech from the Throne. Is there no
better understanding between Mr. Southey and the Prince Re-
gent's advisers ?J — " That distress arises from a great and sudden
diminution of employment, occasioned by many coinciding causes,
the chief of which is, that the war- expenditure of from forty to
fifty millions yearly, has ceased."— [No, the chief is, that our
war-expenses of from forty to fifty millions yearly and for ever,
are continued, and that our war-monopoly of trade to pay them
with has ceased.]—'- Men are out of employ"— [True.] . . . ;
" the evil is, that too little is spent," [Because we have wasted"
too much ] — " and as a remedy, we are exhorted to spend less."
[Yes, to waste less, or to spend what we have left in things useful
to ourselves, and not in Government gimcracks, whether of
peace or war. Is it better, does Mr. Southey think, that ten
poor men should keep ten pounds a-piece in their pockets, which
they would of course spend in food, clothing, fuel, &c. for them-
selves and families, or that this hundred pounds, that is, ten
pounds a-piece, should be paid out of the pockets of these ten
poor men in taxes, which, added to Mr. Croker's salary, would
enable him to keep another horse, to pay for the feed, furniture,
saddle, bridle, whip, and spurs? We ask Mr. Southey this
question, and will put the issue of the whole argument upon the
23&
answer to it. The money would be spent equally in either case,,
say in agriculture, in raising corn for instance, wheat or oats : but
the corn raised and paid for by it in the one instance would go into
the belly of the poor man and his family: in the other, into the
belly of Mr. Croker's horse. Does that make no ditference to
Mr. Southey ? Answer, Man of Humanity ! Or, if Mr. Soulhey,,
the Man of Humanity, will not answer, let Mr. Malthus, the
Man of God, answer for him ! Again, what would go to pay
for a new saddle for the Secretary of the Admiralty, would
buy the poor man and his family so many pair of shoes in the
year ; or what would pay for a straw litter for his sleek gelding,^
would stuff a flock-bed for the poor man's children ! Does not
Mr. Southey understand this question yet? We have given him
a clue to the whole difference between productive and unpro-
ductive labour, between waste and economy, between taxes and
no taxes, between a war-expenditure and what ought to be a;
peace-establishment, between money laid out and debts con-
tracted in gunpowder, in cannon, in ships of war, in scattering
death, and money laid out in paying for food, furniture, houses,,
the comforts, necessaries, and enjoyments of life. Let Mr.;
Southey take the problem and the solution with him to Italy,,
study it there amidst a population, half Lazzaroni, half Monks :*^
let him see his error, and return an honest man ! But if he will
not believe us, let him at least believe himself. Jn the career of
his triumph about our national monuments, he has fallen into one ;
of the most memorable lapses of memory we ever met with.
" In proportion," says he, " to their magnificence, also, will be
the present benefit, as well as the future good ; for they are not like
the Egyptian pyramids, to be raised by bondsmen under rigorous
taskfnasters : the wealth which is taken from the people returnsi
to them again, like vapours which are drawn imperceptibly from
the earth, but distributed to it in refreshing dewsf and fertilizing
* Perhaps Mr. Southey will inform us some time or other, whether in Italy
also it is the people, and not the Pope, who wants reforming,
t Dues of Ofl&ce, we suppose. ■ <
240
showers. What bounds could imagination set to the welfare and
glory of this island, if a tenth part, or even a twentieth of what
the war expenditure has been, were annually applied in improving
and creating harbours, in bringing our roads to the best possible
state, in colonizing upon our waste lands, in reclaiming fens and
conquering tracks from the sea, in encouraging the liberal arts,
in erecting churches, in building and endowing schools and col-
leges, and making war upon physical and moral evil with the
whole artillery of wisdom and righteousness, with all the re-
sources of science, and all the ardour of enlightened and enlarged
benevolence !"
Well done, Mr. Southey. No man can argue better, when he
argues against himself. What! one-twentieth part of this enor-
mous waste of money laid out in war, which has sunk the nation
into the lowest state of wretchedness, would, if wisely and bene-
ficially laid out in works of peace, have raised the country to the
pinnacle of prosperity and happiness ! Mr. Southey in his rap-
tures forgets his war-whoop, and is ready to exclaim with Sancho
Panza, when the exploits of knight-errantry are over, and he
turns all his enthusiasm to a pastoral account, " Oh what delicate
wooden spoons shall I carve ! What crumbs and cream shall I
devour !" Mr. Southey goes on to state, among other items, that
*' Government should reform its prisons." But Lord Castlereagh,
soon after the war-addition to Mr. Croker's peace-salary, said
that this was too expensive. In short, the author sums up all his
hopes and views in the following sentences : — " Government must
reform the populace, the people must reform themselves." The
interpretation of which is. The Government must prevent the
lower classes from reading any thing; the middle classes should
read nothing but the Quarterly Review. " This is the true
Reform, and compared with this, all else is Jlucci, nauci, nihi/i,
pili."
The last page of this performance is " as arrogant a piece of
paper" as was ever scribbled. We give it as it stands. ** It will
be said of him, (Mr. S.) that in an age of personality, he ab-
241
stained from satire: and that during the course of his hterary Hfe,
often as lie was assailed, the onl} occasion on which he ever cori"
descended to reply, was, when a certain Mr. William Smith" —
[What, was the only person worthy of Mr. Southey's notice a
very insignificant person ?] " insulted him in Parliament with the
appellation of Renegade. On that occasion, it will be said, that
lie vindicated himself, as it became him to do: [How so?
Mr. Southey is only a literary man, and neither a commoner nor
a peer of the realm] " and treated his calumniator with just and
memorable severity. Whether it shall be added, that Mr. William
Smith redeemed his own character, by coming forward with
honest manliness, and acknowledging that he had spoken rashly
and unjustly, concerns himself, but is not of the slightest im-
portance to me. Robert Southey."
We do not think this conclusion is very like what Mr. Southey
somewhere wislies the conclusion of his life to resemble — " the
high leaves upon the holly tree." Mr. Southey's asperities do
not wear off, as he grows older. We are always disposed to
quarrel with ourselves for quarrelling with him, and yet we can-
not help it, whenever we come in contact with his writings. We
met him unexpectedly the other day in St. Giles's, (it was odd
we should meet Jiim there) were sorry we had passed him with-
out speaking to an old friend, turned and looked after him for
some time, as to a tale of other times — sighing, as we walked on,
Alas poor Southey ! " We saw in him a painful hieroglyphic
of humanity ; a sad memento of departed independence ; a
striking ivistance of the rise and fall of patriot bards !" In the
humour we were in, we could have written a better epitaph for
him than he has done for himself. We went directly and bought
his Letter to Mr. W. Smith, which appeared the same day as
himself, and this at once put an end to our sentimentality.
•242
)(iO Jffi ,8ffi93g :?f .5.^
-piq bit5V/3T . Morning Chronicle, June 30, 1817.
'£oiiD 'CfiksTLEREAGH, in the debate some evenings ago, ap-
pieared in a new character, and mingled with his usual stock of
political common places, some lively moral paradoxes, after a
new French pattern. According to his Lordship's comprehensive
and liberal views, the liberty and independence of nations are
best supported abroad by the point of the bayonet ; and morality,
religion, and social order, are best defended at home by spies and
informers. It is a pretty system, and worthy of itself from first
to last. The Noble Lord in the blue ribbon took the characters
of Castles and Oliver under the protection of his blushing honours
and elegant casuistry, and lamented that by the idle clamour
raised against such characters. Gentlemen were deterred from
entering into the honourable, useful, and profitable profession of
Government Spies. Perhaps this piece of intellectual gallantry
on the part of the Noble Lord, was not quite so disinterested as
it at first appears. There might be something of fellow-feeling
in it. The obloquy which lights on the underlings in such cases,
sometimes glances indirectly on their principals and patrons ; nor
do they wipe it off by becoming their defenders. Lord Castle-
reagh may say with Lingo in the play, who boasts " that he is
not a scholar, but a master of scholars," that he is not a spy, but
a creator of spies and informers — not a receiver, but a distributor
of blood-money — not a travelling companion and scurvy accom-
plice in the forging and uttering of sham treasons and accommo-
dation plots, but head of the town-firm established for that
purpose — not the dupe or agent of the treasons hatched by others,
but chief mover and instigator of the grand plot for increasing the
power of the Sovereign, by hazarding the safety of his person.
Lord Castlereagh recommended the character of his accomplices,
as spies and informers, to the respect and gratitude of the country
and the House ; he lamented the prejudice entertained against
this species of patriotic service, as hindering gentlemen from re-
sorting to it as a liberal and honourable profession. One of these
243
delicious proteges of ministerial gratitude, was, it seems, at one
time a distributor of forged notes, and gained the reward pro-
mised by act of Parliament, by hanging his accomplices. Could
not his Lordship's nice notions of honour relax a little farther,
and recommend the legal traffic in bank notes and blood-money,
as a new opening to honourable ambition and profitable industry ?
Castles's wife was also the keeper of a house of ill fame. Could
not his Lordship, with the hand of a master, have drawn a veil
of delicacy over this slight stain in his character, and redeemed a
profession, not without high example to justify it, from the vulgar
obloquy that attends it ? We are afraid his Lordship is but half
an adept in these sort of lax paradoxes, and that Peachum,
Jonathan Wild, and Count Fathom, are much honester teachers
of that kind of transcendental morality than he. This kind
of revolutionary jargon must have sounded oddly in the ears of
some of his Lordship's hearers. Mr. Wynne, who dreads all
re-action so much, must have looked particularly argute at this
innovation in the parliamentary theory of moral sentiments.
What would the country gentlemen say to it ? One would think
Lord Lascelles's hat, that broad brimmed monument of true old
English respectability, must have cowered and doubled down in
dog's ears at the sound ! What will the ardent and superannuated
zeal of that preux Chevalier, the Editor of The Day and "Nezv
Times, say to this stain upon the innate honour and purity of
legitimacy, to this new proof that " the age of chivalry is gone
for ever, and that of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has
succeeded !" What will John Bull, who has been crammed
these twenty five years with the draff and husks of concrete pre-
judices, unsifted, unbolted, in their rawest state, say to the ana-
lytical distinctions, to the refined po//ce-morality of the Noble
Lord? We might consider his harangue on the public services
and private virtues of spies and informers, according to the utility-
doctrine of modern philosophy, as forming an era in the history
of English loyalty and Parliamentary pliability. What ! Is it
meant, after building up the present system of power and influ-
K 2
244
ence on the accumulated pile of our political prejudices, to ex-
tend and strengthen it, by undermining all our moral sentiments
and national habits ? Yet we are told, that there is no imputation
on the moral character of Oliver ! We wonder Mr. Wilberforce
did not suggest that his religious character also remained unim-
peached, except, indeed, that he had been guilty of subornation
of treason on the Sabbath-day. According to our present cate-
chism of legitimacy, to be a cat's-paw is to be virtuous — is to be
moral — is to be pious — is to be loyal — is to be a patriot — is to
be what Castles is, and Castlereagh approves ! — This subject na-
turally leads us into low company and low allusions. As, after
Fielding's Hero had finished his speech on honour, his friend the
Count pronounced him a Great Prig, so, after Lord Castlereagh's
speech of Monday evening, we can no longer refuse to consider
him a Great Man, in the sense of the philosophical historian ;
that is to say, a man who has a very great regard for himself,
and a very great contempt for the prejudices and feelings of the
rest of mankind.
Julj/ 15, 1817.
The debate in the House of Commons on Mr. Brougham's
motion took a very spirited, and rather personal turn. We do
not think Lord Castlereagh was quite successful in rebutting the
principal charges brought against his foreign and domestic policy.
With respect to Genoa, for instance, and the late arbitrary con-
tributions levied on British merchants there, his Lordship seemed
to say that he had but one object, and that in this respect his
conduct had been uniformly consistent while abroad, namely, to
protect legitimacy, and that the rights and property of British
subjects were accordingly left to shift for themselves, as things
beneath his notice. This answer will hardly satisfy most of our
readers. He considered it an illiberal and injurious policy to
245
attempt to force our exclusive commercial interests upon foreign
nations. But is there no alternative in his Lordship's mind be-
tween bullying and domineering over other nations, and tamely
crouching under every species of insult or act of pillage they may
wantonly exercise upon us ? We have put down the colossal
power of Bonaparte, Is every " petty tyrant" who has succeeded
him, to brave us with impunity, lest a word of remonstrance, a
whisper of complaint, should rouse their vengeance ? Are we
not to mention their names, lest these new Gods of the earth,
these modern Dii Minores, should hear us ? His Lordship also
appears to despair of the restoration of peace in Spanish America.
If he includes in the idea of peace the quiet re-establishment of
the tyranny of the old Government, we are happy to agree with
him.
With respect to the changes which have taken place at home,
his Lordship failed in making the necessity for them clear to our
understandings. We cannot assent to the accuracy of his state-
ments, or the soundness of his logic. He has suspended the laws
of the country to save us from the danger of anarchy ! We deny
the danger, and deprecate the remedy. If ministers could afford
to fan the flame of insurrection, to alarm the country into a sur-
render of its liberties, we contend that a danger that could be thus
tampered with, thus made a convenient pretence for seizing a
power beyond the law to put it down, might have been put down
without a power beyond the law. If a Government's conspiring
against itself were a sufficient ground for arming it with arbi-
trary power, no country could for a moment be safe against
ministerial treachery and encroachment, against real despotism
founded on pretended disaffection. Government would be in
perpetual convulsions and affected hysterics, like a line lady who
M'ants to domineer over her credulous husband. We deny tliat
disaffection existed, except that kind which arose from extreme
distress. Hunger is not disloyalty. Nor can we admit that a
Goveriunenl's having reduced a country to a state of unparalleled
distress, and consequent desperation, is a reason for giving carte
246
blanche to the Government, and putting the people under mili-
tary execution. At this rate, the worse the Government, the
more firmly it ought to be rooted : the greater the abuse of con-
fidence, the more blind and unlimited the confidence ought to be :
and any administration need only bring a nation to the brink of
ruin, in order to have a right to plunge it into the depths of slavery.
It is easy to keep the peace v\ith the sword ; — more flattering to
the pride of power to crush resistance to oppression, than to
remove the causes of it. To reduce a people to the alternative
of rebellion or of arbitrary sway, does not require the talents of a
great statesman. If Lord Castlereagh claims the merit of having
reduced us to that alternative, we shall not dispute it with him :
whatever may be the result, we cannot thank him.
His Lordship might, however, have made good his retreat,
with a decent orderly appearance, if he had not chosen to go out
of his way to take up a Spy behind him on his new metaphysical
charger, and to ride the high horse over all those, who are not
the fast friends and staunch admirers of that profession, as traitors
and no true men. Sir Francis Burdett, not relishing this assault
of the master and man, pulled off tlie Squire, and rolling him in
the mud, pelted him so unmercifully with Irish evidence and
musty affidavits of his friends and relations, that his gallant patron,
seeing the plight he was in, dismounted, and was condescending
enough to acknowledge, that " cruelty was in every species detes-
table," and that " he lamented to think that there were miscreants
in human nature capable of committing crime for the love of re-
ward ;" sentiments not new indeed, but new in his Lordship's
mouth. The country gentlemen must have felt relieved, and
Lord Lascelles's hat have recovered its primitive shape! The
House of Commons is no dupe ; Lord Castlereagh no driveller.
Would he then seriously persuade them, that the Spy hanged his
old friends and accomplices out of pure love to his country, and
disinterested friendship to his Lordship ? We would advise the
noble Lord in the blue ribbon to cut his parliamentary connexion
with his police acquaintance at once. The thing cannot answer ;
247
it is against decorum. He might as well introduce his scavenger
as a person of fashion at Carlton-House, as attempt to pass off his
Spy as a gentleman, and a man of honour, any where else ! The
gentlemen-ushers would turn up their noses at one of his Lordship's
necessary appendages, and the moral sense of the English nation
turns with disgust from the other, when forced upon it as a beau
morceau of morality, with the sauce picquant of ministerial pane-
gyric! We were glad to find the former Secretary for Ireland
reprobating the practice of flogging to extract evidence, as " a
most wicked and unwarrantable piece of torture ;" a confession
which seemed to be extorted from his Lordship by the impres-
sion made by the reading of some of Mr. Finnerty's affidavits, as
they are called, though they are no more Mr. Finnerty's affidavits,
who procured them, than they are Mr. Bennei's, who read them.
Every thing relating to this subject is particularly interesting at
this moment, when the same power is vested in the same hands
in this country, that was wielded twenty years ago in Ireland — not
indeed as a precedent to the English government, but as a warning
to the English people. We give no opinion on the truth or false-
hood of the allegations contained in the affidavits, but we do say,
that the noble Secretary reasoned very badly on the subject. He
says that Mr. Finnerty is not a very loyal man, that is, he is not
very strongly attached to his Lordship's person or government,
and therefore neither Mr. Finnerty, nor any person taking an oath
in an Irish court of justice, reflecting on his Lordship's adminis-
tration, is to be believed. Mr. Finnerty published an account of
the proceedings on Orr's trial, which was deemed a libel, and
therefore the whole history of the Irish rebellion and of the year
1798 is a fable. Lord Casllereagh would not consent to quash
his prosecution of Mr. Finnerty on this ground some years ago,
because he would not shun inquiry, and yet the affidavits were not
suffered to be read in court, and his Lordship deprecates tlieir
production in parliament. He thinks it hard that he must be
called on to prove a negative, when others swear positively to the
affirmative. Accusation against his Lordship is to pass not for a
248
proof of guilt but innocence, and his inability to refute the charge
only calls for a greater degree of candid interpretation and implicit
faith in his Lordship's word. Insinuation only requires confidence
to repel it — proof more confidence — conviction unlimited confi-
dence. Whether the things ever happened or no, they are to be
equally buried in eternal silence in Mr. Finnerty's "disloyal breast:"
not a tittle of evidence is to be suffered to escape from the budget
of affidavits which he has got together by forbidden means. His
Lordship's Irish administration is to be inscrutable as another
Providence, secret as another Inquisition ; the English Parlia-
ment are to put the broad seal of their sanction upon it! It was
certainly unlucky at this juncture of the debate, that Mr. W. Smith
should have started up with the case of Mr. Judkin Fitzgerald,
who (it seems, by his own account of his services, not from any
affidavits against him) had been most active in inflicting this
" cruel and unwarrantable species of torture," and was made a
Baronet in consequence.
*' And struts Sir Judkin, an exceeding knave !"
The unconsciousness of the Irish government exceeds every
thing. They are not only " innocent of the knowledge, till ihey
applaud the deed," but ignorant of it, after they have applauded
it. It is no wonder that the fixed air and volatile spirit of Mr.
Canning's wit frothed up at this indiscreet mention of Sir Judkin,
and that he wished to " bury him quick," under the artificial
flowers of his oratory. The dead tell no tales — of the dead or
the living! Mr. Carming twitted Mr. W. Smith with attacking
the dead, because " he had found that the absent could answer."
Does this allude to the Laureate ? If so, let Mr. Canning call
for more flowers, and lay him by the side of Sir Judkin. This
allusion to the answer to Mr. VV. Smith is, however, remarkably
candid, as Mr. Southey declares in it that he never thought Mr.
Canning worth an answer. He may now return the compliment
in kind, by inscribing the next edition of his " Inscriptions" to
the author of the " Anti- Jacobin."
249
" O silly sheep, come ye to seek (he lamb here of the wolf!"
Juli/ 17, lSi7.
A WRITER in a Morning Paper, a few days ago, commented
very wisely and wittily on the situation of the State Prisoners,
under the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, as a warning to the
people of England not to meddle in politics. He seemed infi-
nitely amused with the inability of these poor devils " to get out,"
though he seemed to know no reason why they should be kept in.
" One of these gentlemen must have a flute, forsooth !" he ex-
claims with a very hysterical air, as if it was a good joke truly for
a man to have a flute taken from him, and not to be able to get
it back again.* Even Mr, Hiley Addiugton allows that Evans
might have his flute again, if he did not use it. If this writer
had himself been in the habit of blowing a great war-trumpet,
and wished to make as much noise as ever with it in time of peace,
he might not like to have it taken from him. He, however, con-
soles Mr. Evans for the loss of his flute, with the very old and
original observation, " That the people bear the same relation to
the Government, as the sheep to the shepherd, and that the sheep
ought not to dictate to the shepherd, or remonstrate against what
he does for their good." Now the sheep are not usually in the
habit of dictating, or remonstrating on such occasions, except in
that sort of language which Lazcj/er Scout advices Sheep-Jace to
imitate before Justice Mittimus, and to \\hich this Professional
Gentleman seems to wish the State Prisoners to resort in their
* It is the making light of the distresses and complaints of our victims, be-
cause we have them in our power, that is the principle of all cruelty and
tyranny. Our pride takes a pleasure iu the sufferings our malice has inflicted ;
every aggravation of their case is a provocation to new injuries and insults; and
their pretensions to justice or mercy become ridiculous in proportion to their
liopelessness of redress. It was thus that Mother Brownrigg whipped her pren-
tices to death; and in the same manner our facetious Editor would work himself
up to apply the thumb-screw to any one who was unable to resist the applica-
tion, with a few " forsooths," and other such " comtit-makers wives' oaths."
250
intercourse with the Home Department. The fleecy fools, whom
the writer holds up as models of wisdom and spirit to his country-
men, do, to be sure, make a terrible noise at a sheep-shearing,
and a short struggle when they feel the knife at their throats.
But our allegorist, we suspect, would regard these as Jacobini-
cal, or Ultra-Jacobinical symptoms. He would have the people
stand still to be fleeced, and have their throats cut, whenever
Government pleases. He has in his eye the sublimest example
of self-devotion : " As a lamb, he was led to the slaughter : as
a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.'^
We cannot understand the point of comparison in this sheep-biting
argument. If the people are really to be as silly, and as submis-
sive as sheep, they will be worse treated. A flock of sheep pass
their time very comfortably on Salisbury plain, biting the short
sweet grass, or lying with " meek mouths ruminant," till they are
fit to send to market : we have sometimes heard them fill the air
with a troublous cry, as they pass down Oxford-street, to Smith-
field, and the next morning it is all over with them. But Go-
vernments have not the same reason for taking care of the people,
" poor, poor dumb mouths," they do not ordinarily sell them or
eat them. The comparison would be much nearer to beasts of
burden, asses, or " camels in their war," who, as Shakspeare ex-
presses it, —
" have their provender
Only for bearing burthens, and sore blovFS
For sinking under them."
'3
However edifying and attractive these kind of examples of simpli-
city, patience, and good behaviour, taken from sheep, oxen, and
asses, must be to the people, they are rather invidious, something
worse than equivocal, as they relate to the designs and good-will
of the Government towards them. This writer indeed commits
himself very strangely on this subject, or, as the phrase is, kts
the cat out of the bag, without intending it. In a broadside
which he published against the author of the " Political Register,"
251
he says with infinite naivete: — " Mr. Cobbett had been sen-
tenced to two years' imprisonment for a libel; and during tlie time
that he was in Newgate, it was discovered that he had been se-
cretly in treaty wiih Government to avoid the sentence passed
upon him ; and that he had proposed to certain of the Agents of
Ministers, that if they would let him off, they might make what
future use they pleased of him : he would entirely betray the cause
of the people: he would either write or not write, or write against
them, as he had once done before, just as Ministers thought pro-
per. To this, however, it was replied, that * Cobbett had writ-
ten on too many sides already to be worth a groat for the service
of Government,' and he accordingly suffered his confinement."
This passage is at least worth a groat : it lets us into the Edi-
tor's real opinion of what it is that alone makes any writer " worth
a groat for the service of Government," viz. his being able and
willing entirely to betray the cause of the people ; and, we should
hope, may operate as an antidote to any future cant about sheep
and shepherds !
The same consistent patriot and loyalist, the Sir Robert Filmer
of the day, asked some time ago — " Where is the madman that
believes the doctrine of Divine Right ? Where is the madman
that asserts that doctrine ?" As no one else was found to do it,
he himself, the other day, took up his own challenge, and af-
firmed, with a resolute air, that — " Louis XVIII. had the same
right to the throne of France, independently of his merits or con-
duct, that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, had to his estate at Holkham."
He did not say whether James II. had the same right to the
tlirone of England, independently of his conduct or merits, that
Louis XVIII. has to the throne of France: but the inference of
course is that the people of France belong to Louis XVIII, just
as the live stock on a farm belongs to the owner of it, or as the
slaves in the West Indies belong to the owners of the plantation,
and that mankind aje neither more nor less than a herd of slaves,
the property of kings. This is at least as good a thing as the
252
doctrine of divine right. We do not wonder that the writer, after
this " delicious declaration," thought it proper to apologize to his
court-readers for expressing his approbatiion of the abolition of the
Slave Trade, as indirectly compromising those principles of legi-
timacy, which make one part of the species the property of ano-
ther, and which we have seen so successfully established in Europe
as the basis of liberty, humanity, and social order !
July 19, 1817.
The Opposition, it seems, with Mr. Brougham at their head,
" attack all that is valuable in our institutions." So says Lord
Castlereagh ; and, to make the thing the more incredible, so says
The Courier ! They attack Sir Judkin Fitzgerald and the use
of the torture; and therefore they attack all that is valuable iir
our institutions. They attack the system of spies and informers ;
and therefore they attack all that is valuable in our institutions.
They object to the moral characters of such men as Castles and
Oliver ; and therefore they attack all that is most respectable in
the country. They consider Lord Sidmouth, who is " to ac-
quaint us with the perfect spy o' th' time," as no conjurer, treat
his circular letters and itinerant incendiaries with as little ceremony
as respect ; and therefore they are hostile to all that is venerable
in our constituted authorities. They do not approve of the Sus-
pension of the Habeas Corpus, of Standing Armies, and Rotten
Boroughs ; and therefore they would overturn all that is most
valuable in the Constitution. They say that Lord Castlereagh
was connected with the measures of the Irish government in the
year 1793 ; and they are said to hold a language " grossly
libellous." They say that they do not wish the same system to
be introduced by his Lordship in this country ; and their prin-
ciples are denounced as " of a decidedly revolutionary character."
253
They think of the present administration as Mr. Canning formerly
thought of it, and they think of Mr. Canning as all the world
think. Is that all ? Oh no ! They speak against the renewal
of the Income Tax ; and this, in the opinion of some persons,
is attacking what is more valuable than all our other institutions
put together ! For our own parts, our political confession of
faith on this subject is short : we neither consider Lord Castle-
reagh as the Constitution, nor The Courier as the Country.
But if, after all, and in spite of our teeth, we should be forced
to acknowledge that Sir Judkin Fitzgerald and the use of the
torture, that the system of spies and informers, that Lord Sid-
mouth's sagacity, circulars, and travelling delegates, that arbi-
trary imprisonment and solitary confinement, the Suspension of
the Habeas Corpus, Standing Armies, and Rotten Boroughs,
Lord Castlereagh's past measures or future designs, Mr. Can-
ning's love of liberty, and Mr. Vansittart's hankerings after the
Income Tax, are all that is left valuable in our institutions, or
respectable in the country, then we must say, that the more
effectually the Opposition " attack all that is valuable in such
institutions," the more we shall thank them ; and that the sooner
we can get rid of all that is " most respectable " in such a system,
the less occasion we shall have to blush for the Country.
ENGLAND in 1798.
Bj/ S. T. Coleridge.
August 2, 1S17,
" The Monthly Magazine tells us that this country has occa-
sioned the death of 5,800,000 persons in Calabria, Russia,
Poland, Gerniany, France, Spain, and Portugal. This country,
reader, England ! our country, our great, our glorious, our
beloved country, according to this Magazine, has been the guilty
254
cause of all this carnage!" — So says Mr. S out kei/ zpud the Quar-
terly Review, 1817. Thus sings Mr. Coleridge, in his " Fears
in Solitude," 1798:—
" We have offended, oh ! my countrymen !
We have offended very grievously.
And been most tyrannous.
• Thankle&s too for peace ;
(Peace long preserv'd by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have lov'd
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war !
Alas ! for ages ignorant of all
Its ghastlier workings (famine or blue plague.
Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows).
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed j animating sports.
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of.
Spectators and not combatants ! No guess
Anticipative of a wrong unfelt.
No speculation on contingency.
However dim and vague, too vague and dim
To yield a justifying cause ; and forth
(Stuff'd out with big preamble, holy names.
And adjurations of the God in Heaven),
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousand ! Boys and girls.
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war.
The best amusement for our morning's meal !
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
For curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeat.
And all our dainty terms for fratricide ;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues.
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
255
We join no feeling and attach no form !
As if the soldier died without a wound ;
As if the fibres of this godlike frame
Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch
Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,
Pass'd off to heaven, translated, and not killed ; —
As though he had no wife to pine for him —
No God to judge him ! Therefore, evil days
Are coming on us, O my countrymen !
And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words ; force us to feel
The desolation and the agony
Of our fierce doings!
I have told,
O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed :
For never can true courage dwell with them.
Who playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices. We have been too long
Dupes of a deep delusion ! — Others, meanwhile.
Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all
Who will not fall before their images.
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country !
Such have 1 been deem'd." * —
S. T. C.
* That he tniglit be deemed so no longer, Mr. CoLEninGE soon after became
jmssionate for war himself; and " swell'd the war-whoop " in the Morning Post.
" I am not indeed silly enough," he says, " to take as any thing more tlian a
violent hyperbole of party debate, Mr. Fox's assertion that the late war (180-,>)
was a war produced by the Morning Post; or I should be proud to have the
words inscribed on my lomh."—Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 212.
.'■0 Ub bo a
256
ON THE EFFECTS OF MAR JND TAXES.
" Great princes have great play tilings. Some have play'd
At hewing mountains into men, and some
At building human wonders mountain-high.
But vFar's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at." Cowper.
Auirust3\, 1817.
Th e whole question of the effect of war and taxes, in an eco-
nomical point of view, reduces itself to the distinction between
productive and unproductive labour. It is a pity that some
member of the House of Commons does not move a string of
resolutions on this subject, as a comment on the measures of the
present, and a guide to those of future reigns. A film appears
to have been spread for some time over the eyes of the nation,
as to the consequences of the course they were pursuing; and a
good deal of pains has been taken, by sophistry, and false state-
ments, to perplex a very plain question. But we are not without
hopes, in the following observations, of putting the merits of our
debt and taxes in so clear a light, that not even the Finance Com-
mittee shall be any longer blind to them.
Labour is of two kinds, productive and unproductive: — that
which adds materially to the comforts and necessaries of life, or
that which adds nothing to the common stock, or nothing in pro-
portion to what it takes away from it in order to maintain itself.
Money may be laid out, and people employed in either of these
two kinds of labour equally, but not, we imagine, with equal
benefit to the community. — [See p. 109, ^c. of this volume.']
Suppose I employ a man in standing on his head, or running
up and down a hill all day, and that I give him five shillings a
day for his pains. He is equally employed, equally paid, and
equally gains a subsistence in this way, as if he was employed,
in his original trade of a shoemaker, in making a pair of shoes
257
for a person who wants them. But in the one case he is employed
in unproductive, in the other in productive labour. In the one,
he is employed and paid and receives a subsistence for doing that
which might as well be let alone ; in the other, for doing that
which is of use and importance, and which must either be done
by him, or give some one else double trouble to do it. If I hire
a livery-servant, and keep him fine and lazy and well-fed to stand
behind my chair while I eat turtle or venison, this is another in-
stance of unproductive labour. Now the person who is in real
want of a pair of shoes, and who has by his own labour and skill
raised money enough to pay for them, will not assuredly lay it
out, in preference, in hiring the shoemaker to run up a hill for
him, or to stand upon his head, or behind a chair for his amuse-
ment.* But if 1 have received this money from him in the shape
of taxes, having already received enough in the same way to pay
for my shoes, my stockings, my house, my furniture, &c. then
it is very likely (as we see it constantly happen) that I shall lay
out this last five shillings worth of taxes, which I probably get
for doing nothing, in employing another person to do nothing,
— or to run up a hill, or to stand upon his head, or wait be-
hind me at dinner, while the poor man, who pays me the tax,
goes without his shoes and his dinner. Is this clear ? Or put it
thus in two words. That is productive labour, for which a man
will give the only money he has in the world, or a certain sum,
having no more than other people : that is unproductive labour,
for which a man will never give the only money he is worth, the
money he has earned by his own labour, nor any money at all,
unless he has ten times as much as he wants, or as other people
* We never knew but one instance to contradict this opinion. A person
who had only fourpence left in the world, which his wife had put by to pay for
the baking of some meat and a pudding, went and laid it out in purchasing 4
new string for a guitar. Some one on this occasion quoted the lines,
" And ever against eating cares,
Wrap me in soft Lydian airs,"
S
^258
have, to throw away in superfluities. A man who has only got
money to buy a loaf will not lay it out in an ice. But he may
lay it out in a dram ! Yes ; because to the wretched it is often
more important to forget their future than even to supply their
present wants. The extravagance and thoughtlessness of the
poor arise, not from their having more than enough to satisfy their
immediate necessities, but from their not having enough to ward
off impending ones, — in a word, from desperation. This is the
true answer to Mr. Malthus's politico-theological system of
parish ethics, the only real clue to the causes and the cure of
pauperism !
If the Board of Works were to have a canal made from Lon-
don to the Land's End (as has been proposed) this, for aught we
know, would be productive labour, and well paid for out of the
public taxes ; because the public might in the end reap the bene-
fit of the money and the labour so employed. But if the Prince
Regent were by the advice of some fantastical, purblind politi-
cian, to order this canal to be lined all the way with gold-leaf,
which would be washed away as soon as the water came into the
canal, this is what we should call unproductive labour. Such a
project would indeed cost as much money, it would require the
raising of as many taxes, it would keep as many men employed,
it would maintain them while they were so employed, just as well
as if they were employed in any other way; but when done, it
would be of no use to Prince or people. We have heard of a
patriotic nobleman, who had a brick-wall built round his estate,
to give employment to the poor in his neighbourhood. If he had
afterwards employed them to pull it down again, it would have
given them twice the employment and done twice the good.
But if the same persons had been employed in productive labour,
in raising corn, in making furniture, in building or improving
cottages, it would not have been equally adviseable to set them
to work again to burn the com, or destroy the furniture, or pull
down the cottages. In spite then of the fashionable doctrines of
political economy, so well suited to the extravagance of the times,
259
there is something else to be considered in judging of the value
of labour, besides what it costs, viz. what it produces ; whether
it is of use to any body, and to whom. All is not gain that goes
out of the purse. The nobleman above mentioned did not take
the money to pay for building the wall round his estate out of the
pockets of the people ; but suppose an equal sum to be taken
yearly out of the Civil List or any other branch of public revenue,
and employed in raising some huge heap of stones — not a monu-
ment, but a mausoleum of royal taste and magnificence — the
question is, whether the money thus raised by taxes, and laid out
in a job, is a saving or a loss to the public ? And this question
is, we conceive, answered by another, whether if the money had
remained in the hands of the public, they would have agreed
among themselves, to have laid it out in such a building for them
to look at ? It would hardly be thought wise to vote a sum of
money, to build a Cottage Ornee, large enough to cover a whole
county ; though the expense (and, according to the theory we are
combating, the benefit) would increase with the size of the build-
ing and the waste of work. The Pyramids of Egypt and the
Pavilion at Brighton, are among the instances of unproductive
labour.
We have been twenty years at war, and have laid out five
hundred millions in war taxes ; and what have we gained by it ?
Where are the proceeds '? If it has not been thrown away in what
produces no return, if it has not been sunk in the war, as much
as if it had been sunk in the sea, if the government as good fac-
tors for the general weal have laid out all this enormous sum in
useful works, in productive labour, let them give us back the
principal and the interest, (which is just double) and keep the
profits to themselves — instead of which, they have made away
with the principal, and come to us to pay them the interest in
taxes. They have nothing to shew for either, but spiked cannon,
rotten ships, gunpowder blown into the air, heaps of dead men's
sculls, the turned heads and coats of Poets Laureate, with the
glories of Trafalgar and Waterloo, which however will pay no
s 2
•260
scores. Let them set them up at auction, and see what they will
fetch. Not a sous! We have killed so many French, it is true.
But we had better have spent powder and shot in shooting at crows.
Though we have laid the ghost of the French Revolution, we
cauiiot "go to supper" upon the carcase. If the present distress
and difficulty arise merely from our no longer having a bug-bear
to contend vviUi, or because (as Mr. Southey says) the war is no
longer a customer to the markets, to the amount of fifty millions
a year, why not declare war upon the Man in the Moon to-morrow,
and never leave off till we have sent him to keep Bonaparte com-
pany at St. Helena ? Why, it is but ordering so many cannon
and cutlasses, no matter for what purpose — and equipping, and
fantastically accoutring so many loyal corps of minions of the
moon, Diana's foresters, and *' the manufactures of Birmingham
and Sheffield would revive to-morrow." If we had howitzers be-
fore of a prodigious size, let us have bombs of a calibre that Lord
Castlereagh never dreamt of; and instead of iron balls, golden
ones. Why not? The expense would be the greater. If we
made the earth ring before, let us now make the welkin roar.
The absurdity would be as costly, and more bloodless. A voy-
age to the moon would take at least as much time, as many lives
and millions to accomplish, as the march to Paris. But then our
merchants would not meanwhile get a monopoly of the trade of
Europe, to stimulate their laggard patriotism, nor would the
sovereigns of Europe be able to plant the standard of Legitimacy
on the horns of the moon ! — -But though we have nothing to shew
for the money we have madly squandered in war, we have some-
thing to pay for it (rather more than we can afford) to contractors,
monopolists, and sinecurists, to the great fundholders and borough-
mongers, to those who have helped to carry on, and to those
who have been paid for applauding this sport-royal, as the most
patriotic and profitable employment of the wealth and resources
of a country. These persons, the tax-receivers, have got a
mortgage on the property, health, strength, and skill of the rest
of the community, who pay the taxes, which bows their industry
261
to the ground, and deprives tliem of the necessary means of sub-
sistence. The principal of the debt which the nation has con-
tracted, has been laid out in unproductive labour, in inflicting
the mischiefs and miseries of war ; and the interest is for the most
part equally laid out in unproductive labour, in fomenting the
pride and luxury of those who have made their fortunes by the
war and taxes. In a word, the debt and taxes are a government
machine, which diverts that portion of the wealth and industry of
the people, which would otherwise be employed in supplying the
wants and comforts (say) of a hundred persons, to pamper the
extravagance, vices, and artiticial appetites of a single individual ;
and so on in proportion to the whole country. Every tax laid on
in this manner, unnerves the arm of industry, is wrung from the
bowels of want, and breaks the spirit of a nation, lessens the
number of hands which are employed in useful labour, to seduce
them into artificial, dependent, and precarious modes of subsist-
ence, while the rich themselves find their reward for the indulg-
ence of their indolence and voluptuousness in " the gout, serpigo,
and the rheum," so that " their proper loins do curse them." It
has been said that the taxes taken from the people return to them
again, like the vapours drawn up from the earth in clouds, that
descend again in refreshing dews and fertilizing showers. On the
contrary, they are like these dews and showers drawn off from
the ground by artificial channels into private reservoirs and useless
cisterns to stagnate and corrupt. The money which is paid in
taxes is taken from the people ; the labour for which it pays does
not benefit the people. A tax which goes to pay for the feeding
of a pair of curricle horses or favourite hunters, swallows up the
subsistence of several poor families. We cannot for ourselves
approve of the privations, of the hunger, cold, or nakedness, to
which these poor families are exposed, to keep up the flesh and
the spirit of the sleek and high-mettled inhabitants of the warm,
well-littered stable, even though they were of the breed of Swift's
Houyuhyms! But that is a different question. All that we
Bieao to say here is, that the tax takes the corn out of the bellies
262
of the one to put it into those of the other species. A tax which
is laid on to pay for a dog-kennel or a stable, might have saved a
whole village from going into ruin and decay : and the carriage
that glitters like a meteor along the streets of the metropolis,
often deprives the wretched inmate of the distant cottage of the
chair he sits on, the table he eats on, the bed he lies on. A
street lined with coaches and with beggars dying at the steps of
the doors, gives a strong lesson to common sense and political
foresight, if not to humanity. A nation cannot subsist on unpro-
ductive labour, on war and taxes, or be composed merely of
parish and state paupers. All unproductive labour is supported
by productive labour. All persons maintained by the taxes or
employed by those who are maintained by them are a clog, a
dead weight upon those who pay them, that consume the produce
of the State, and add nothing to it — a dead carcase fastened to
a living one, with this difference, that it still devours the food
which it does not provide. Need we ask any farther, how war
and taxes, sinecures and monopolies, by degrees, weaken, im-
poverish, and ruin a State ? Or whether they can go on increas-
ing for ever ? There is an excess of inequality and oppression,
of luxury and want, which no state can survive ; as there is a
point at which the palsied frame can uo longer support itself, and
at which the withered tree falls to the ground.
If the sovereign of a country were to employ the whole popu-
lation in doing nothing but throwing stones into the sea, he would
soon become the king of a desert island. If a sovereign exhausts
the wealth and strength of a country in war, he will end in being
a king of slaves and beggars. The national debt is just the mea-
sure, the check-account of the labour and resources of the country
which have been so wasted — of the stones we have been throwing
into the sea. This debt is in fact an obligation entered into by
the government on the part of the tax-payers, to indemnify the
tax-receivers for their sacrifices in enabling the government to
carry on the war. It is a power of attorney, extorted from nine-
tenths of the community, making over to the remaining tenth an
263
unlimited command over the resources, the comforts, the labour,
the happiness and liberty of the great mass of society, by which
their resources, their comforts, their labour, their happiness, and
their liberty, have been lost, and made away with in government
knick-knacks, and the kick-shaws of legitimacy. Half the re-
sources and productive labour of the country for the last twenty
years, have been sunk in this debt, and we are now called upon
to make good the deficiency — how we can ! — It has been shrewdly
asked, whether, if every one paid a hundred per cent, income
tax, the nation could flourish ? And when we are told that " the
war has been a customer to the country for a length of time to
the amount of fifty millions a year," that is, has drained that sum
from the pockets of the nation to employ the hands of the nation
in producing nothing — we are at no loss to account for the con-
sequences. A writer, whose own fault it is that we do not feel
all the respect for him we could wish, has ridiculed the idea of
a nation being in debt to itself, " like a tradesman to his credi-
tors," and contends that " a much fairer instance would be that
of a husband and wife playing cards at the same table against
each other, where what the one loses, the other gains." Now
men and their wives do not usually pay one another the money
they lose at cards ; and most people will be ready enough to re-
duce this simile to practice, by not paying the taxes, whenever
the author shall have convinced Mr. Vansittart, that it is no
matter whether the money is in the hands of the people or the
government, and that to save trouble it had better remain where
it is. Mr. Southey, in his late pamphlet, has very emphatically
described the different effects of money laid out in war and peace.
" What bounds," he exclaims, " could imagination set to the
welfare and glory of this island, if a tenth part, or even a twen-
tieth of what the war expenditure has been, were annually ap-
plied in improving and creating harbours, in bringing roads to
the best possible repair, in colonizing upon our waste lands, in
reclaiming fens, and conquering tracts from the sea, in encourag-
ing the liberal arts, endowing schools and churches/' &c. This
264
ia a singular slip of the pen in so uoisy and triumphant a war-
monger as the Poet Laureate. But logical inconsistency seems
to be a sort of poetical license. Even in contradicting himself,
he is not right. For the money as he proposes to employ it,
would only degenerate into so many government jobs, and the
low-lived mummery of Bible Societies. The pinnacle of pros-
perity and glory to which he would by these means raise the
country, does not seem quite so certain. The other extreme of
distress and degradation, to which the war-system has reduced it,
is deep and deplorable indeed.
CHARACTER OF MR. BURKE.
October 5, 1817.
It is oot without reluctance that we speak of the vices and
infirmities of such a mind as Burke's : but the poison of high
example has by far the widest range of destruction : and, for the
sake of public honour and individual integrity, we think it right to
say, that however it may be defended upon other grounds, the
political career of that eminent individual has no title to the praise
of consistency. Mr. Burke, the opponent of the American war,
and Mr. Burke, the opponent of the French Revolution, are not
the same person, but opposite persons — not opposite persons
only, but deadly enemies. In the latter period, he abandoned not
only all his practical conclusions, but all the principles on which
they were founded. He proscribed all his former sentiments,
denounced all his former friends, rejected and reviled all the
maxims to which he had formerly appealed as incontestable. In
the American war, he constantly spoke of the rights of the people
as inherent, and inalienable : after the French Revolution, he
began by treating them with the chicanery of a sophist, and ended
by raving at them with the fury of a maniac. In the former case,
he held out the duty of resistance to oppression, as the palladium
and only ultimate resource of natural liberty ; in the latter, he
265
scouted, prejudged, vilified and nicknamed, all resistance in the
abstract, as a foul and unnatural union of rebellion and sacrilege.
In the one case, to answer the purposes of faction, he made it
out, that the people are always in the right; in the other, to
answer different ends, he made it out that they are always in the
wrong — lunatics in the hands of their royal keepers, patients in
the sick-wards of an hospital, or felons in the condemned cells of
a prison. In the one, he considered that there was a constant
tendency on the part of the prerogative to encroach on the rights
of the people, which ought always to be the object of the most
watchful jealousy, and of resistance, when necessary : in the other,
he pretended to regard it as the sole occupation and ruling passion
of those in power, to watch over the liberties and happiness of
their subjects. The burthen of all his speeches on the American
war, was conciliation, concession, timely reform, as the only
practicable or desirable alternative of rebellion : the object of all
his writings ou the French Revolution was, to deprecate and ex-
plode all concession and all reform, as encouraging rebellion, and
as an irretrievable step to revolution and anarchy. In the one, he
insulted kings personally, as among the lowest and worst of man-
kind ; in the other, he held them up to the imagination of his
readers, as sacred abstractions. In the one case, he was a par-
tisan of the people, to court popularity ; in the other, to gain the
favour of the Court, he became the apologist of all couitly
abuses. In the one case, he took part with those who were
actually rebels against his Sovereign : in the other, he denounced
as rebels and traitors, all those of his own countrymen who did
not yield sympathetic allegiance to a foreign Sovereign, whom we
had always been in the habit of treating as an arbitrary tyrant.
Nobody will accuse the principles of his present Majesty, or
the general measures of his reign, of inconsistency. If they had
no other merit, they have, at least, that of having been all along
actuated by one uniform and constant spirit : yet Mr. Burke at
one time vehemently opposed, and afterwards most intemperately
extolled them : and it was for his recanting his opposition, not for
266
his persevering in it, that he received his pension. He does not
himself mention his flaming speeches in the American war, as among
the public services which had entitled him to this remuneration.
The truth is, that Burke was a man of fine fancy and subtle
reflection ; but not of sound and practical judgment, nor of high
or rigid principles. — As to his understanding, he certainly was not
a great philosopher ; for his works of mere abstract reasoning are
shallow and inefficient : — nor was he a man of sense and business ;
for, both in counsel and in conduct, he alarmed his friends as much
at least as his opponents : — but he was an acute and accomplished
man of letters — an ingenious poHtical essayist. He applied the
habit of reflection, which he had borrowed from his metaphysical
studies, but which was not competent to the discovery of any
elementary truth in that department, with great facility and suc-
cess, to the mixed mass of human aff'airs. He knew more of the
political machine than a recluse philosopher ; and he speculated
more profoundly on its principles and general results than a mere
politician. He saw a number of fine distinctions and changeable
aspects of things, the good mixed with the ill, and the ill mixed
with the good ; and with a sceptical indiff'erence, in w hich the
exercise of his own ingenuity was obviously the governing principle,
suggested various topics to qualify or assist the judgment of others.
But for this very reason, he was litde calculated to become ji
leader or a partizan in any important practical measure. For the
habit of his mind would lead him to find out a reason for or
against any thing : and it is not on speculative refinements,
(which belong to every side of a question)^ but on a just estimate
of the aggregate mass and extended combinations of objections
and advantages, that we ought to decide or act. Burke had the
power of throwing true or false weights into the scales of political
casuistry, but not firmness of mind (or, shall we say, honesty
enough) to hold the balance. When he took a side, his vanity
or his spleen more frequently gave the casting vote than his judg-
ment ; and the ficriness of his zeal was in exact proportion to the
levity of his understanding, and the want of conscious sincerity.
207
He was fitted by nature and habit for the studies and labours
of the closet ; and was generally mischievous when he came out ;
because the very subtlety of his reasoning, which, left to itself,
would have counteracted its own activity, or found its level in the
common sense of mankind, became a dangerous engine in the
hands of power, which is always eager to make use of the
most plausible pretexts to cover the most fatal designs. That
which, if applied as a general observation on human affairs, is a
valuable truth suggested to the mind, may, when forced into the
interested defence of a particular measure or system, become the
grossest and basest sophistry. Facts or consequences never stood
in the way of this speculative politician. He fitted them to his
preconceived theories, instead of conforming his theories to them.
They were the playthings of his style, the sport of his fancy.
They were the straws of which his imagination made a blaze, and
were consumed, like straws, in the blaze they had served to kin-
dle. The fine things he said about Liberty and Humanity, in
his speech on the Begum's affairs, told equally well, whether
Warren Hastings was a tyrant or not : nor did he care one jot
who caused the famine he described, so that he described it in a
way that no one else could. On the same principle, he repre-
sented the French priests and nobles under the old regime as
excellent moral people, very charitable and very religious, in
the teeth of notorious facts, — to answer to the handsome things
he had to say in favour of priesthood and nobility in general ; and,
with similar views, he falsifies the records of our English Revo-
lution, and puts an interpretation on the word abdication, of
which a schoolboy would be ashamed. He constructed his whole
theory of government, in short, not on rational, but on pic-
turesque and fanciful principles ; as if the king's crown were a
painted gewgaw, to be looked at on gala-days ; titles an empty
sound to please the ear ; and the whole order of society a thea-
trical procession. His lamentations over the age of chivalry, and
his projected crusade to restore it, are about as wise as if any one,
from reading the Beggar's Opera, should take to picking of poc-
268
kets : or, from admiring the landscapes of Salvator Rosa, should
wish to convert the abodes of civilized life into the haunts of wild
beasts and banditti. On this principle of false refinement, there
is no abuse, nor system of abuses, that does not admit of an
easy and triumphant defence; for there is something which a
merely speculative enquirer may always find out, good as well as
bad, in every possible system, the best or the worst ; and if we
can once get rid of the restraints of common sense and honesty,
we may easily prove, by plausible words, that liberty and slavery,
peace and war, plenty and famine, are matters of perfect indif-
ference. This is the school of politics, of which Mr. Burke was
at the head ; and it is perhaps to his example, in this respect, that
we owe the prevailing tone of many of those newspaper para-
graphs, which Mr. Coleridge thinks so invaluable an accession to
our political philosophy.
Burke's literary talents were, after all, his chief excellence.
His style has all the familiarity of conversation, and all the re-
search of the most elaborate composition. He says what he
wants to say, by any means, nearer or more remote, within his
reach. He makes use of the most common or scientific terms,
of the longest or shortest sentences, of the plainest and most
downright, or of the most figurative modes of speech. He
gives for the most part loose reins to his imagination, and follows
it as far as the language will carry him. As long as the one or
the other has any resources in store to make the reader feel and
see the thing as he has conceived it, in its nicest shades of differ-
ence, in its utmost degree of force and splendour, he never dis-
dains, and never fails to employ them. Yet, in the extremes of
his mixed style, there is not nmch affectation, and but little either
of pedantry or of coarseness. He everywhere gives the image he
wishes to give, in its true and appropriate colouring : and it is
the very crowd and variety of these images that have given to his
language its peculiar tone of animation, and even of passion. It
is his impatience to transfer his conceptions entire, living, in all
their rapidity, strength, and glancing variety, to the minds of
269
others, that constantly pushes him to the verge of extravagance,
and yet supports him there in dignified security —
" Never so sure our rapture to create,
As when lie treads the brink of all we hate."
He is the most poetical of our prose writers, and at the same
time his prose never degenerates into the mere eflfeminacy of
poetry ; for he always aims at overpowering rather than at pleas-
ing ; and consequently sacrifices beauty and delicacy to force
and vividness. He has invariably a task to perform, a posi-
tive purpose to execute, an effect to produce. His only object
is therefore to strike hard, and in the right place ; if he misses
his mark, he repeats his blow ; and does not care how ungrace-
ful the action, or how clumsy the instrument, provided it brings
down his antagonist.
ON COURT-INFLUENCE.
*• To be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of tcu
thousand."
January 3, 1818.
It is not interest alone, but prejudice or fashion that sways
mankind. Opinion governs opinion. It is not merely what we
can get by a certain line of conduct that we have to consider, but
what others will think of it. The possession of money is but one
mode of recommending ourselves to the good opinion of the
world, of securing distinction and respect. Except as a bribe to
popularity, money is of very limited value. Avarice is (oftener
than we might at first suspect) only vanity in disguise. We should
not want fine clothes or fine houses, an equipage or livery-servants,
but for what others will think of us for having or wanting them.
The chief and most expensive commodity that money is laid out in
purchasing, is respect. Money, like other things, is worth no
270
more than it will fetch. It is a passport into society : but if other
things will answer the same purpose, as beauty, birth, wit, learn-
ing, desert in art or arms, dress, behaviour, the want of wealth
is not felt as a very severe privation. If a man, who, on what-
ever pretensions, is received into good company, behaves wilh
propriety and converses rationally, it is not inquired after he is
gone, nor once thought of while he is present, whether he is rich
or poor. In the mixed intercourse of private society every one
finds his level, in proportion as he can contribute to its amuse-
ment or information. It is even more so in the general inter-
course of the world, where a poet and a man of genius (if extrin-
sic circumstances make any difference) is as much courted and
run after for being a common ploughman, as for being a peer of
the realm. Burns, had he been living, would have started fair
with Lord Byron in the race of popularity, and would not have
lost it.
The temptation to men in public life to swerve from the path
of duty, less frequently arises from a sordid regard to their private
interests, than from an undue deference to popular applause. A
want of political principle is, in nine cases out of ten, a want of
firmness of mind to differ with those around us, and to stand the
brunt of their avowed hostility or secret calumnies.
I"
" But still the world and it<i dread laugh prevails
An honest man is one whose sense of right and wrong is stronger
than his anxiety that others should think or speak well of him. A
man in the same sense forfeits his character for political integrity,
whose love of truth truckles to his false shame and cringing com-
plaisance, and who tampers with his own convictions, that he
may stand well with the world. A man who sells his opinion
merely to gain by his profligacy, is not a man without public
principle, but common honesty. He ranks in the same class with
a highwayman or a pickpocket. — It is true, interest and opinion
are in general linked together ; but opinion flies before, and in-
terest comes limping after. As a woman first loses her virtue
271
through her heart, so the yielding patriot generally sacrifices his
character to his love of reputation.
It is usually supposed by those who make no distinction between
the highest point of integrity and the lowest mercenariness, that
Mr. Burke changed his principles to gain a pension: and that
this was the main-spring of his subsequent conduct. We do not
think so ; though this may have been one motive, and a strong one
to a needy and extravagant man. But the pension which he re-
ceived was something more than a mere grant of money — it was
a mark of royal favour, it was a tax upon public opinion. If any
thing were wanting to fix his veering loyalty, it was the circum-
stance of the king's having his " Reflections on the French Re-
volution" bound in morocco (not an unsuitable binding), and giving
it to all his particular friends, saying, " It was a book which every
gentleman ought to read !" This praise would go as far with a vain
man as a pension with a needy one ; and we may be sure, that if
there were any lurking seeds of a leaning to the popular side re-
maining in the author's breast, he would after this lose no time in
rooting them out of the soil, that his works might reflect the per-
fect image of his royal master's mind, and have no plebeian stains
left to sully it. Kings are great critics : they are the fountain of
honour ; the judges of merit. After such an authority had pro-
nounced it " a book which every gentleman ought to read," what
gentleman could refuse to read, or dare to differ with it ^ With what
feelings a privy-counsellor would open the leaves of a book, which
the king had had richly bound, and presented with his own hand !
How lords of the bed-chamber would wonder at the profound
arguments ! How peeresses in their own right must simper over
the beautiful similes ! How the judges must puzzle over it !
How the bishops would bless themselves at the number of fine
things ; and our great classical scholars, Doctors Parr and Bur-
ney, sit down for the first time in their lives to learn English, to
write themselves into a bishopric ! Burke had long laboured hard
to attain a doubtful pre-eminence. He had worked his way into
public notice by talents which were thought specious rather than
\
\
V
)
272
-yiid, and by sentiments which were obnoxious to some, suspected
by others. His connexions and his views were ambiguous. He
professedly espoused the cause of the people, and found it as hard
to defend himself against popular jealousy as ministerial resent-
ment. He saw court-lacqueys put over his head ; and country
squires elbowing him aside. He was neither understood by
friends nor enemies. He was opposed, thwarted, cross-ques-
tioned, and obliged to present " a certificate of merit" (as he
himself says) at every stage of his progress through life. But the
king's having pronounced that " his book was one which every
gentleman ought to read," floated him at once out of the flats and
shallows in which his voyage of popularity had been bound, into
the full tide of court-favour ; settled all doubts ; smoothed all dif-
ficulties ; rubbed off" old scores ; made the crooked straight, and
the rough plain ; — what was obscure, became profound ; — what
was extravagant, lofty ; every sentiment was liberality, every ex-
pression elegance ; and from that time to this, Burke has been
the oracle of every dull venal pretender to taste or wisdom.
Those who had never heard of or despised him before, now
joined in his praise. He became a fashion; he passed into a
proverb ; he was an idol in the eyes of his readers, as much as
he could ever, in the days of his youthful vanity, have been in
his own ; he was dazzled with his own popularity ; and all this
was owing to the king. No wonder he was delighted with the
change, infatuated with it, infuriated ! It was better to him than
four thousand pounds a-year for his own life, and fifteen hundred
a-year to his widow during the joint-lives of four other persons.
It was what all his life he had been aiming at. — " Thou hast it
now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all !" It was what the nurses had
prophecied of him, and what the school-boy had dreamt ; and
that which is first, is also last in our thoughts. It was this that
tickled his vanity more than his pension : it was this that raised
his gratitude, that melted his obdurate pride, that opened the
sluices of his heart to the poison of corruption, that exorcised the
low, mechanic, vulgar, morose, sour principles of liberty clean
273
out of him, left his mind " swept and garnished," parched and
dry, fevered with revenge, bloated with adulation ; and made him
as shameless and abandoned in sacrificing every feeling of attach-
ment or obligation to the people, as he had before been bold and
prodigal in heaping insult and contumely upon the throne. He
denounced his former principles, in the true spirit of an apostate,
with a fury equal to the petulant and dogmatical tone in which he
had asserted them ; and then proceeded to abuse all those who
doubted the honesty or wisdom of this change of opinion. He,
in short, looked upon every man as his enemy who did not think
*' his book fit for a gentleman to read ;" and would willingly have
committed every such presumptuous sceptic to the flames for not
bowing down in servile adoration before this idol of his vanity
and reputation. Hence the frantic philippics in his latter revolu-
tionary speeches and writings, and the alteration from a severe
and stately style of eloquence and reasoning in his earlier compo-
sitions to the most laboured paradoxes and wildest declamation.
We do not mean to say that his latest works did not display the
greatest genius. His native talents blazed out, undisguised and
unconfined in them. Indignatio J'acit versus. Burke's best
Muse was his vanity or spleen. He felt quite at home in giving
vent to his personal spite and venal malice. He pleaded his
own cause and the cause of the passions better and with more
eloquence, than he ever pleaded the cause of truth and justice.
He felt the one rankling in his heart with all their heat and fury ;
he only conceived the other with his understanding coldly and
circuitously. — The " Letters of William Burke" give one, how-
ever, a low idea of Burke's honesty, even in a pecuniary point of
view. — (See Barry's " Life.") He constantly tells Barry, as a
source of consolation to his friend, and a compliment to his bro-
ther, " that though his party had not hitherto been successful, or
had not considered him as they ought, matters were not so bad
with him but that he could still afford to be honest, and not de-
sert the cause." This is very suspicious. This querulous tone of
disappointment, and cockering up of his boasted integrity, must
T
274.
have come from Burke himself; who would hardly have expressed
such a sentiment, if it had not been frequently in his thoughts; or
if he had not made out a previous debtor and creditor account
between preferment and honesty, as one of the regular principles
of liis political creed.
The same narrow view of the subject, drawn from a supposition
that money, or interest hi the grossest sense, is the only inducement
to a dereliction of principle or sinister conduct, has been applied
to shew the sincerity of the present laureate in his change of opi-
nions ; for it was said that the paltry salary of lOOl. a-year was
not a sufficient temptation to any man of common sense, and who
had other means of gaining an ample livelihood honourably, to
give up his principles and his party, unless he did so conscien-
tiously. That is not the real alternative of the case. It is not
the hundred pounds salary ; it is the honour (some may think it
a disgrace) conferred along with it, that enjiances the prize.
" And with it words of so sweet breath composed, as made the
gift more rare."* It is the introduction to Carlton-House, the
smile, the squeeze by the hand that awaits him there, " escap'd
from Pyrrho's maze, and Epicurus' sty." The being presented
at court is worth more than a hundred pounds a-year. A person
with a hundred thousand pounds a-year can only be presented at
court, and would consider it the greatest mortification to be shut
out. It is the highest honour in the land; and Mr. Southey, by
accepting his place and discarding his principles, receives that
highest honour as a matter of course, in addition to his salary and
his butt of sack. He is ushered into the royal presence as by a
magic charm, the palace-gates fly open at the sight of his laurel-
crown, and he stands in the midst of " Britain's warriors, her
statesmen, and her fair," as if suddenly dropped from the clouds.
Is this nothing to a vain man ? Is it nothing to the author of
" Wat Tyler" and " Joan of Arc" to have those errors of his
youth veiled in the honours of his riper years ? To fill the poetic
* We hope Mr. Southey has not found the truth of the latter part of the pas-
sage, " Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind."
275
throne of Dryden, of Sliadwell, of Gibber, and of Pye ? To
receive distinctions which Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton
never received, and to chaunt to the unaverted ear of sovereignty
strains such as they never sung ? To be seen on each returning
birth-day joining the bright throng, the lengthened procession,
gay, gilt, painted, coronetted, garlanded, that as it passes to and
from St. James's, all London, in sunshine or in shower, pours
out to gaze at ? We tremble for the consequences, should any
thing happen to disturb the Laureate in his dream of perfect feli-
city. Racine died broken-hearted, because Louis XIV. frowned
upon him as he passed ; and yet Racine was as great a poet and
as pious a man as Mr. Southey.
To move in the highest circles, to be in favour at courts, to be
familiar with princes, is then an object of ambition, which may
be supposed to fascinate a less romantic mind than Mr. Southey's,
setting the lucrativeness of his conversion out of the question.
Many persons have paid dear for this proud elevation, with bank-
rupt health and beggared fortunes. How many are ready to do
so still ! Mr, Southey only paid for it with his opinion ; and
some people think it as much as his opinion was worth. Are we
to suppose Mr. Southey's vanity of so sordid a kind, that it must
be bribed by his avarice ? Might not the Poet-laureate be sup-
posed to catch at a title or a blue ribbon, if it were offered him,
without a round salary attached to it ?
Why do country gentlemen wish to get into parliament, but to
be seen there? Why do overgrown merchants and rich nabobs
wish to sit there, like so many overgrown schoolboys ? Look at
the hundreds of thousands of pounds squandered in contested
elections ? It is not " gain but glory" that provokes the com-
batants. Do you suppose that these persons expect to repay
themselves by making a market of their constituents, and selling
their votes to the best bidder I No : but they wish to be thought
to have the greatest influence, the greatest number of friends and
adherents in their county ; and they will pay any price for it. We
put into the lottery, indeed, in hopes of what we can get, but in
T 2
276
the lottery of life honour is the great prize. It is the opinion of
the people for which the candidate at an election contends ; and
on the same principles he will barter the opinion of the people,
their rights and liberty, and his own independence and character,
not for gold, but for the friendship of a court-favourite. Not
that gold has not its weight too, for the great and powerful have
that also to bestow : — it is true, that
• '' In their Livery
Walk Crowns and Crownets, Realms and Islands
As Plates drop from their Pockets."
But opinion is a still more insinuating and universal menstruum for
dissolving honesty. That sweet smile that hangs on princes fa-
vours is more effectual than even the favours themselves !
ON COURT INFLUENCE.
(concluded.)
" To be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten
*' thousand."
January 10, 1S18.
We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion. There is
no one, however mean or insignificant, whose approbation is
altogether indifferent to us ; whose flattery does not please, whose
contempt does not mortify us. There is an atmosphere of this
Sort always about us, from which we can no more withdraw our-
selves than from the air we breathe. But the air of a Court is
the concentrated essence of the opinion of the world. The at-
mosphere there is mephitic. It is subtle poison, the least exha-
lation of which taints the vitals of its victims. It is made up
of servile adulation, of sneering compliments, of broken promises,
of smiling professions, of stifled opinions, of hollow thanks, of
folly and lies —
" SouI-killing lies, and truths that work small good."
277
It is infected with the breath of flatterers, and the thoughts of
Kings ! Let us see how its influence descends : — from the King
to the people, to his Ministers first, from the Ministers to both
Houses of ParHament, from Lords to Ladies, from the Clergy
to the Laity, from the high to the low, from the rich to the
poor, and " pierces through the body of the city, country,
court " — it is beauty, birth, wit, learning, riches, numbers : it
is fear and favour ; it has all the splendour that can seduce, all
the power that can intimidate, all the interest that can corrupt,
on its side ; so that the opinion of the King is the opinion of
the nation ; and if that opinion is not a wise one, hangs like a
millstone round its neck, oppresses it like a night-mare, weighs
upon it like lead, makes truth a lie, right wrong, converts liberty
into slavery, peace into war, plenty to famine, turns the heads
of a whole people, and bows their bodies to the earth. " Who-
soever shall stumble against this stone, it shall bruise him : but
whomsoever it falls upon, it shall grind him to powder." The
whisper of a King rounded in the ear of a favourite is re-echoed
back in speeches and votes of Parliament, in addresses and reso-
lutions from associations in town and country, drawls from the
pulpit, brawls from the bar, resounds like the thunder of a
people's voice, roars in the cannon's mouth, and disturbs the
peace of nations. The frown of monarchs is like the speck seen
in the distant horizon, which soon spreads and darkens the whole
hemisphere. Who is there in his senses that can withstand the
gathering storm, or oppose himself to this torrent of opinion
setting in upon him from the throne and absorbing by degrees
every thing in its vortex — undermining every principle of inde-
pendence, confounding every distinction of the understanding,
and obliterating every trace of liberty ? To argue against it, is
like arguing against the motion of the world with which we are
carried along : its influence is as powerful and as imperceptible.
To question it, is folly ; to resist it, madness. To differ with
the opinion of a whole nation, seems as presumptuous as it is
unwise : and yet the very circumstance which makes it so uniform,
278
is that which makes it worth nothing. Authority is more abso-
lute than reason. Truth curtesies to power. No arguments
could persuade ten millions of men in one country to be all of
one mind, and thirty millions in another country to be of just
the contrary one ; but the word of a King does it ! We do not
like to differ from the company we are in. How much more
difficult is it to brave the opinion of the world ! No man likes
to be frowned out of society. No man likes to be without sym-
pathy. He must be a proud man indeed who can do without it;
and proud men do not like to be made a mark for " scorn to
point his slow and moving finger at." No man likes to be
thought the enemy of his king and country, without just cause.
No man likes to be called a fool or a knave, merely because he
is not a fool and a knave. It is not desirable to have to answer
arguments backed with informations filed ex officio; it is not
amusing to become a bye-word with the mob. A nickname is
the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It will
knock down any man's resolution. It will stagger his reason.
It will tame his pride. Fasten it upon any man, and he will try
to shake it off, at any rate, though he should part with honour
and honesty along with it. To be shut out from public praise
or private friendship, to be lampooned in newspapers or Anti-
Jacobin reviews, to be looked blank upon in company, is not
" a consummation devoutly to be wished." The unfavourable
opinion of others gives you a bad opinion of yourself or them :
and neither of these conduces to persevering, high-minded integ-
rity. To wish to serve mankind, we should think well of them.
To be able to serve them, they should think well of us. To
keep well with the public, is not more necessary to a man's private
interest than to his general utility. It is a hopeless task to be
always striving against the stream : it is a thankless one to be in
a state of perpetual litigation with the community. The situation
of a strange dog in a country town, barked at and worried by all
the curs in the village, is about as enviable as that of a person
who affects singularity in politics. What is a man to do who
279
gets himself into this predicament, in an age when patriotism is
a misnomer in language, and public principle a solecism in fact ?
If he cannot bring the world round to his opinion, he must as
a forlorn hope go over to theirs, and be content to be knave —
or nothing.
Such is the force of opinion, that we would undertake to drive
a first Minister from his place and out of the country, by merely
being allowed to hire a number of dirty boys to hoot him along
the streets from his own house to the treasury and from the trea-
sury back again. How would a certain distinguished character,
remarkable for uniting the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in
re, and who, with an invariable consistency in his political prin-
ciples, carries the easiness of his temper to a degree of apparent
non-chalance, bear to have a starling in his neighbourhood taught
to repeat nothing but Walcheren, or to ring the changes in his
ears upon the names of Castles, Oliver, and Reynolds ? Can
we wonder then at the feats which such Ministers have per-
formed with the Attorney-General at their backs, and the country
at their heels, in full cry against every one who was not a creature
of the Ministers, — for whose morals they could not vouch as
government-spies, or whose talents they did not reward as
government-critics ? — Mr. Coleridge, in his Literary Biography,
lately published, complains with pathetic bitterness of the wanton
and wilful slanders formerly circulated with so much zeal in
the Anti-Jacobin against himself, Mr. Southey, and his other
poetical friends, merely for a difference of political opinion ;
and he significantly assigns these slanders as the reason why
himself and his friends remained so long adverse to the party who
were the authors of them ! We will venture to go a little further,
and say, that they were not only the reason of their long estrange-
ment from the Court-party, but of their final reconciliation to it.
They had time to balance and reflect, and to make a choice of
evils — they deliberated between the loss of principle and of cha-
racter, and they were undone. They thought it better to be the
accomplices of venality and corruption than the mark for them to
280
shoot their arrows at: they took shelter from the abuse by joining
in the cry. Mr. Southey says that he has not changed his prin-
ciples, but that circumstances have changed, and that he has
grown wiser from the events of live-and-twenty years. How is it
that his present friend and associate in the Quarterly Review, who
Mas formerly a contributor to the Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin,
has not changed too ? The world has gone round in his time
too, but he remains firm to his first principles. He worships
the sun wherever he sees it. Court-favour, " the cynosure of
longing eyes," sheds a more steady influence on its votaries than
vague popularity. The confined, artificial air of a Court has a
wonderful effect in stopping that progress of the mind with the
march of events, of which Mr. Southey boasts, and prematurely
fixes the volatility of genius in a caput mortuum of prejudice and
servility, in those who are admitted within the magic circle !
The Anti-Jacobin poet and orator, Mr. Canning, has not become
a renegado to the opinions of the Court: the Jacobin poet and
prose-writer, Mr. Southey, has become a renegado to his own.
— In an article in the Quarterly Review (some months back)
there was an argument to shew that the late war against France
was all along the undoubted result of popular opinion, " because
from the first party-spirit ran so high upon this subject, that any
one who expressed an opinion against it did so at the hazard
of his reputation, fortune, or even life." The author of this
singular argument, we believe, was one of those, who did not at
the critical period here alluded to approve of it, and who has
since become a convert to its justice and humanity. ■ His own
statement may account for his change of opinion. What a pity
for a man to hazard his life and fortune in a cause by maintaining
an opinion, and to lose his character afterwards by relinquishing
it. The present Poet-laureate has missed indeed the crown of
martyrdom, and has gained a crown of laurel in its stead !
The same consistent writers, and friends of civil and religious
liberty, who are delighted with the restoration of the Bourbons,
of the Pope, and the Inquisition, have lately made an attempt
28 L
to run down the Dissenters in this country ; and in this they are
right. They dwell with fondness on " the single-heartedness of
the Spanish nation," who are slaves and bigots to a man, and
scoff at the Presbyterians and Independents of this country (who
ousted Popery and slavery at the Revolution, and who had a
main hand in placing and continuing the present family on the
throne) as but half-Englishmen, and as equally disaffected to
Church and State. There is some ground for the antipathy of
our political changelings to a respectable, useful, and conscien-
tious body of men : and we will here, in discharge of an old debt,
say what this ground is. If it were only meant that the Dissenters
are but half Englishmen, because they are not professed slaves — •
that they are disaffected to the Constitution in Church and State,
because they are not prepared to go all the lengths of despotism
and intolerance under a Protestant hierarchy and Constitutional
King, which they resisted " at the peril of their characters, their
fortunes, and their lives," under a persecuting priesthood and
an hereditary Pretender, this would be well : but there is more
in it than this. Our sciolists would persuade us that the dif-
ferent sects are hot-beds of sedition, because they are nurseries
of public spirit, and independence, and sincerity of opinion in
all other respects. They are so necessarily, and by the suppo-
sition. They are Dissenters from the Established Church : they
submit voluntarily to certain privations, they incur a certain
portion of obloquy and ill-will, for the sake of what they believe
to be the truth : they are not time-servers on the face of the
evidence, and that is suf!icient to expose them to the instinctive
hatred and ready ribaldry of those who think venality the first
of virtues, and prostitution of principle the best sacrifice a man
can make to the Graces or his Country. The Dissenter does not
change his sentiments with the seasons : he does not suit his
conscience to his convenience. This is enough to condemn
him for a pestilent fellow. He will not give up his principles
because they are unfashionable, therefore he is not to be trusted.
H e speaks his mind bluntly and honestly, therefore he is a secret
282
disturber of the peace, a dark conspirator against the State. On
the contrary, the different sects in this country are, or have been,
the steadiest supporters of its liberties and laws : they are checks
and barriers against the insidious or avowed encroachments of
arbitrary power, as effecuial and indispensable as any others in
the Constitution : they are depositaries of a principle as sacred
and suinevvhat rarer than a devotion to Court-influence — we
mean die love of truth. It is hard for any one to be an honest
politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter. Nothing else
can sufficiently inure and steel a man against the prevailing pre-
judices of the world, but that habit of mind which arises from
non-conformity to its decisions in matters of religion. There is
a natural alliance between the love of civil and religious liberty,
as much as between Church and State. Protestantism was the
first school of political liberty in Europe : Presbyteriauism has
been one great support of it in England, The sectary in
religion is taught to appeal to his own bosom for the truth and
sincerity of his opinions, and to arm himself with stern indiffer-
ence to what others think of them. This will no doubt often
produce a certain hardness of manner and cold repulsiveness of
feeling in trifling matters, but it is the only sound discipline
of truth, or inflexible honesty in politics as well as in religion.
The san^e principle of independent inquiry and unbiassed con-
viction which makes him reject all undue interference between
his Maker and his conscience, will give a character of uprightness
and disregard of personal consequences to his conduct and sen-
timents in what concerns the most important relations between
man and man. He neither subscribes to the dogmas of priests,
nor truckles to the mandates of Ministers. He has a rigid sense
of duty which renders him superior to the caprice, the prejudices,
and the injustice of the world ; and the same habitual conscious-
ness of rectitude of purpose, which leads him to rely for his
self-respect on the testimony of his own heart, enables him to
disregard the groundless malice and rash judgments of his
opponents. It is in vain for him to pay his court to the world,
283
to fawn upon power ; he labours under certain insurmountable
disabilities for becoming a candidate for its favour : he dares to
contradict its opinion and to condemn its usages in the most
important article of all. The world will always look cold and
askance upon him ; and therefore he may defy it with less fear
of its censures. The Presbyterian is said to be sour : he is not
therefore over-complaisant —
" Or if severe in thought,
*' The love he bears to virtue is in fault."
Dissenters are the safest partizans, and the steadiest friends.
Indeed they are almost the only people who have an idea of an
abstract attachment to a cause or to individuals, from a sense
of fidelity, independently of prosperous or adverse circumstances,
and in spite of opposition. No patriotism, no public spirit, not
reared in that inclement sky and harsh soil, in " ihe hortus siccus
of dissent," will generally last : it will either bend in the storm
or droop in the sunshine. 'Non ex quovis ligtio Jit Mercurius.
You cannot engraft a medlar on a crab-apple. A thorough-bred
Dissenter will never make an accomplished Courtier. The anti-
thesis of a Presbyterian Divine of the old school is a Poet-
laureate of the new. We have known instances of both ; and
give it decidedly in favour of old-fashioned honesty over new-
fangled policy.
We have known instances of both. The one we would
willingly forget ; the others we hope never to forget, nor can we
ever. A Poet-laureate is an excrescence even in a Court; he
is doubly nugatory as a Courtier and a Poet ; he is a refinement
upon insignificance, and a superfluous piece of supererogation.
But a Dissenting Minister is a character not so easily to be dis-
pensed with, and whose place cannot well be supplied. It is the
fault of sectarianism that it tends to scepticism ; and so relaxes
the springs of moral courage and patience into levity and indiffer-
ence. The prospect of future rewards and punishments is a
useful set-off against the immediate distribution of places and
284
pensions ; the anticipations of faith call off our attention from
the grosser illusions of sense. It is a pity that this character has
worn itself out ; that that pulse of thought and feeling has ceased
almost to beat in the heart of a nation, who, if not remarkable
for sincerity and plain downright well-meaning, are remarkable
for nothing. But we have known some such, in happier days ;
who had been brought up and lived from youth to age in the
one constant belief of God and of his Christ, and who thousht
all other things but dross compared with the glory hereafter to be
revealed. Their youthful hopes and vanity had been mortified
in them, even in their boyish days, by the neglect and supercilious
regards of the world ; and they turned to look into their own
minds for something else to build their hopes and confidence
upon. They were true Priests. They set up an image in their
own minds, it was truth : they worshipped an idol there, it was
justice. They looked on man as their brother, and only bowed
the knee to the Highest. Separate from the world, they walked
humbly with their God, and lived in thought with those who
had borne testimony of a good conscience, with the spirits of just
men in all ages. They saw Moses when he slew the Egyptian,
and the Prophets who overturned the biazen images ; and those
who were stoned and sawn asunder. They were with Daniel in
the lions' den, and with the three children who passed through
the fiery furnace, Meshech, Shadrach, and Abednego ; they did
not crucify Christ twice over, or deny him in their hearts, with
St. Peter ; the Book of Martyrs w as open to them ; they read
the story of William Tell, of John Huss and Jerome of Prague,
and the old one-eyed Zisca ; they had Neale's History of the
Puritans by heart, and Calamy's Account of the Two Thousand
Ejected Ministers, and gave it to their children to read, with
the pictures of the polemical Baxter, the silver-tongued Bates,
the mild-looking Calaniy, and old honest Howe ; they believed
in Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History : they were deep-
read in the works of the Fratres Poloni, Pripscovius, Crellius,
Cracovius, who sought out truth in texts of Scripture, and
285
grew blind over Hebrew points ; their aspiration after liberty was
a sigh uttered from the towers, " time-rent," of the Holy Inqui-
sition ; and their zeal for religious toleration was kindled at the
fires of Smithfield. Their sympathy was not with the oppres-
sors, but the oppressed. They cherished in their thoughts — and
wished to transmit to their posterity — those rights and privileges
for asserting which their ancestors had bled on scaffolds, or had
pined in dungeons, or in foreign climes. Their creed too was
" Glory to God, peace on earth, good will to man." This
creed, since profaned and rendered vile, they kept fast through
good report and evil report. This belief they had, that looks
at something out of itself, fixed as the stars, deep as the firma-
ment, that makes of its own heart an altar to truth, a place of
worship for what is right, at which it does reverence with praise
and prayer like a holy thing, apart and content : that feels that
the greatest being in the universe is always near it, and that all
things work together for the good of his creatures, under his
guiding hand. This covenant they kept, as the stars keep their
courses : this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better,
as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it
does not wither in their decay. It lives when the almond-tree
flourishes, and is not bowed down with the tottering knees. It
glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, smiles in the faded cheek
like infancy, and lights a path before them to the grave ! — This is
better than the life of a whirligig Court poet.
ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER.
" Now mark a spot or two,
Which so much virtue would do well to clear." Cowper.
Jan. 24, 1S18.
The clerical character has, no doubt, its excellences, which
have been often insisted on : it has also its faults, which cannot
be corrected or guarded against, unless they are pointed out.
The following are some of them.
28b'
The first, and most obvious objection we have to it, arises from
the dress. All artificial distinctions of this kind have a tendency
to warp the understanding and sophisticate the character. They
create egotism. A man is led to think of himself more than he
should, who by any outward marks of distinction invites others
to fix their attention on him. They create ufFectation ; for they
make him study to be not like himself, but like his dress. They
create hypocrisy ; for as his thoughts and feelings cannot be as
uniform and mechanical as his dress, he must be constantly
tempted to make use of the one as a cloak to the other, and to
conceal the defects or aberrations of his mind by a greater prim-
ness of professional costume, or a more mysterious carriage of
his person —
" And in Franciscan tliink to pass disguised."
No man of the ordinary stamp can retain a downright unaf-
fected simplicity of character who is always reminding others,
and reminded himself, of his pretensions to superior piety and
virtue by a conventional badge, which implies neither one nor the
other, and which must gradually accustom the mind to compro-
mise appearances for reality, the form for the power of godliness.
We do not care to meet the Lawyers fluttering about Chancery-
lane in their full-bottomed wigs and loose silk gowns : their dress
seems to sit as loose upon them as their opinions, and they wear
their own hair under the well-powdered dangling curls, as they
bury the sense of right and wrong under the intricate and cir-
cuitous forms of law : but we hate much more to meet a three-
cornered well-pinched clerical hat on a prim expectant pair of
shoulders, that seems to announce to half a street before it, that
sees the theological puppet coming, with a mingled air of humi-
lity and self-conceit — " Stand off, for I am holier than you."
We are not disposed to submit to this pharisaical appeal ; we are
more inclined to resent than to sympathise with the claims to our
respect, which are thus mechanically perked in our faces. The
dress of the bar merely implies a professional indifference to truth
or falsehood in those who wear it, and they seldom carry it out
287
of Court : the dress of the pulpit implies a greater gravity of pre-
tension ; and they therefore stick to it as closely as to a doublet
and hose of religion and morality- If the reverend persons who
are thus clothed with righteousness as with a garment, are sincere
in their professions, it is well : if they are hypocrites, it is also
well. It is no wonder that the class of persons so privileged are
tenacious of the respect that is paid to the cloth ; that their ten-
derness on this subject is strengthened by all the incentives of self-
love ; by the esprit de corps; by the indirect implication of reli-
gion itself in any slight put upon its authorised Ministers ; and
that the deliberate refusal to acknowledge the gratuitous claims
which are thus set up to our blind homage, is treated as a high
offence against the good order of society in the present world,
and threatened with exemplary punishment in the next. There
is nothing fair or manly in all this. It is levying a tax on our
respect under fraudulent, or at best, equivocal pretences. There
is no manner of connexion between the thing and the symbol of
it, to which pubhc opinion is expected to bow. The whole is
an affair of dress — a dull masquerade. There is no proof of the
doctrine of the Trinity in a three-cornered hat, nor does a black
coat without a cape imply sincerity and candour. A man who
wishes to pass for a saint or a philosopher on the strength of a
button in his hat or a buckle in his shoes, is not very likely to be
either j as the button in the hat or the buckle in the shoes will
answer all the same purpose with the vulgar, and save time and
trouble. Those who make their dress a prhicipal part of them-
selves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
Their understandings will receive a costume. Their notions will
be as stiff and starched as their bands ; their morals strait-laced
and ricketty ; their pretended creed formal and out of date ; and
they themselves a sort of demure lay-figures, sombre Jacks-of-
the Green, to carry about the tattered fragments and hoarded
relics of bigotry and superstition, which, when they no longer
awe the imagination or impose on credulity, only insult the under-
standing and excite contempt. — No one who expects you to pay
288
the same regard to the cut or colour of his coat as to what he
says or does, will be anxious to set an exclusive value on what
can alone entitle him to respect. You are to take his merit for
granted on the score of civility, and he will take it for granted
himself on the score of convenience. He will do all he can to
keep up the farce. These gentlemen find it no hardship
" To counterfeiten chere
Of court, and ben cstatelich of manere,
And to ben liolden digne of reverence."
On the contrary, if you offer to withhold it from them,
" Certain so wroth are they,
That they are out of all charity."
This canonical standard of moral estimation is too flattering to.
their pride and indolence to be parted with in a hurry ; and no-
thing will try their patience or provoke their humility so much as
to suppose that there is any truer stamp of merit than the badge
of their profession. It has been contended, that more is made
here of the clerical dress than it is meant to imply ; that it is
simply a mark of distinction, to know the individuals of that par-
ticular class of society from others, and that they ought to be
charged with aflfectation, or an assumption of self-importance for
wearing it, no more than a waterman, a fireman, or a chimney-
sweeper, for appearing in the streets in their appropriate costume.
We do not think " the collusion holds in the exchange." If a
chimney-sweeper were to jostle a spruce divine in the street,
which of them would ejaculate the word " Fellow ?" The humi-
lity of the churchman would induce him to lift up his cane at the
sooty professor, but the latter would hardly take his revenge by
raising his brush and shovel, as equally respectable insignia of
office. As to the watermen and firemen, they do not, by the
badges of their trade, claim any particular precedence in moral
accomplishments, nor are their jacket and trowsers hieroglyphics
of any particular creed, which others are bound to believe on pain
of damnation. It is there the shoe pinches. Where external
289
dress really denotes distinction of rank in other cases, as in the
dress of officers in the army, those who might avail themselves
of this distinction lay it aside as soon as possible ; and, unless
very silly fellows or very great coxcombs, do not choose to be
made a gazing-stock to women and children. But there is in the
clerical habit something too sacred to be lightly put on or oflf :
once a priest, and always a priest : it adheres to them as a part
of their function ; it is the outward and visible sign of an inward
and invisible grace ; it is a light that must not be hid ; it is a
symbol of godliness, an edifying spectacle, an incentive to good
morals, a discipline of humanity, and a memento mnri, which can-
not be too often before us. To lay aside their habit, would be an
unworthy compromise of the interests of both worlds. It would
be a sort of denying Christ. They therefore venture out into the
streets with this gratuitous obtrusion of opinion and unwarrantable
assumption of character wrapped about them, ticketted and la-
belled with the Thirty-nine Articles, St. Atbanasius's Creed, and
the Ten Commandments, — with the Cardinal Virtues and the
Apostolic Faith sticking out of every corner of their dress, and
angling for the applause or contempt of the multitude. A full-
dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity ; an ethical au-
tomaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well
as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus
habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside
coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral
character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much
to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of
pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.
The bane of all religions has been the necessity (real or sup-
posed) of keeping up an attention and attaching a value to ex-
ternal forms and ceremonies. It was, of course, much easier to
conform to these, or to manifest a reverence for them, than to
practise the virtues or understand the doctrines of true religion,
of which they were merely the outward types and symbols. The
consequence has been, that the greatest stress has been perpetually
u
290
laid ou what was of the least value, and most easily professed.
The form of religion has superseded the substance ; the meins
have supplanted the end ; and the sterling coin of charity and
good works has been driven out of the currency, for the base
counterfeits of superstition and intolerance, by all the money-
changers and dealers in the temples established to religion
throughout the world. Vestments and chalices have been multi-
plied for the reception of the Holy Spirit ; the tagged points of
controversy and lackered varnish of hypocrisy have eaten into the
solid substance and texture of piety ; " and all the inward acts of
worship, issuing from the native strength of the soul, run out (as
Milton expresses it) lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden
into the crust of formality." Hence we have had such shoals of
" Eremites and friars,
White, black, autl grey, with all their trumpery" —
who have foisted their " idiot and embryo" inventions upon us for
truth, and who have fomented all the bad passions of the heart,
and let loose all the mischiefs of war, of fire, and famine, to
avenge the slightest diflference of opinion on any one iota of their
lying creeds, or the slightest disrespect to any one of those mum-
meries and idle pageants w Inch they had set up as sacred idols for
the world to wonder at. We do not forget, in making these re-
marks, that there was a time when the persons who will be most
annoyed and scandalized at them, would have taken a more effec-
tual mode of shewing their zeal and indignation ; when to have
expressed a free opinion on a Monk's cowl or a Cardinal's hat,
would have exposed the writer who had been guilty of such sacri-
lege, to the pains and penalties of excommunication : to be burnt
at an auto da fe ; to be consigned to the dungeons of the Inqui-
sition, or doomed to the mines of Spanish America; to have his
nose slit, or his ears cut off, or his hand reduced to a stump.
Such were the considerate and humane proceedings by which the
Priests of former times vindicated their own honour, which they
pretended to be the honour of God. Such was their humihty.
291
when they had the power. Will they complain now, if we only
criticise the colour of a coat, or smile at the circumference of a
Doctor of Divinity's wig, since we can do it with impunity ? We
cry them mercy !
ON THE CLERICJL CHARACTER.
■ " Now niaik a spot or two,
Which so much virtue would do well to clear." — Cowper.
(continued.)
Jan. 31, 181S.
Many people seem to think, that the restraints imposed on the
Clergy by the nature of their profession, take away from them,
by degrees, all temptation to violate the limits of duty, and that
the character grows to the cloth. We are afraid that this is not
altogether the case.
How little can be done in the way of extracting virtues or in-
tellect from a piece of broad-cloth or a beaver hat, we have an
instance in the Quakers, who are the most remarkable, and the
most unexceptionable class of professors in this kind. They bear
the same relation to genuine characters, not brought up in the
trammels of dress and custom, that a clipped yew-tree, cut into
the form of a peacock or an arm-chair, does to the natural growth
of a tree in the forest, left to its own energies and luxuriance.
The Quakers are docked into form, but they have no spirit left.
They are without ideas, except in trade ; without vices or virtues,
unless we admit among the latter those which we give as a cha-
racter to servants when we turn them away, viz. " that they are
cleanly, sober, and honest." The Quaker is, in short, a negative
character, but it is the best that can be formed in this mechanical
way. The Priest is not a negative character ; he is something
positive and disagreeable. He is not, like the Quaker, distin-
guished from others merely by singularity of dress and manner,
u 2
292
but he is distinguished from others by pretensions to superiority
over them. His faults arise from his boasted exemption from
the opposite vices ; and he has one vice running through all his
others — hypocrisy. He is proud, with an affectation of humility;
bigotted, from a pretended zeal for truth ; greedy, wiih an osten-
tation of entire contempt for the things of this world ; professing
self-denial, and always thinking of self-gratification ; censorious,
and blind to his own faults ; intolerant, unrelenting, impatient of
opposition, insolent to those below, and cringing to those above
him, with nothing but Christian meekness and brotherly love in
his moulh. He thinks more of external appearances than of his
internal convictions. He is tied down to the opinions and pre-
judices of the world in every way. The motives of the heart are
clogged and checked at the outset, by the fear of idle censure ;
his understanding is the slave of established creeds and formulas
of faith. He can neither act, feel, or think for himself, or from
genuine impulse. He plays a part through life. He is an actor
upon a stage. The public are a spy upon him, and he wears a
mask the better to deceive them. If in this sort of theatrical
assumption of character he makes one false step, it may be fatal
to him, and he is induced to have recourse to^^the most unmanly
arts to conceal it, if possible. As he cannot be armed at all
points against the flesh and the devil, he takes refuge in self-de-
lusion and mental imposture ; learns to play at fast and loose with
his own conscience, and to baffle the vigilance of the public by
dexterous equivocations ; sails as near the wind as he can, shuffles
with principle, is punctilious in matters of form, and tries to re-
concile the greatest strictness of decorum and regularity of de-
meanour with the least possible sacrifice of his own interest or
appetites. Parsons are not drunkards, because it is a vice that is
easily detected and immediately offensive ; but they are great
eaters, which is no less injurious to the health and intellect. They,
indulge in all the sensuality that is not prohibited in the Deca-
logue : they monopolize every convenience they can lay lawful
hands on : and consider themselves as the peculiar favourites of
293
Heaven, and the rightful iiJieritors of the earth. They are on a
short allowance of sin ; and are only the more eager to catch at
all the stray bits and nice morsels they can meet. They are always
considering how they shall indemnify themselves in smaller things,
for their grudging self-denial in greater ones. Satan lies in wait
for them in a pinch of snufF, in a plate of buttered toast, or the
kidney end of a loin of veal. They lead their cooks the devil of
a life. Their dinner is the principal event of the day. They say
a long grace over it, partly to prolong the pleasure of expectation,
and to keep others waiting. They are appealed to as the most
competent judges, as arbiters deliciarnm in all questions of the
palate. Their whole thoughts are taken up in pampering the
flesh, and comforting the spirit with all the little debasing luxuries
which do not come under the sentence of damnation, or breed
scandal in the parish. You find out their true character in those
of them who have quitted the cloth, and think it no longer neces-
sary to practise the same caution or disguise. You there find the
dogmatism of the divine ingrafted on the most lax speculations of
the philosophical freethinker, and the most romantic professions
of universal benevolence made a cover to the most unfeeling and
unblushing spirit of selfishness. The mask is taken off, but the
character was the same under a more jealous attention to ap-
pearances. With respect to one vice from which the Clergy are
bound to keep themselves clear, St. Paul has observed, that it is
better to marry than bunt. " Continents," says Hobbes, " have
more of what they contain than other things." The Clergy are
men : and many of them, who keep a sufficient guard over their
conduct, are too apt, from a common law of our nature, to let
their thoughts and desires wander to forbidden ground. This is
not so well. It is not so well to be always thinking of the pec-
cadillos they cannot commit: to be hankering after the fleshpots
of Egypt: to have the charms of illicit gratification enhanced by
privations, to which others are not liable ; to have the fancy
always prurient, and the imagination always taking a direction
which they themselves cannot follow.
294
" Where's that palace, whereunto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? Who has that breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days, and in Sessions sit
With meditations lawful?"
But tlie mind of the Divine and Moralist by profession is a sort
of sanctuary for such thoughts. He is bound by his office to be
always detecting and pointing out abuses, to describe and con-
ceive of them in the strongest colours, to denounce and to abhor
vice in others, to be familiar with the diseases of the mind, as the
physician is with those of the body. But that this sort of specu-
lative familiarity with vice leads to a proportionable disgust at it,
may be made a question. The virtue of prudes has been thought
doubtful : the morality of priests, even of those who lead the
most regular lives, is not, perhaps, always " pure in the last re-
cesses of the mind." They are obliged, as it were, to have the
odious nature of sin habitually in their thoughts, and in their
mouths ; to wink, to make wry faces at it, to keep themselves in
a state of incessant indignation against it. It is like living next
door to a brothel, a situation which produces a great degree of irri-
tation against vice, and an eloquent abuse of those who are known
to practise it, but is not equally favourable to the growth and cul-
tivation of sentiments of virtue. To keep theoretical watch and
ward over vice, to be systematic spies and informers against im-
morality, " while they the supervisors grossly gape on," is hardly
decent. It is almost as bad as belonging to the Society for the
Suppression of Vice — a Society which appears to have had its
origin in much the same feeling as the monkish practice of auri-
cular confession in former times. — Persons who undertake to pry
into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either can-
not have very nice noses, or will soon lose them. Swift used to
say, that people of the nicest imaginations have the dirtiest ideas.
The virtues of the priesthood are not the virtues of humanity.
They are not honest, cordial, unaffected, and sincere. They are
the mask, not the man. There is always the feeling of something
295
hollow, assuming, and disagreeable, in theai. There is something
in the profession that does not sit easy on the imagination. You
are not at home with it. Do you, or do you not, seek the society
of a man for being a Parson ? You would as soon think of mar-
rying a woman for being an old maid !
To proceed to what we at first proposed, which was a consi-
deration of the Clerical Character, less in connexion with private
morality than with public principle. We have already spoken of
the Dissenting Clergy as, in this respect, an honest and exemplary
body of men. They are so by the supposition, in what relates to
matters of opinion. The Established Clergy of any religion cer-
tainly are not so, by t'le same self-evident rule ; on the contrary,
they are bound to conform their professions of religious belief to
a certain popular and lucrative standard, and bound over to keep
the peace by certain articles of faith. It is a rare felicity in any
one who gives his attention fairly and freely to the subject, and
has read the Scriptures, the Misnah, and the Talmud — the
Fathers, the Schoohnen, the Socinian Divines, the Lutheran and
Calvinistic controversy, with innumerable volumes appertaining
thereto and illustrative thereof, to believe all the Thirty-nine
Articles, " except one." If those who are destined for the epis-
copal office exercise their understandings honestly and openly upon
every one of these questions, how little chance is there that they
should come to the same conclusion upon them all ? If they do
not inquire, what becomes of their independence of under-
standing ? If they conform to what they do not believe, what
becomes of their honesty ? Their estimation in the world, as
well as their livelihood, depends on their tamely submitting their
understanding to authority at first, and on their not seeing reason
to alter their opinion afterwards. Is it likely that a man will in-
trepidly open his eyes to conviction, when he sees poverty and
disgrace staring him in the face as the inevitable consequence ?
Is it likely, after the labours of a whole life of servility and cow-
ardice — after repeating daily what he does not understrrid, and
what those who require him to repeat it do not believe, or pre-
296
tend to believe, and impose on others only as a ready test of in-
sincerity, and a compendious shibboleth of want of principle :
after doing morning and evening service to the God of this
world — after keeping his lips sealed against the indiscreet mention
of the plainest truths, and opening them only to utter mental re-
servations — after breakfasting, dining, and supping, waking and
sleeping, being clothed and fed, upon a collusion, — after saying a
double grace and washing his hands after dinner, and preparing
for a course of smutty jests to make himself good company, —
after nodding to Deans, bowing to Bishops, waiting upon Lords,
following in the train of Heads of Colleges, watching the gra-
cious eye of those who have presentations in their gift, and the
lank cheek of those who are their present incumbents, — after
finding favour, patronage, promotion, prizes, praise, promises,
smiles, squeezes of the hand, invitations to tea and cards with the
ladies, the epithets, " a charming man" " an agreeable creature,"
" a most respectable character," the certainty ©f reward, and the
hopes of glory, always proportioned to the systematic baseness of
his compliance with the will of his superiors, and the sacrifice of
every particle of independence, or pretence to manly spirit and
honesty of character, — is it likely, that a man so tutored and
trammelled, and inured to be his own dupe, and the tool of
others, will ever, in one instance out of thousands, attempt to
burst the cobweb fetters which bind him in the magic circle of
contradictions and enigmas, or risk the independence of his for-
tune for the independence of his mind ? Principle is a word
that is not to be found in the Young Clergyman's Best Com-
panion: it is a thing he has no idea of, except as something
pragmatical, sour, puritanical, and Presbyterian. To oblige is
his object, not to offend. He wishes " to be conformed to this
world, rather than transformed." He expects one day to be a
Court-divine, a dignitary of the Church, an ornament to the
State ; and he knows all the texts of Scripture, which, tacked to
a visitation, an assize, or corporation-dinner sermon, will float
him gently, " like little wanton boys that swim on bladders," up
297
to the palace at Lambeth. A hungry poet, gaping for solid
pudding or empty praise, may easily be supposed to set about a
conscientious revision and change of his unpopular opinions, from
the reasonable prospect of a place or pension, and to eat his
words the less scrupulously, the longer he has had nothing else to
eat. A snug, promising, soft, smiling, orthodox Divine, who
has a living attached to the cure of souls, and whose sentiments
are beneficed, who has a critical bonus for finding out that all the
books he cannot understand are written against the Christian Re-
ligion, and founds the doctrine of the Trinity, and his hopes of a
Bishopric, on the ignorant construction of a Greek particle, can-
not be expected to change the opinions to which he has formerly
subscribed his belief, with the revolutions of the sun or the
changes of the moon. His political, as well as religious creed,
is installed in hopes, pampered in expectations ; and the longer
he winks and shuts his eyes and holds them close, catching only
under their drooping lids " glimpses that may make him less
forlorn," day-dreams of lawn-sleeves, and nightly beatific visions
of episcopal mitres, the less disposed will he be to open them to
the broad light of reason, or to forsake the primrose path of pre-
ferment, to tear and mangle his sleek tender-skinned conscience,
dipped and softened in the milk-bath of clerical complaisance,
among the thorns and briars of controversial divinity, or to get
out on the other side upon a dark and dreary waste, amidst a
crew of hereticks and schismatics, and Unitarian dealers in " po-
tential infidelity" —
'* Who far from steeples and their sacred sound,
In fields their sullen conventicles found."
This were too much to expect from the chaplain of an Arch-
bishop.
Take one illustration of the truth of all that has been here said,
and of more that might be said upon the subject. It is related in
that valuable comment on the present reign and the existing order
of things, Bishop Watson's Life, that the late Dr. Paley having
298.
at one time to maintain a thesis in the University, proposed to
the Bishop, for his approbation, the following : — " That the
eternity of Hell torments is contradictory to the goodness of
God." The Bishop observed, that he thought this a bold doc-
trine to maintain in the face of the Church ; but Paley persisted
in his determination. Soon after, however, having sounded the
opinions of certain persons, high in authority, and well read in the
orthodoxy of preferment, he came back in great alarm, said he
found the thing would not do, and begged, instead of his first
thesis, to have the reverse one substituted in its stead, viz. —
" That the Eternity of Hell torments is not contradictory to the
goodness of God." — What burning daylight is here thrown on
clerical discipline, and the bias of a University education! This
passage is worth all Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Wood's
Athenae Oxoniensis, and Mr. Coleridge's two Lay Sermons.
This same shuffling Divine is the same Dr. Paley, who afterwards
employed the whole of his life, and his moderate second-hand
abilities, in tampering with religion, morality, and politics, — in
trimming between his convenience and his conscience, — in crawl-
ing between heaven and earth, and trying to cajole both. His
celebrated and popular work on Moral Philosophy, is celebrated
and popular for no other reason, than that it is a somewhat inge-
nious and amusing apology for existing abuses of every description,
by which any thing is to be got. It is a very elaborate and con-
solatory elucidation of the text, that men should not quarrel with
their bread and butter. It is not an attempt to show what is
right, but to palliate and find out plausible excuses for what is
wrong. It is a work without the least value, except as a conve-
nient common-place book or vade mecum, for tyro politicians
and young divines, to smooth their progress in the Church or the
State. This work is a text-book in the University : its morality
is the acknowledged morality of the House of Commons. The
Lords are above it. They do not affect that sort of casuistry,
by which the country gentlemen contrive to oblige the Ministers,
and to reconcile themselves to their constituents.
299
ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER.
" Priests were the first deluders of mankind,
Who with vain faitli made all their reason blind ;
Not Lucifer himself more proud than they,
And yet persuade the world they must obey ;
Of avarice and luxury complain,
And practise all the vices they arraign.
Riches and honour tliey from laymen reap,
And with dull crambo feed the silly sheep.
As Killigrew buffoons his master, they
Droll on their god, but a much duller way.
With hocus pocus, and their heavenly light,
They gain on tender consciences at night.
Whoever has an over zealous wife,
Becomes the priest's Amphitrio during life."
Marvel's State Poems.
(CONCLCDED.)
February!, 1818.
This then is the secret of ihe alliance between Church and
State — make a man a tool and a hypocrite in one respect, and
he will make himself a slave and a pander in every other, that
you can make it worth his while. Those who make a regular
traffic of their belief in religion, will not be backward to com-
promise their sentiments in what relates to the concerns between
man and man. He who is in the habit of affronting his Maker
with solemn mockeries of faith, as the means of a creditable live-
lihood, will not bear the testimony of a good conscience before
men, if he finds it a losing concern. The principle of integrity
is gone ; the patriotism of the religious sycophant is rotten at
the core. Hence we find that the Established Clergy of all
religions have been the most devoted tools of power. Priest-
craft and Despotism have gone hand in hand — have stood and
fallen together. It is this that makes them so fond and loving ;
so pious and so loyal ; so ready to play the Court-game into one
another's hands, and so firmly knit and leagued together against
300
the rights and liberties of mankind. Thus Mr. Southey sings
in laureat strains : —
'* One fate attends the altar and the throne."
Yet the same peremptory versifier qualifies the Church of Rome
with the epithets of *' that Harlot old, —
" The same that is, that was, and is to be," —
without giving us to understand whether in Popish countries,
the best and most " single-hearted " portion of Europe, the same
lofty and abstracted doctrine holds good. This uncivil laureat
has indeed gone so far in one of his " songs of delight and rus-
tical roundelays," as to give the Princess Charlotte the following
critical advice : —
<* Bear thou that great Eliza in thy mind.
Who from a wreck this fabric edified,
And her who, to a nation's voice kesigneo,
When Rome in hope her wiliest engines plied,
By her own heart and righteous Heav'n approved.
Stood up against the Father whom she lov'd."
These lines seem to glance at contingent rebellion, at speculative
treason : they have a squint, a strong cast of the eye, that way.
But it is neither our business nor inclination to point out pas-
sages in prose or verse, for the animadversion of the Attorney-
General. Mr. Croker, we fear, however, must have been
greatly scandalised at this specimen of his friend's original
mode of thinking for himself in such delicate matters as the
cashiering of Kings and encouraging their daughters, as in duty
bound, to stand up against them whenever Mr. Southey pleases.
Laiince could not have been more put to it when his dog misbe-
haved " among the gentlemanlike dogs at the Duke's table."
than the Admiralty Secretary at this faux-pas of Mr. Southey 's
reformed Jacobin Muse. It was shewing the lady's breeding
to some purpose. This gratuitous piece of advice to a Protest-
301
ant Princess is, however, just the reverse of that which Cardinal
Wolsey gave to a Popish ruler of these realms, Henry VIII.,
before thut Monarch saw reason to change his religious principles
for a wife, as Mr. Souihey has changed his political ones for
a pension. The Cardinal was almost as wise a man in his
generation as Mr. Souihey is in his ; saw as far into reasons of
slate, and charged by anticipation all the evils of anarchy and
rebellion since his lime on that very Protestant religion, which
the modern courtier under the Protestant succession considers as
the only support of passive obedience and non-resistance. Ca-
vendish, in his Memoirs, in the Harleian Miscellany, makes
Wolsey on his death-bed give this testamentary advice to his
Sovereign : — " And, Master Kingston, I desire you further to
request his Grace, in God's name, that he have a vigilant eye to
suppress the hellish Lutherans, that they increase not through
his great negligence, in such a sort as to be compelled to take up
arms to subdue them, as the King of Bohemia was ; whose
commons being infected with Wickliff's heresies, the King was
forced to take that course. Let him consider the story of King
Richard the Second, the second son of his progenitor, who lived
in the time of Wickliff's seditions and heresies : did not the
commons, 1 pray you, in his time, rise against the nobility and
chief governors of this realm ; and at the last, some of them were
put to death without justice or mercy ? And, under pretence of
having all things common, did they not fall to spoiling and rob-
bing, and at last took the King's person, and carried him about
the city, making him obedient to their proclamations ? " — [The
author of fVat Tyler has given a very different version of this
story.] — " Did not also the traitorous heretick. Sir John Old-
castle, Lord Cobham, pitch a field with hereticks against King
Henry the Fourth, where the King was in person, and fought
against them, to whom God gave the victory ? Alas ! if these
be not plain precedents and sufficient persuasions to admonish a
Prince, then God will take away from us our present rulers,
and leave us to the hands of our enemies. And then will ensue
302
mischief upon mischief, inconveniences, barrenness, and scarcity,
for want of good orders in the commonwealth, from which
God of his tender mercy defend us." — Harleian MiscelL vol. iv.
p. 556.
The dying Cardinal might here be supposed to have foreseen
the grand Rebellion, the glorious Revolution of 1688, the ex-
pulsion of the Stuarts, and the Protestant ascendancy, the
American and the French Revolutions — as all growing out of
Wickliff's heresy, and the doctrines of the hellish Lutherans.
Our laurel-honouring laureat cannot see all this after it has hap-
pened. Wolsey was a prophet ; he is only a poet. Wolsey
knew (and so would any man but a poet), that to allow men free-
dom of opinion in matters of religion, was to make them free in
all other things. Mr. Southey, who raves in favour of the Bour-
bons and against the Pope, is " blind with double darkness."
He will assuredly never find that " single-heartedness " which he
seeks, but in the bosom of the Church of Rome.
One mischief of this alliance between Church and State
(which the old-fashioned Statesman understood so thoroughly
and the modern sciolist only by halves) is, that it is tacit and
covert. The Church does not profess to take any active share
in affairs of State, and by this means is able to forward all the
designs of indirect and crooked policy more effectually and with-
out suspicion. The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.
There is nothing so much to be guarded against as the wolf in
sheep's clothing. The Clergy pretend to be neutral in all such
matters, not to meddle with politics. But that is, and always
must be, a false pretence. Those that are not with us, are
against us, is a maxim that always holds true. These pious
pastors of the people and accomplices of the government make
use of their heavenly calling and demure professions of meekness
and humility, as an excuse for never committing themselves on
the side of the people ; but the same sacred and spiritual cha-
racter, not to be sullied by mixing with worldly concerns, does not
hinder them from employing all their arts and influence on the
303
side of power and of their own interest. Their religion is incom-
patible with a common regard to justice or humanity; but it is
compatible with an excess of courtly zeal. The officiating
Clergyman at Derby the other day pestered Brandreth to death
with importunities to inform against his associates, but put his
hand before his mouth when he offered to say what he knew of
Oliver, the Government-spy. This is not exactly as it should
be ; but it cannot be otherwise than it is. Priests are naturally
favourers of power, inasmuch as they are dependent on it. —
Their power over the mind is hardly sufficient of itself to insure
absolute obedience to their authority, without a reinforcement
of power over the body. The secular arm must come in aid of
the spiritual. The law is necessary to compel the payment of
tythes. Kings and conquerors make laws, parcel out lands, and
erect churches and palaces for the priests and dignitaries of re-
ligion : " they will have them to shew their mitred fronts in
Courts and Parliaments ; " and in return. Priests anoint Kings
with holy oil, hedge them round with inviolability, spread over
them the mysterious sanctity of religion, and, with very little
ceremony, make over the whole species as slaves to these Gods
upon earth by virtue of divine right ! This is no losing trade.
It aggrandizes those who are concerned in it, and is death to the
rest of the world. It is a solemn league and covenant fully
ratified and strictly carried into effect, to the very letter, in all
countries. Pagan, Mahommedan, and Christian, — except this.
It is time to put an end to it every where. But those who are
pledged to its support, and " by this craft have their wealth,"
have unfortunately remained of one opinion, quite " single-
hearted " from the beginning of the world : those who, like Mr.
Southey, are for separating the Man of Sin from the Scarlet
Whore, change their opinions once every five and twenty years.
Need we wonder at the final results ? Kings and priests are
not such coxcombs or triflers as poets and philosophers.
The two last are always squabbling about their share of reputa-
tion -J the two first amicably divide the spoil. It is the opinion,
304
we understand, of an eminent poet and a minute philosopher of
the present day, that the press ought to be shackled, — severely
shackled ; and particularly that the Edinburgh Review, the
Examiner, and the Yellow Dwarf, as full of Examiner isms ^
ought to be instantly put down. Another poet or philosopher,
who has not been so severely handled in these works, thinks
differently ; and so do we. Nay, Mr. himself has been
a long time in coming to this opinion ; and no wonder, for he
had a long way to come in order to arrive at it. But all the
Kings that ever were, and ninety-nine out of a hundred of all
the Priests that surround them, jump at this conclusion con-
cerning the fatal consequences of the Liberty of the Press —
by instmct. We have never yet seen that greatest calamity that
can befal mankind, deprecated by Mr. Burke, namely, literary
men acting in corps, and making common cause for the benefit
of mankind, as another description of persons act in concert
and make common cause against them. He himself was an in-
stance how little need be dreaded in this way. If the National
Assembly had sent for Burke over, to assist in framing a Con-
stitution for them, this traitor to liberty and apostate from prin-
ciple, instead of loading the French Revolution with every
epithet of obloquy and execration which his irritable vanity
and mercenary malice could invent, would have extolled it to
the skies, as the highest monument of human happiness and
wisdom. But the genius of philosophy, as he said, is not yet
known. It is a subject which we shall shortly endeavour to
make clear.
" At this day
When a Tartarean darkness overspreads
The groaning nations ; when the impious rule,
By will or by established ordinance,
Their own dire agents, and constrain the good
To acts which they abhor ; though I bewail
This triumph, yet the pity of my heart
Prevents me not from owning that the law,
By which mankind now suffers, is most just,
305
For BY SUPERIOR energies; more strict
Affivnce with e.vch other; faith more firm
In their unhallowed principles; the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good."
Wordsworth.
In another point of view, Priests are a sort of women in the
State, and naturally subject to the higher powers. The Church
has no means of temporal advancement but through the interest
and countenance of the State. It receives what the other is
pleased to allow it as a mark of friendship, out of the public
purse. The Clergy do not engage in active or lucrative profes-
sions : they are occupied with praise and prayer, and the salva-
tion of souls — with heaping up for themselves treasures in
heaven, and wrath upon their enemies' heads against the day of
judgment. The candidate for Church preferment must there-
fore look for it as a free gift at the hands of the great and
powerful ; he must win his way to wealth and honours by " the
sufferance of supernal power." The Church can only hope for
a comfortable establishment in the world by finding favour, as
a handmaid, in the eye of the State : the Church must wed the
State, both for protection and a maintenance. The preacher of
God's word looks for his reward in heaven, but he must live
in the mean time. But he is precluded by his cloth and his
spiritual avocations from getting on in the world by the usual
means of interest or ambition. His only hope of advancement
lies in the Bishop's blessing and his patron's smile. These may
in time translate him to a vacant diocese of 10,000/. a year. His
labours in the cure of souls, or the settling the most difficult
point of controversial divinity, would not, on an average calcu-
lation, bring him in a 100/. Parson Adams could not dispose
of his manuscript sermons to the booksellers ; and he ruined his
hopes of preferment with Lady Booby, by refusing to turn pimp.
Finally, the Clergy are lovers of abstract power, for tliey are
themselves the representatives of almighty power : they are am~
X
306
bassadors of religion, delegates of heaven. The authority under
which they act is not always respected so readily, cordially, and
implicitly, as it ought lo be, and they are indignant at the neglect.
They become tetchy and imperious, and mingle the irritability
of self-love with their zeal for the honour of God. They are
not backward to call for fire from heaven, and to put down the
Atheist and the Schismatic by the strong hand of power. Fear
God and honour the King, is the motto of priestcraft ; but it
is not a sound logical dilemma, for this reason, that God is
always the same; but Kings are of all sorts, good, bad, or in-
different — wise, or mad, or foolish— arbitrary tyrants, or con-
stitutional Monarchs, like our own. The rule is absolute in the
first case, not in the second. But the Clergy, by a natural
infirmity, are disposed to force the two into a common analogy.
They are servants of God by profession, and sycophants of
power from necessity. They delight to look up with awe to
Kings, as to another Providence. It was a Bishop, in the reign
of James I. who drew a parallel between " their divine and
sacred Majesties," meaning the pitiful tyrant whom he served,
and God Almighty : yet the Attorney-General of that day did
not prosecute him for blasphemy. The Clergy fear God more
than they love him. They think more of his power than of his
wisdom or goodness. They would make Kings Gods upon
earth ; and as they cannot clothe them with the wisdom or
beneficence of the Deity, would arm them with his power at
any rate.*
* " And for the Bishops (in Edward VI.'s days), they were so far from any
such worthy attempts, as that they suffered themselves to be the common
stales to countenance, with their prostituted gravities, every politick fetch
that was then on foot, as oft as the potent Statists pleased to employ them.
Never do we read that they made use of their authority, and high place of
access, to bring the jarring nobility to Christian peace, or to withstand their
disloyal projects ; but if a toleration for Mass were to be begged of the
King for his sister Mary, lest Charles the Fifth should be angry, who but the
grave prelates, Cranmer and Ridley, must be sent to extort it from the young
King! But out of the month of that godly and royal child, Clirist himself
307
JVHJT IS THE PEOPLE'^
March 1, 1S18.
— And who are you that ask the question? One of the people.
And yet you would be something ! Then you would not have
the People nothing. For what is the People ? Millions of
men, like you, with hearts beating in their bosoms, with thoughts
stirring in their minds, with the blood circulating in their veins,
with wants and appetites, and passions and anxious cares, and
busy purposes and affections for others and a respect for them-
selves, and a desire oi happiness, and a right to freedom, and a
will to be free. And yet you would tear out this mighty heart
of a nation, and lay it bare and bleeding at the foot of despotism :
you would slay the mind of a country to fill up the dreary aching
void with the old, obscene, drivelling prejudices of superstition
and tyranny : you would tread out the eye of Liberty (the light
of nations) like " a vile jelly," that mankind may be led about
darkling to its endless drudgery, like the Hebrew Sampson
(shorn of his strength and blind), by his insulting taskmasters :
you would make the throne every thing, and the people nothing,
to be yourself less than nothing, a very slave, a reptile, a creep-
ing, cringing sycophant, a court favourite, a pander to Legiti-
macy — that detestable fiction, which would make you and me
and all mankind its slaves or victims ; which would, of right
and with all the sanctions of religion and morality, sacrifice the
lives of millions to the least of its caprices ; which subjects the
rights, the happiness, and liberty of nations, to the will of some
of the lowest of the species ; which rears its bloated hideous
form to brave the will of a whole people ; that claims mankind
as its property, and allows human nature to exist only upon
sufferance; that haunts the understanding like a frightful spectre,
returned such an awful repulse to those haltiug and time-serving Prelates,
that, after mucli importunity they went their way, not without shame and
tears." Milton — Of R^ormation in England^ and the Causes that have hitfierto
hindered it.
X 2
308
and oppresses the very air with a weight that is not to be borne ;
that like a witch's spell covers the earth with a dim and envious
mist, and makes us turn our eyes from the light of heaven, which
we have no right to look at without its leave : robs us of " the
unbonght grace of life," the pure delight and conscious pride in
works of art or nature ; leaves us no thought or feeling that we
dare call our own ; makes genius its lacquey, and virtue its easy
prey ; sports with human happiness, and mocks at human misery ;
suspends the breath of liberty, and almost of life ; exenterates
us of our affections, blinds our understandings, debases our
imaginations, converts the very hope of emancipation from its
yoke into sacrilege, binds the successive countless generations of
men together in its chains like a string of felons or galley-slaves,
lest they should " resemble the flies of a summer," considers
any remission of its absolute claims as a gracious boon, an act
of royal clemency and favour, and confounds all sense of justice,
reason, truth, liberty, humanity, in one low servile deathlike
dread of power without limit and without remorse ! *
Such is the old doctrine of Divine Right, new-vamped up un-
der the style and title of Legitimacy. " Fine word, Legitimate ! "
We wonder where our English politicians picked it up. Is it
an echo from the tomb of the martyred monarch, Charles the
First ? Or was it the last word which his son, James the Se-
cond, left behind him in his flight, and bequeathed with his
abdication, to his legitimate successors? It is not written in
our annals in the years J688, in 1715, or 1745. It was not
sterling then, which was only fifteen years before his present
Majesty's accession to the throne. Has it become so since ? Is
the Revolution of 1688 at length acknowledged to be a blot in
the family escutcheon of the Prince of Orange or the Elector
of Hanover ? Is the choice of the people, which raised them to
the throne, found to be the only flaw in their title to the suc-
* This passage is uearly a repetition of what was said before ; but as it
contains the sum and substance of all I have ever said on such subjects,
1 have let it stand.
.309
cession ; the weight of royal gratitude growing more uneasy \\ ith
the distance of the obUgation ? Is the alloy of liberty, mixed up
with it, thought to debase that fine carat, which should compose
the regal diadem ? Are the fire-new specimens of the principles
of the Right-Liners, and of Sir Robert Filmer's patriarchal
scheme, to be met with in The Courier, The Day, The Sun,
and some time back, in The Times, handed about to be admired
in the highest circle, like the new gold coinage of sovereigns and
half-sovereigns? We do not know, it may seem to be Latter
Lammas with the doctrine at this time of day ; but better late
than never. By taking root iu the soil of France, from which it
was expelled (not quite so long as from our own), it may in
time stretch out its feelers and strong suckers to this country ;
and present an altogether curious and novel aspect, by ingrafting
the principles of the House of Stuart on the illustrious stock of
the House of Brunswick.
•' Miratnrque novas frondes, et non sua poma."
What then is the People ? We will answer first, by saying
what it is not; and this we cannot do better than in the
words of a certain author, whose testimony on the subject is
too important not to avail ourselves of it again in this place.
That infatuated drudge of despotism, who at one moment asks,
" Where is the madman that maintains the doctrine of divine
right?" and the next affirms, that " Louis XVllL has the
same right to the throne of France, independently of his merits
or conduct, that Mr, Coke of Norfolk has to his estate at
Holkham,"* has given us a tolerable clue to what we have to
* What is tlie amount of this right of Mr. Coke's? It is not greater than
that of the Lords Balmeriuo ani Lovatt to their estates in Scotland, or to the
heads upon their shoulders, the one of which however were forfeited, and tlie
other stuck upon Temple Bar, for maintaining, in theory and practice, tliat
James II. had the same right to the throne of these realms, independently
of his merits or conduct, that Mr. Coke has to his estate at Holkham. .So
thought they. So did not think George II.
310
expect from that mild paternal sway to which he would so kindly
make us and the rest of the world over, in hopeless perpetuity.
In a violent philippic against the author of the Political Register ,
he thus inadvertently expresses himself: — " Mr. Cobbett had
been sentenced to two years imprisonment for a libel, and during
the time that he was in Newgate, it was discovered that he had
been in treaty with Government to avoid the sentence passed
upon him ; and that he had proposed to certain of the agents
of Ministers, that if they would let him off, they might make
what future use they pleased of him ; he zoouhl entirely/ betray
the cause of the people ; he would either write or not write, or
write against them, as he had once done before, just as Minis-
ters thought proper. To this, however, it was replied, that
" Cobbett had written on too many sides already to be worth a
groat for the service of Government ; " and he accordingly
suffered his confinement ! " — We here then see plainly enough
what it is that, in the opinion of this very competent judge, alone
renders any writer " worth a groat for the service of Govern-
ment," viz. that be shall be able and willing entirely to betray
the cause of the people. It follows from this principle (by
which he seems to estimate the value of his lucubrations in the
service of Government — we do not know whether the Govern-
ment judge of them in the same way), that the cause of the
people and the cause of the Government, who are represented as
thus anxious to suborn their creatures to write against the people,
are not the same but the reverse of one another. This slip of
the pen in our professional retainer of legitimacy, though a libel
on our own Government, is, notwithstanding, a general philo-
sophic truth (the only one he ever hit upon), and an axiom in
political mechanics, which we shall make the text of the follow-
ing commentary.
What are the interests of the people? Not the interests
of those who would betray them. Who is to judge of those
interests? Not those who would suborn others to betray them.
That Government is instituted for the benefit of the governed,
311
there can be little doubt; but the interests of the Government
(when once it becomes absolute and independent of the people)
must be directly at variance with those of the governed. The
interests of the one are common and equal rights: of the other,
exclusive and invidious privileges. The essence of the first is to
be shared ahke by all, and to benefit the community in proportion
as they are spread : the essence of the last is to be destroyed by
communication, and to subsist only — in wrong of the people.
Rights and privileges are a contradiction in terms : for if one has
more than his right, others must have less. The latter are the
deadly nightshade of the commonwealth, near which no whole-
some plant can thrive, — the ivy clinging round the trunk of the
British oak, blighting its Verdure, drying up its sap, and oppress-
ing its stately growth. The insufficient checks and balances op-
posed to the overbearing influence of hereditary rank and power
in our own Constitution, and in every Government which retains
the least trace of freedom, are so many illustrations of this prin-
ciple, if it needed any. The tendency in arbitrary power to en-
croach upon the liberties and comforts of the people, and to
convert the public good into a stalking-horse to its own pride and
avarice, has never (that we know) been denied by any one but
" the professional gentleman," who writes in The Day and New
Times. The great and powerful, in order to be what they aspire
to be, and what this gentleman would have them, perfectly inde-
pendent of the will of the people, ought also to be perfectly inde-
pendent of the assistance of the people. To be formally invested
with the attributes of Gods upon earth, they ought first to be
raised above its petty wants and appetites: they ought to give
proofs of the beneficence and wisdom of Gods, before they can
be trusted with the power. When we find them seated above
the world, sympathizing with the welfare, but not feeling the
passions of men, receiving neither good nor hurt, neither tilth
nor tythe from them, but bestowing their benefits as free gifts on
all, they may then be expected, but not till then, to rule over us
like another Providence. We may make them a present of all
312
the taxes they do not apply to their own use : they are perfectly
welcome to all the power, to the possession of which they are
perfectly indifferent, and to the abuse of which they can have no
possible teniptation. But Legitimate Governments (flatter them
as we will) are not another Heathen mythology. They are nei-
ther so cheap nor so splendid as the Delphin edition of Ovid's
Metamorphoses. They are indeed " Gods to punish," but in
other respects " men of our infirmity." They do not feed on
ambrosia or drink nectar ; but live on the common fruits of the
earth, of which they get the largest share, and the best. The
wine they drink is made of grapes : the blood they shed is that of
their subjects : the laws they make are not against themselves :
the taxes they vote, they afterwards devour. They have the same
wants that we have : and having the option, very naturally help
themselves first, out of the common stock, without thinking that
others are to come after them. With the same natural necessi-
ties, they have a thousand artificial ones besides ; and with a
thousand times the means to gratify them, they are still voracious,
importunate, unsatisfied. Our State-paupers have their hands
in every man's dish, and fare sumptuously every day. They livie
in palaces, and loll in coaches. In spite of Mr. Mallhus, their
studs of horses consume the produce of our fields, their dog-ken-
nels are glutted with the food which would maintain the children
of the poor. They cost us so much a year in dress and furniture,
so much in stars and garters, blue ribbons, and grand crosses, —
so much in diimers, breakfasts, and suppers, and so much in
suppers, breakfasts, and dinners.* These heroes of the Income-
tax, Worthies of the Civil List, Saints of the Court-calendar
(compugnons du lys), have their naturals and non-naturals, like
the rest of the world, but at a dearer rate. They are real bona
fide personages, and do not live upon air. You will find it easier
to keep them a week than a month ; and at the end of that time,
waking from the sweet dream of Legitimacy, you may say with
* See the description of Gargantua in Rabelais,
313
Caliban, *' Why, what a fool was I to take this drunken nionstei
for a God !" In fact, the case on the part of the people is so far
self-evident. There is but a limited earth and a limited fertility
to supply the demands both of Government and people; and what
the one gains in the division of the spoil, beyond its average pro-
portion, the other must needs go without. Do you suppose that
our gentlemen-placemen and pensioners would suffer so many
wretches to be perishing in our streets and highways, if they could
relieve their extreme misery without pnting with any of their
own superfluities ? If the Government take a fourth of the pro-
duce of the poor man's labour, they will be rich, and he will be
in want. If they can contrive to take one half of it by legal
means, or by a stretch of arbitrary power, they will be just twice
as rich, twice as insolent and tyrannical, and he will be twice as
poor, twice as miserable and oppressed, in a mathematical ratio
to the end of the chapter, that is, till the one can extort and the
other endure no more. It is the same with respect to power.
The will and passions of the great are not exerted in regulating
the seasons, or rolling the planets round their orbits for our good,
without fee or reward, but in controling the will and passions of
others, in making the follies and vices of mankind subservient to
their own, and marring,
" Because men suffer it, their toy, the world."
This is self-evident, like the former. Their will cannot be para-
mount, while any one in the community, or the whole community
together, has the power to thwart it. A King cannot attain ab-
solute power, while the people remain perfectly free ; yet what
King would not attain absolute power.'' While any trace of li-
berty is left among a people, ambitious Princes will never be
easy, never at peace, never of sound mind ; nor will they ever
rest or leave one stone unturned, till they have succeeded in de-
stroying the very name of liberty, or making it into a by-word,
and in rooting out the germs of every popular right and liberal
principle from a soil once sacred to liberty. It is not enough
k
314
that they have secured the vvliole power of the state in their hands,
— that they cany every measure they please without the chance
of an effectual opposition to it : but a word uttered against it is
torture to their ears, — a thought that questions their wanton ex-
ercise of the royal prerogative rankles in their breasts like poison.
Till all distinctions of right and wrong, liberty and slavery, hap-
piness and misery, are looked upon as matters of indifference, or
as saucy, insolent pretensions, — are sunk and merged in their idle
caprice and pampered self-will, they will still feel themselves
" cribbed, confined, and cabin'd in :" but if they can once more
set up the doctrine of Legitimacy, " the right divine of Kings to
govern wrong," and set mankind at defiance with impunity, they
will then be " broad and casing as the general air, whole as the
rock." This is the point from which they set out, and to which
by the grace of God and the help of man they may return again.
Liberty is short and fleeting, a transient grace that lights upon the
earth by stealth and at long intervals —
" Like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid tiie storm ;
Or like the Borealis race,
That shift ere yon can point their place ;
Or like the snow falls in tlie river,
A moment white, then melts for ever."
But power is eternal ; it is " enthroned iu the hearts of Kings."
If you want the proofs, look at history, look at geography, look
abroad ; but do not look at home !
The power of an arbitrary King or an aspiring Minister does
not increase with the liberty of the subject, but must be circun)-
scribed by it. It is aggrandized by perpetual, systematic, insi-
dious, or violent encroachments on popular freedom and natural
right, as the sea gains upon the land by swallowing it up. — What
then can we expect from the mild paternal sway of absolute
power, and its sleek minions? What the world has always re-
ceived at its hands, an abuse of power as vexatious, cowardly,
and unrelenting, as the power itself was unprincipled, prepos-
315
terous, and unjust. They who get wealth and power from the
people, who drive them like cattle to slaughter or to market,
*' and levy cruel wars, wasting the earth ;" they who wallow in
luxury, while the people are " steeped in poverty to the very
lips," and bowed to the earth with unremitting labour, can have
but httle sympathy with those whose loss of liberty and property
is their gain. What is it that the wealth of thousands is composed
of? The tears, the sweat, and blood of millions. What is it
that constitutes the glory of the Sovereigns of the earth ? To
have millions of men their slaves. Wherever the Government
does not emanate (as in our own excellent Constitution) from the
people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps,
the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised
by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be
hatred to the people. Kings who would be thought to reign in
contempt of the people, will shew their contempt of them in
every act of their lives. Parliaments, not chosen by the people,
will only be the instruments of Kings, who do not reign in the
hearts of the people, " to betray the cause of the people." Mi-
nisters, not responsible to the people, will squeeze the last shilling
out of them. Charity begins at home, is a maxim as true of
Governments as of individuals. When the English Parliament
insisted on its right of taxing the Americans without their consent,
it was not from an apprehension that the Americans would, by
being left to themselves, lay such heavy duties on iheir own pro-
duce and manufactures, as would afflict the generosity of the
mother-country, and put the mild paternal sentiments of Lord
North to ihe blush. U any future King of England should keep
a wistful eye on the map of that country, it would rather be to
hang it up as a trophy of legitimacy, and to " punish the last suc-
cessful example of a democratic rebellion/' than from any yearn-
ings of fatherly goodwill to the American people, or from finding
bis " large heart" and capacity for good government, " confined
in too narrow room" in the united kingdoms of Great Britain,
Ireland, and Hanover. If Ferdinand VI 1. refuses the South
316
American patriots leave to plant the olive or the vine, throughout
that vast continent, it is his pride, not his humanity, that steels
his royal resolution.*
In 1781, the Controller-general of France, under Louis XVf.
Monsieur Joli de Fleuri, defined the people of France to be im
peuple serf, corveable et bai/lable, a merci et misericorde. When
Louis XVIIL as the Count de Lille, protested aganist his bro-
ther's accepting the Constitution of 1792 (he has since become
an accepter of Constitutions himself, if not an observer of them,)
as compromising the rights and privileges of the noblesse and
clergy as well as of the crown, he was right in considering the
Bastile, or " King's castle," with the picturesque episode of the
Man in the Iron Mask, the fifteen thousand leltres de cachet,
issued in the mild reign of Louis XV., corvees, tythes, game-
laws, holy water, the right of pillaging, imprisoning, massacring,
persecuting, harassing, insulting, and ingeniously tormenting the
minds and bodies of the whole French people at every moment of
xaeir lives, on every possible pretence, and without any check or
control but their own mild paternal sentiments towards them, as
among the menus plaisirs, the chief points of etiquette, the im-
memorial privileges, and favourite amusements of Kings, Priests,
and Nobles, from the beginning to the end of time, without
which the bare title of King, Priest, or Noble, would not have
been worth a groat.
The breasts of Kings and Courtiers then are not the safest de-
pository of the interests of the people. But they know best what
is for their good ! Yes — to prevent it ! The people may indeed
feel their grievance, but their betters, it is said, must apply the
remedy — which they take good care never to do ! If the people
* The Government of Ovando, a Spanish Grandee and Knight of Alcantara,
who had been sent over to Mexico soon after its conquest, exceeded in trea-
chery, cruelty, wanton bloodshed, and deliberate extortion, that of all those
who had preceded him ; and the complaints became so loud, that Queen Isabel
on her death-bed requested that he might be recalled; but Ferdinand found that
Ovando had sent home much gold, and he retained him in his situation. — See
Capt, Burney's History of the Buccaneers,
317
want judgment in their own affairs (which is not certain, for they
only meddle with their own affairs when they are forcibly brought
home to them in a way which they can hardly misunderstand),
this is at any rate better than the want of sincerity, which would
constantly and systematically lead their superiors to betray those
interests, from their having other ends of their own to serve. It
is better to trust to ignorance than to malice — to run the risk of
sometimes miscalculating the odds than to play against loaded
dice. The people would in this way stand as little chance in de-
fending their purses or iheir persons against Mr. C or
Lord C , as an honest country gentleman would have
had in playing at put or hazard with Count Fathom or Jonathan
Wild. A certain degree of folly, or rashness, or indecision, or
even violence in attaining an object, is surely less to be dreaded
than a malignant, deliberate, mercenary intention in others to
deprive us of it. If the people must have attorneys, and the ad-
vice of counsel, let them have attorneys and counsel of their own
chasing, not those who are employed by special retainer against
them, or who regularly hire others to betray their cause.
" O silly sheep,
Come ye to seek the lamb here of the wolf?"
This then is the cause of the people, the good of the people,
judged of by common feeling and public opinion. Mr. Burke
contemptuously defines the people to be " any faction that at the
lime can get the power of the sword into its hands." No: that
may be a description of the Government, but it is not of the
people. The people is the hand, heart, and head of the whole
community acting to one purpose, and with a mutual and thorough
consent. The hand of the people so employed to execute what
the heart feels, and the head thinks, must be employed more
beneficially for the cause of the people, than in executing any
measures which the cold hearts, and contriving heads of any fac-
tion, with distinct privileges and interests, may dictate to betray
their cause. The will of the people necessarily tends to the ge-
318
neral good as its end ; and it must attain that end, and can only
attain it, in proportion as it is guided — First, by popular feeling,
as arising out of the immediate wants and wishes of the great
mass of the people,^-secondly, by public opinion, as arising out
of the impartial reason and enlightened intellect of the commu-
nity. What is it that determines the opinion of any number of
persons in things they actually feel in their practical and home
results ? Their common interest. What is it that determines
their opinion in things of general inquiry, beyond their immediate
experience or interest ? Abstract reason. In matters of feeling
and common sense, of which each individual is the best judge,
the majority are in the right; in things requiring a greater strength
of mind to comprehend them, the greatest power of understand-
ing will prevail, if it has but fair play. These two, taken toge-
ther, as the test of the practical measures or general principles of
Government, must be right, cannot be wrong. It is an absur-
dity to suppose that there can be any better criterion of national
grievances, or the proper remedies for them, than the aggregate
amount of the actual, dear-bought experience, the honest feel-
ings, and heart-felt wishes of a whole people, informed and di-
rected by the greatest power of understanding in the community,
unbiassed by any sinister motive. Any other standard of public
good or ill must, in proportion as it deviates from this, be vitiated
in principle, and fatal in its effects. P^ox populi vox Dei, is the
rule of all good Government : for in that voice, truly collected
and freely expressed (not when it is made the servile echo of a
corrupt Court, or a des^ning Minister), we have all the sincerity
and all the wisdom of the community. If we could suppose
society to be transformed into one great animal (like Hobbes's
Leviathan), each member of which had an intimate connexion
with the head or Government, so that every want or intention of
every individual in it could be made known and have its due weight,
the State would have the same consciousness of its own wants
and feelings, and the same intere.n in providing for them, as an
individual has with respect to his own welfare. Can any one
319
doubt that such a state of society in which the greatest knowledge
of its interests was thus combined with the greatest sympathy with
its wants, would realize the idea of a perfect Commonwealth ?
But such a Government would be the precise idea of a truly po-
pular or representative Government. The opposite extreme is
the purely hereditary and despotic form of Government, where
the people are an inert, torpid mass, without the power, scarcely
with the will, to make its wants or wishes known : and where the
feelings of those who are at the head of the State, centre in their
own exclusive interests, pride, passions, prejudices ; and all their
thoughts are employed in defeating the happiness and undermining
the liberties of a country.
WHAT IS THE PEOPLE?
(concluded.)
3IarcJi 14, 1818.
It is not denied that the people are best acquainted with their
own wants, and most attached to their own interests. But then
a question is started, as if the persons asking it were at a great
loss for the answer, — Where are we to find the intellect of the
people ? Why, all the intellect that ever was is theirs. The
public opinion expresses not only the collective sense of the whole
people, but of all ages and nations, of all those minds that have
devoted themselves to the love of truth and the good of mankind,
— who have bequeathed their instructions, their hopes, and their
example to posterity, — who have thought, spoke, written, acted,
and suffered in the name and on the behalf of our common na-
ture. All the greatest poets, sages, heroes, are ours originally,
and by right. But surely Lord Bacon was a great man ? Yes ;
but not because he was a lord. There is nothing of hereditary
growth but pride and prejudice. That " tine word Legitimate"
never produced any thing but bastard philosophy and patriotism !
Even Burke was one of the people, and would have remained
320
with the people to the last, if there had been no court-side for
him to go over to. The King gave him his pension, not his un-
derstanding or his eloquence. It would have been better for him
and for mankind if he had kept to his principles, and gone with-
out his pension. It is thus that the tide of power constantly set-
ting in against the people, swallows up natural genius and acquired
knowledge in the vortex of corruption, and then they reproach
us with our want of leaders of weight and influence, to stem the
torrent. All that has ever been done for society, has, however,
been done for it by this intellect, before it was cheapened to be
a cat's-paw of divine right. All discoveries and all improvements
in arts, in science, in legislation, in civilization, in every thing
dear and valuable to the heart of man, have been made by this
intellect — all the triumphs of human genius over the rudest bar-
barism, the darkest ignorance, the grossest and most inhuman
superstition, the most unmitigated and remorseless tyranny, have
been gained for themselves by the people. Great Kings, great
law-givers, great founders, and great reformers of religion, have
almost all arisen from among the people. What have hereditary
Monarchs, or regular Governments, or established priesthoods,
ever done for the people ? Did the Pope and Cardinals first set
on foot the Reformation ? Did the Jesuits attempt to abolish
the Inquisition ? For what one measure of civil or religious
liberty did our own Bench of Bishops ever put themselves for-
ward ? What judge ever proposed a reform in the laws ! Have
not the House of Commons, with all their " tried wisdom," voted
for every measure of Ministers for the last twenty-five years, ex-
cept the Income-tax ? It is the press that has done every thing
for the people, and even for Governments. — " If they had not
ploughed with our heifer, they would not have found out our
riddle." And it has done this by slow degrees, by repeated, in-
cessant, and incredible struggles with the oldest, most inveterate,
powerful, and active enemies of the freedom of the press and of
the people, who wish, in spite of the nature of things and of
society, to retain the idle and mischievous privileges they possess
321
as the relics of barbarous and feudal times, who have an exclusive
interest as a separate cast in the continuance of all existing abuses,
and who plead a permanent vested right in the prevention of the
progress of reason, liberty, and civilization. Yet they tax us
with our want of intellect ; and we ask them in return for their
court- list of great names in arts or philosophy, for the coats of
arms of iheir heroic vanquishers of error and intolerance, for
their devout benefactors and royal martyrs of humanity. What
are the claims of the people — the obvious, undoubted rights of
common justice and humanity, forcibly withheld from them by
pride, bigotry, and selfishness, — demanded for them, age after
age, year after year, by the wisdom and virtue of the enlightened
and disinterested part of mankind, and only grudgingly yielded up,
with indtcent, disgusting excuses, and sickening delays, when the
burning shame of their refusal can be no longer concealed by
fear of favour from the whole world. What did it not cost to
abolish the Slave Trade ? How long will the Catholic Claims
be withheld by our Stale-jugglers ? How long, and for what
purpose ? We may appeal, in behalf of the people, from the in-
terested verdict of the worst and weakest men now living, to the
disinterested reason of the best and wisest men among the living
and the dead. We appeal from the corruption of Courts, the
hypocrisy of zealots, and the dotage of hereditary imbecility, to
the innate love of liberiy in the human breast, and to the growing
intellect of the world. We appeal to the pen, and they answer
us with the point of the bayonet ; and, at one time, when that
had failed, they were for recommending the dagger.* They quote
Burke, but rely on the Attorney-General. They hold Universal
Suffrage to be the most dreadful of all things, and a Standing
Army the best representatives of the people abroad and at home.
They think Church-and-King mobs good things, for the same
reason that they are alarmed at a meeting to petition for a Reform
of Parliament. They consider the cry of " No Popery" a sound,
excellent, and constitutional cry, — but the cry of a starving popu-
* See Coleridge's " Friend," No. 15.
y
322
lation for food, strange and unnatural. They exalt the war-whoop
of the Stock Exchange into the voice of undissembled patriotism,
while they set down the cry for peace as the work of the Jacobins,
the ventriloquism of the secret enemies of their country. The
writers on the popular side of the question are factious, design-
ing demagogues, who delude the people to make tools of them :
but the government-writers, who echo every calumny, and justify
every encroachment on the people, are profound philosophers
and very honest men. Thus when Mr. John Gifford, the Editor
of the "Anti-Jacobin" (not Mr. William Gifford, who at pre-
sent holds the same office under Government, as the Editor of
the "Quarterly Review"), denounced Mr. Coleridge as a person,
who had " left his wife destitute and his children fatherless," and
proceeded to add — " Ex hoc disce his friends Lamb and Southey"
— we are to suppose that he was influenced in this gratuitous
statement purely by his love for his King and country. Loyalty,
patriotism, and religion, are regarded as the natural virtues and
plain unerring instincts of the common people : the mixture of
ignorance or prejudice is never objected to in these : it is only
their love of liberty or hatred of oppression that are discovered,
by the same liberal-minded junto, to be proofs of a base and vul-
gar disposition. The Bourbons are set over the immense majority
of the French people against their will, because a talent for
governing does not go with numbers. This argument was not
thought of when Bonaparte tried to shew his talent for governing
the people of the Continent against their will, though he had
quite as much talent as the Bourbons. Mr, Canning rejoiced
that the first successful resistance to Bonaparte was made in Rus-
sia, a country of barbarians and slaves. The heroic struggles of
" the universal Spanish nation" in the cause of freedom and inde-
pendence, have ended in the destruction of the Cortes and the
restoration of the Inquisition, but without making the Duke of
Wellington look thoughtful : — not a single renegado poet has
vented his indignation in a single ode, elegy, or sonnet ; nor does
Mr. Southey "make him a willow cabin at its gate, write loyal
323
cantos of contemned love, and sing them loud even in the dead
of the night!" He indeed assures us in the " Quarterly Review,"
that the Inquisition was restored by the voice of the Spanish peo-
ple. He also asks, in the same place, " whether the voice of
God was heard in the voice of the people at Jerusalem, when they
cried, * Crucify liim, crucify him ?' " We do not know ; but we
suppose, he would hardly go to the Chief Priests and Pharisees
to find it. This great historian, politician, and logician, breaks
out into a rhapsody against the old maxim, vox popu/i vox Dei,
in the midst of an article of 55 pages, written expressly to prove
that the last war was " the most popular, because the most just
and necessary war that ever was carried on," He shrewdly asks,
" Has the vox popuii been the vox Dei in France for the last
twenty-five years r" But, at least, according to his own shewing,
it has been so in this country for all that period. We, however,
do not think so. The voice of the country has been for war, be-
cause the voice of the King was for it, which was echoed by Par-
liament, both Lords and Commons, by Clergy and Gentry, and
by the populace, till, as Mr. Southey himself states in the same
connected chain of reasoning, the cry for war became so popular,
that all those who did not join in it (of which number the Poet-
laureate himself was one) were "persecuted, insulted, and injured
in their persons, fame, and fortune." This is the true way of ac-
counting for the fact, but it unfortunately knocks the Poet's infer-
ence on the head. Mr. Locke has observed, that there are not
so many wrong opinions in the world as we are apt to believe,
because most people take their opinions on trust from others.
Neither are the opinions of the people their own, when they have
been bribed or bullied into them by a mob of Lords and Gentle-
men, following in full cry at the heels of the Court. The vox
popuii is the vox Dei only when it springs from the individual,
unbiassed feelings, and unfettered, independent opinion of the
people. Mr. Southey does not understand the terms of this good
old adage, now that he is so furious against it : we fear, he un-
derstood them no better when he was as loudly in favour of it.
Y 2
324
AW the objections, indeed, to the voice of the people being the
best rule for Government to attend to, arise from the stops and
impediments to the expression of that voice, from the attempts
to stifle or to give it a false bias, and to cut off its free and open
communication with the head and heart of the people — by the
Government itself. The sincere expression of the feelings of the
people must be true ; the full and free development of the public
opinion must lead to truth, to the gradual discovery and diffusion
of knowledge in this, as in all other departments of human inquiry.
It is the interest of Governments in general to keep the people
in a state of vassalage as long as they can — to prevent the expres-
sion of their sentiments, and the exercise and improvement of
their understandings, by all the means in their power. They have
a patent, and a monopoly, which they do not like to have looked
into or to share with others. The argument for keeping the
people in a state of lasting wardship, or for treating them as
lunatics, incapable of self-government, wears a very suspicious
aspect, as it comes from those who are trustees to the estate, or
keepers of insane asylums. The long minority of the people
would, at this rate, never expire, while those who had an interest
had also the power to prevent them from arriving at years of dis-
cretion : their government-keepers have nothing to do but to drive
the people mad by ill-treatment, and to keep them so by worse,
in order to retain the pretence for applying the gag, the strait
waistcoat, and the whip as long as they please. It is like the
dispute between Mr. Epps, the angry shopkeeper in the Strand,
and his journeyman, whom he would restrict from setting up for
himself. Shall we never serve out our apprenticeship to liberty ?
Must our indentures to slavery bind us for life? It is well, it is
perfectly well. You teach us nothing, and you will not let us
learn. You deny us education, like Orlando's eldest brother, and
then " stying us" in the den of legitimacy, you refuse to let us
take the management of our own affairs into our own hands, or
to seek our fortunes in the world ourselves. You found a right
to treat us with indignity on the plea of your own neglect and in-
325
justice. You abuse a trust in order to make it perpetual. You
profit of our ignorance and of your own wrong. You degrade,
and then enslave us ; and by enslaving, you degrade us more, to
make us more and more incapable of ever escaping from your
selfish, sordid yoke. There is no end of this. It is the fear of
the progress of knowledge and a Reading Public, that has pro-
duced all the fuss and bustle and cant about Bell and Lancaster's
plans, Bible and Missionary, and Auxiliary and Cheap Tract
Societies, and that when it was impossible to prevent our reading
something, made the Church and State so anxious to provide us
with that sort of food for our stomachs, which they thought best.
The Bible is an excellent book ; and when it becomes the States-
man's Manual, in its precepts of charity — not of beggarly alms-
giving, but of peace on earth and good will to man, the people
may read nothing else. It reveals the glories of the world to
«ome, and records the preternatural dispensations of Providence
to mankind two thousand years ago. But it does not describe the
present state of Europe, or give an account of the measures of
the last or of the next reign, which yet it is important the people of
England should look to. We cannot learn from Moses and the
Prophets what Mr. Vansittart and the Jews are about in 'Change-
alley. Those who prescribe us the study of the miracles and
prophecies, themselves laugh to scorn the promised dehverance
of Joanna Southcott and the Millennium. Yet they would have
«s learn patience and resignation from the miraculous interposi-
tions of Providence recorded in the Scriptures. " When the sky
falls" — the proverb is somewhat musty. The worst compliment
ever paid to the Bible was the recommendation of it as a political
palliative by the Lay Preachers of the day.
To put this question in a different light, we might ask, What is
the public ? and examine what would be the result of depriving
the people of the use of their understandings in other matters as
well as government — to subject them to the trammels of prescrip-
tive prejudice and hereditary pretension. Take the stage as an
example. Suppose Mr. Kean should have a son, a little crook-
326
kneed, raven-voiced, disagreeable, mischievous, stupid urchin,
with the fauhs of his father's acting exaggerated tenfold, and none
of his line qualities, — what if Mr. Kean should take it into his
head to get out letters-patent to empower him and his heirs for
ever, with this hopeful commencement, to play all the chief parts
in tragedy, by the grace of God and the favour of the Prince
Ilegent ! What a precious race of tragedy kings and heroes we
should have ! They would not even play the villain with a good
grace. The theatres would soon be deserted, and the race of the
Keans would " hold a barren sceptre" over empty houses, to be
^' wrenched from them by an unlineal hand !" — But no ! For it
would be necessary to uphold theatrical order, the cause of the
legitimate drama, and so to levy a tax on all those who staid away
from the theatre, or to drag them into it by force. Every one
seeing the bayonet at the door, would be compelled to applaud
the hoarse tones and lengthened pauses of the illustrious house of
Kean ; the newspaper critics would grow wanton in their praise,
and all those would be held as rancorous enemies of their country,
and of the prosperity of the stage, who did not join in the praises
of the best of actors. What a falling off would there be from the
present system of universal suffrage and open competition among
the candidates, the frequency of rows in the pit, the noise in the
gallery, the whispers in the boxes, and the lashing in the news-
papers the next day !
In fact, the argument drawn from the supposed incapacity of
the people against a representative Government, comes with the
worst grace in the world from the patrons and admirers of here-
ditary government. Surely, if government were a thing requiring
the utmost stretch of genius, wisdom, and virtue, to carry it on,
the office of King would never even have been dreamt of as here-
ditary, any more than that of poet, painter, or philosopher. It is
easy here " for the Son to tread in the Sire's steady steps." It re-
quires nothing but the will to do it. Extraordinary talents are not
once looked for. Nay, a person, who would never have risen by
natural abilities to the situation of churchwarden or parish beadle,
327
succeeds by unquestionable right to the possession of a throne,
and wields the energies of an empire, or decides the fate of the
world, with the smallest possible share of human understanding.
The line of distinction which separates the regal purple from the
slabberiug-bib, is sometimes fine indeed ; as we see in the case of
the two Ferdinands. Any one above the rank of an ideot is sup-
posed capable of exercising ihe highest functions of royal state. Yet
these are the persons who talk of the people as a swinish multitude,
and taunt them with their want of refinement and philosophy. *
The great problem of political science is not of so profoundly
metaphysical or highly poetical a cast as Mr. Burke represents it.
It is simply a question on the one part, with how little expense of
liberty and property the Government, " that complex constable,"
as it has been quaintly called, can keep the peace ; and on the
other part, for how great a sacrifice of both, the splendour of the
throne and the safety of the state can be made a pretext. Kings
and their Ministers generally strive to get their hands in our
pockets, and their feet on our necks ; the people and their repre-
sentatives will be wise enough, if they can only contrive to prevent
them ; but this, it must be confessed, they do not always succeed
in. For a people to be free, it is sufficient that they will to be
free. But the love of liberty is less strong than the love of power,
and is guided by a less sure instinct in attaining its object, Milton
only spoke the sentiments of the English people of his day (senti-
ments too which they had acted upon), in strong language, when
he said, in answer to a foreign pedant : — " Liceat, quaso, populo
qui servittitis jugum in cervicibus grave sentit, tarn sapienti esse,
tarn docto, tamque nobili, ut sciat quid tyranno suo faciendum
sit, etiamsi neque exteros neque grammaticos sciscitatum mittat." —
(Defensio pro popu/o Anglicano.) Happily the whole of the pas-
sage is not applicable to their descendants in the present day; but
at all times a people may be allowed to know when they are op-
328
pressed, enslaved, and miserable, to feel their wrongs and to de-
mand a remedy — from the superior knowledge and humanity of
Ministers, who, if they cannot cure the State-malady, ought in
decency, like other doctors, to resign their authority over the
patient. The people are not subject to fanciful wants, specu-
lative longings, or hypochondriacal complaints. Tiieir disorders
are real, their complaints substantial and well-founded. Their
grumblings are in general seditions of the belly. They do not cry
out till they are hurt. They do not stand upon nice questions, or
trouble themselves with Mr. Bui ke's Sublime and Beautiful ; but
^vhen they find the money conjured clean out of their pockets,
and the Constitution suspended over their heads, they think it time
to look about them. For example, poor Evans, that amateur of
music and politics (strange combination of tastes), thought it hard,
no doubt, to be sent to prison and deprived of his tlute by a
State-warrant, because there was no ground for doing it by law ;
and Mr. Hiley Addington, being himself a flute-player, thought
so too: though, in spite of this romantic synjpalhy, the Miiii>ter
prevailed over the musician, and Mr. Evans has, we believe,
never got back his flute. For an act of injustice, by the new
system, if complained of " forsooth," becomes justifiable by the
very resistance to it: if not complained of, nobody knows any
thing about it, and so it goes equally unredressed in either way.
Or to take another obvious instance and sign of the times : a
tenant or small farmer who has been distraintd upon and sent to
gaol or to the workhouse, probably thinks, and with some ap-
pearance of reason, that he was better ofi^ before this change of
circumstances; and Mr. Cobbett, in his twopenny Kegi>.iers,
proves to him so clearly, that this change for the worse is owing to
the war and taxes, which have driven him out of his house and
home, that Mr. Cobbett himself has been forced to quit the
country to argue the question, whether two and two make four,
with Mr. Vansittart, upon safer ground to himself, and more equal
ground to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such questions as
52D
these are, one would think, within the verge of common sense and
reason. For any thing we could ever find, the people have as
much common sense and sound judgment as any other class of
the community. Their folly is second-hand, derived from their
being the dupe of the passions, interests, and prejudices of their
superiors. When they judge for themselves, they in general
judge right. At any rate, the way to improve their judgment in
their own concerns (and if they do not judge for themselves, they
will infallibly be cheated both of liberty and property, by those
who kindly insist on relieving them of that trouble) is not to deny
them the use and exercise of their judgment altogether. Nothing
can be pleasanter than one of the impositions of late attempted to
be put upon the people, by persuading them that economy is no
part of a wise Government. The people must be pretty com-
petent judges of the cheapness of a Government. But it is pre-
tended by our high-flying sinecurists and pensioners, that this is a
low and vulgar view of the subject, taken up by interested knaves,
like Paine and Cobbelt, to delude, and, in the end, make their
market of the people. With all the writers and orators who
compose the band of gentlemen pensioners and their patrons,
politics is entirely a thing of sentiment and imagination. To
speak of the expenses of Government, as if it were a little paltry
huckstering calculation of profit and loss, quite shocks their lofty,
liberal, and disinterested notions. They have no patience with
the people if they are not ready to sacrifice their all for the public
good ! This is something like a little recruiting cavalry-lieu-
tenant we once met with, who, sorely annoyed at being so often
dunned for the arrears of board and lodging by the people where
he took up his quarters, exclaimed with the true broad Irish
accent and emphasis — " Vulgar ideas ! These wretches always
expect one to pay for what one has of them !" Our modest
lieutenant thought, that while he was employed on his Majesty's
service, he had a right to pick the pockets of his subjects, and
that if they complained of being fobbed of what was their own,
they were blackguards and no gentlemen! Mr. Canning hit
330
upon nothing so good as this, in his luminous defence of his
Lisbon Job !
But allow the people to be as gross and ignorant as you please,
as base and stupid as you can make them or keep them, " duller
than the fat weed that roots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf," — is
nothing ever to rouse them ? Grant that they are slow of appre-
hension — that they do not see till they feel. Is that a reason that
ihey are not to feel then, neither ? Would you blindfold them
with the double bandages of bigotry, or quench their under-
standings with " the dim suffusion," " the drop serene," of Legi-
timacy, that " they may roll in vain and find no dawn" of liberty,
no ray of hope ? Because they do not see tyranny till it is moun-
tain high, " making Ossa like a wart," are they not to feel its
weight when it is heaped upon them, or to throw it off with giant
strength and a convulsive effort ? If they do not see the evil till
it has grown enormous, palpable, and undeniable, is that a reason
why others should then deny that it exists, or why it should not
be removed? They do not snuff arbitrary power a century off:
they are not shocked at it on the other side of the globe, or of
the Channel : are they not therefore to see it, could it in time be
supposed to stalk over their heads, to trample and grind them to
the earth ? If in their uncertainty how to deal with it, they
sometimes strike random blows, if their despair makes them
dangerous, why do not they, who, from their elevated situation,
see so much farther and deeper into the principles and conse-
quences of things — in their boasted wisdom prevent the causes
of complaint in the people before they accumulate to a terrific
height, and burst upon the heads of their oppressors ? The
higher classes, who would disqualify the people from taking the
cure of their disorders into their own hands, might do this very
effectually, by preventing the first symptoms of their disorders.
They would do well, instead of abusing the blunders and brutish-
ness of the multitude, to shew their superior penetration and zeal
in detecting the first approaches of mischief, in withstanding
every encroachment on the comforts and rights of the people, in
331
guarding every bulwark against the influence and machinations of
arbitrary power, as a precious, iiiviolable, sacred trust. Instead
of this, they are the first to be lulled into security, a security " as
gross as ignorance made drunk" — the last to believe the conse-
quences, because they are the last to feel them. Instead of this,
the patience of the lower classes, in submitting to privations and
insults, is only surpassed by the callousness of their betters in
witnessing them. The one never set about the redress of griev-
ances or the reform of abuses, till they are no longer to be borne ;
the others will not hear of it even then. It is for this reason,
among others, that the vox popuh is the vox Dei, that it is the
agonizing cry of human nature raised, and only raised, against in-
tolerable oppression and the utmost extremity of human suffering.
The people do not rise up till they are trod down. They do not
turn upon their tormentors till they are goaded to madness.
They do not complain till the thumbscrews have been applied,
and have been strained to the last turn. Nothing can ever wean
the affections or confidence of a people from a Government (to
which habit, prejudice, natural pride, perhaps old benefits and
joint struggles for liberty have attached them) but an excessive
degree of irritation and disgust, occasioned either by a sudden and
violent stretch of power, contrary to the spirit and forms of the
established Government, or by a blind and wilful adherence to
old abuses and established forms, when the changes in the state
of manners and opinion have rendered them as odious as they are
ridiculous. The Revolutions of Switzerland, the Low Countries,
and of America, are examples of the former — the French Revo-
lution of the latter: our own Revolution of 1688 was a mixture
of the two. As a general rule, it might be laid down, that for
every instance of national resistance to tyranny, there ought to
have been hundreds, and that all those which have been at-
tempted ought to have succeeded. In the case of Wat Tyler,
for instance, which has been so naturally dramatised by the poet-
laureate, the rebellion was crushed, and the ringleaders hanged by
the treachery of the Government; but the grievances of which
332
they liad complained were removed a few years after, and the
rights they had claimed granted to the people, from the necessary
progress of civilization and knowledge. Did not Mr. Southey
know, when he applied for an injunction against Wat Tyler, that
the feudal system had been abolished long ago ? — Again, as no-
thing rouses the people to resistance but extreme and aggravated
injustice, so nothing can make them persevere in it, or push their
efforts to a successful and triumphant issue, but the most open and
unequivocal determination to brave their cries and insult their
misery. They have no principle of union in themselves, and
nothing brings or holds them together but the strong pressure of
want, the stern hand of necessity — " a necessity that is not
chosen, but chuses, — a necessity paramount to deliberation, that
admits of no discussion and demands no evidence, that can alone,
(according to Mr. Burke's theory) justify a resort to anarchy,"
and that alone ever did or can produce it. In fine, there are but
two things in the world, might and right. Whenever one of these
is overcome, it is by the other. The triumphs of the people, or
the stand which they at any time make against arbitrary sway, are
the triumphs of reason and justice over the insolence of individual
power and authority, which, unless as it is restrained, curbed,
and corrected by popular feeling or public opinion, can be guided
only by its own drunken, besotted, mad pride, selfishness and
caprice, and must be productive of all the mischief, which it can
wantonly or deliberately commit with impunity.
The people are not apt, like a fine lady, to affect the vapours
of discontent ; nor to volunteer a rebellion for the theatrical eclat
of the thing. But the least plausible excuse, one kind word, one
squeeze of the hand, one hollow profession of good will, subdues
the soft heart of rebellion, (which is " too foolish fond and pitiful"
to be a match for the callous hypocrisy opposed to it) dissolves
and melts the whole fabric of popular innovation like butter in
the sun. Wat Tyler is a case in point again. The instant the
effeminate king and his unprincipled courtiers gave them fair
words; they dispersed, relying in their infatuation on the word of
333
the King as binding, on the oath of his officers as sincere ; and
no sooner were they dispersed than they cut off their leaders*
heads, and poor John Ball's along with them, in spite of all his
texts of Scripture. The story is to be seen in all the shop-win-
dows, written in tcry choice Wank verse! — That the people are
rash in trusting to the promises of their friends, is true ; they are
more rash in believing their enemies. If they are led to expect
too much in theory, they are satisfied with too little in reality.
Their anger is sometimes fatal while it lasts, but it is not roused
very soon, nor does it last very long. Of all dynasties, anarchy
is the shortest lived. They are violent in their revenge, no doubt ;
but it is because justice has been long denied them, and they
have to pay off a very long score at a very short notice. What
Caesar says of himself, might be applied well enough to the
people, that they " did never wrong but with just cause." The
errors of the people are the crimes of Governments. They
apply sharp remedies to lingering diseases, and when they get
sudden power in their hands, frighten their enemies, and wound
themselves with it. They rely on brute force and the fury of
despair, in proportion to the treachery which surrounds them,
and to the degradation, the want of general information and
mutual co-operation, in which they have been kept, on purpose
to prevent them from ever acting in concert, with wisdom,
energy, confidence, and calmness, for the public good. The
American Revolution produced no horrors, because its enemies
could not succeed in sowing the seeds of terror, hatred, mutual
treachery, and universal dismay in the hearts of the people.
The French Revolution, under the auspices of Mr. Burke, and
other friends of social order, was tolerably prolific of these
horrors. But that should not be charged as the fault of the
Revolution or of the people. Timely Reforms are the best
preventives of violent Revolutions. If Governments are deter-
mined that the people shall have no redress, no remedies for
their acknowledged grievances, but violent and desperate ones,
they may thank themselves for the obvious consequences. Des-
3U
potism must always have the most to fear from the re-action of
popular fury, where it has been guilty of the greatest abuses of
power, and where it has shewn tiie greatest tenaciousness of those
abuses, putting an end to all prospect of amicable arrangement,
and provoking the utmost vengeance of its oppressed and insulted
victims. This tenaciousness of power is the chief obstacle to
improvement, and the cause of the revulsions which follow the
attempts at it. In America, a free Government was easy of ac-
complishment, because it was not necessary, in building up, to
pull down : there were no nuisances to abate. The thing is plain.
Reform in old Governments is just like the new improvements
in the front of Carlton House, that would go on fast enough but
for the vile, old, dark, dirty, crooked streets, which cannot be
removed without giving the inhabitants notice to quit. Mr. Burke,
in regretting these old institutions as the result of the wisdom of
ages, and not the remains of Gothic ignorance and barbarism,
played the part of Crockery, in the farce of Exit by Mistake,
who sheds tears of affection over the loss of the old windows and
buttresses of the houses that no longer jut out to meet one ano-
ther, and stop up the way.
There is one other consideration which may induce hereditary
Sovereigns to allow some weight to the arguments in favour of
popular feeling and public opinion. They are the only security
which they themselves possess individually for the continuance of
their splendour and power. Absolute monarchs have nothing to
fear from the people, but they have every thing to fear from their
slaves and one another. Where power is lifted beyond the reach
of the law or of public opinion, there is no principle to oppose
it, and he who can obtain possession of the throne (by whatever
means) is always the rightful possessor of it, till he is supplanted
by a more fortunate or artful successor, and so on in a perpetual
round of treasons, conspiracies, murders, usurpations, regicides,
and rebellions, with which the people have nothing to do, but as
passive, unconcerned spectators. — Where the son succeeds to the
father's throne by assassination^ without being amenable to public
335
justice, he is liable to be cut off himself by the same means, and
with the same impunity. The only thing that can give stability
or confidence to power, is that very will of the people, and
public censure exercised upon public acts, of which legitimate
Sovereigns are so disproportionately apprehensive. For one
regicide committed by the people, there have been thousands
committed by Kings themselves. A Constitutional King of
England reigns in greater security than the Persian Sophi, or the
Great Mogul ; and the Emperor of Turkey, or the Autocrat of
all the Russias, has much more to fear from a cup of coffee or
the bowstring, than the Prince Regent from the speeches and
writings of all the Revolutionists in Europe. By removing the
barrier of public opinion, which interferes witli their own lawless
acts, despotic Kings lay themselves open to the hand of the
assassin, — and while they reign in contempt of the will, the voice,
the heart and mind of a whole people, hold their crowns, and
every moment of their lives at the mercy of the meanest of their
slaves.
ON THE REGAL CHARACTER.
May 16, 181S.
This is a subject exceedingly curious, and worth explaining.
In writing a criticism, we hope we shall not be accused of in-
tending a libel.
Kings are remarkable for long memories, in the merest trifles.
They never forget a face or person they have once seen, nor an
anecdote they have been told of any one they know. Whatever
differences of character or understanding they manifest in other
respects, they all possess what Dr. Spursheim would call the
organ of individuality, or the power of recollecting particular
local circumstances, nearly in the same degree ; though we shall
attempt to account for it without recurring to bis system. This
336
kind of personal memory is the natural effect of that self-import-
ance which makes them attach a corresponding importance to all
that comes in contact with themselves. Nothing can be a matter
of indifference to a King, that happens to a King. That intense
consciousness of their personal identity, which never quits them,
extends to whatever falls under their immediate cognisance. It is
the glare of Majesty reflected from their own persons on the per-
sons of those about them that fixes their attention ; and it is the
same false glare that makes them blind and insensible to all that
lies beyond that narrow sphere. " My Lord," said an English
King to one of his courtiers, " I have seen you in that coat be-
fore with different buttons"— to the astonishment of the Noble
Peer. There was nothing wonderful in it. It was the habitual
jealousy of the Sovereign of the respect due to him, that made
him regard with lynx-eyed watchfulness even the accidental
change of dress in one of his favourites. The least diminution
of glossy splendour in a birth-day suit, considered as a mark of
slackened duty, or waning loyalty, would expose it, tarnished and
thread-bare, to the keen glance of dormant pride, waked to sus-
picion. A God does not penetrate into the hearts of his worship-
pers with surer insight, than a King, fond of the attributes of
awe and sovereignty, detects the different degrees of hollow
adulation in those around him. Every thing relating to external
appearance and deportment is scanned with the utmost nicety, as
compromising ihe dignity of the royal presence. Involuntary
gestures become overt acts; a look is construed into high treason;
an inconsiderate word is magnified into a crime against the State.
To suggest advice, or offer information unasked, is to arraign the
fallibility of the throne : to hint a difference of opinion to a
Kin<y, would create as great a shock, as if you were to present a
pistol to the breast of any other man. " Never touch a King,"
was the answer of an infirm Monarch to one who had saved him
from a dangerous fall. When a glass of wine was presented to
the Emperor Alexander by a servant in livery, he started, as if
he had trod upon a serpent. Such is their respect for themselves!
00/
Such is their contempt for human nature ! — " There's a divinity
doth hedge a King," that keeps their bodies and their minds sacred
within the magic circle of a name ; and it is their fear lest this
circle should be violated or approached without sufficient awe, that
makes them observe and reniember the countenances and demea-
nour of others with such infinite circumspection and exactness.
As Kings have the sagacity of pride, courtiers have the cun-
ning of fear. They watch their own behaviour and that of others
with breathless apprehension, and move amidst the artificial forms
of court-etiquette, as if the least error must be fatal to them.
Their sense of personal propriety is heightened by servility: every
faculty is wound up to flatter the vanity and prejudices of their
superiors. When Coates painted a portrait in crayons of the
Queen, on her first arrival in this country, the King, followed by
a train of attendants, went to look at it. The trembling artist
stood by. " Well, what do you think ?" said the King to those
in waiting. Not a word in reply. " Do you think it like ?"
Still all was hushed as death. " Why, yes, I think it is like,
very like." A buzz of admiration instantly filled the room ; and
the old Duchess of Northumberland, going up to the artist, and
tapping him familiarly on the shoulder, said, " Remember, Mr.
Coates, I am to have the first copy." On another occasion,
when the Queen had sat for her portrait, one of the Maids of
Honour coming into the room, curtesied to the reflection in the
glass, affecting to mistake it for the Queen. The picture was,
you may be sure, a flattering likeness. In the " Memoirs of
Count Grammont," it is related of Louis XIV. that having a
dispute at chess with one of his courtiers, no one present would
give an opinion. " Oh !" said he, " here comes Count Hamil-
ton, he shall decide which of us is in the right." " Your Ma-
jesty is in the wrong," replied the Count, without looking at the
board. On which, the King remonstrating with him on the im-
possibility of his judging till he saw the state of the game, h«
answered, " Does your Majesty suppose that if you were in the
right, all these noblemen would stand by and say nothing V A
z
338
King was once curious to know, which was the tallest, himself
or a certain courtier. " Let us measure," said the King. The
King stood up to be measured first ; but when the person who
was fixed upon to take their height came to measure the Noble-
man, he found it quite impossible, as he first rose on tip-toe,
then crouched down, now shrugged up his shoulders to the right,
then twisted his body to the left. Afterwards his friend asking
him the reason of these unaccountable gesticulations, he rephed,
" I could not tell whether the King wished me to be taller or
shorter than himself; and all the time I was making those odd
movements, 1 was watching his countenance to see what I ought
to do." If such is the exquisite pliability of the inmates of a
court in trifles like these, what must be their independence of
spirit and disinterested integrity in questions of peace and war,
that involve the rights of Sovereigns or the liberties of the people !
It has been suggested (and not without reason), that the difficulty
of trusting to the professions of those who surround them, is one
circumstance that renders Kings such expert physiognomists, the
language of the countenance being the only one they have left to
decypher the thoughts of others ; and the very disguises which are
practised to prevent the emotions of the mind from appearing in
the face, only rendering them more acute and discriminating ob-
servers. It is the same insincerity and fear of giving offence by
candour and plain-speaking in their immediate dependents, that
makes Kings gossips and inquisitive. They have no way of ascer-
taining the opinions of others, but by getting them up into a cor-
ner, and extorting the commonest information from them, piece-
meal, by endless teasing tiresome questions, and cross-examination.
The walls of a palace, like those of a nunnery, are the favoured
abode of scandal and tittle-tattle. The inhabitants of both are
equally shut out from the common privileges and common inci-
dents of humanity, and whatever relates to the every-day world
about us, has to them the air of a romance. The desire which
the most meritorious Princes have shewn to acquire information
on matters of fact rather than of opinion, is partly because their
339
prejudices will not suffer them to exercise their understandings
freely on the most important speculative questions, partly from
their jealousy of being dictated to on any point that admits
of a question ; — as, on the other hand, the desire which the So-
vereigns of northern and uncultivated kingdoms have shewn to
become acquainted with the arts and elegances of life in southern
nations, is evidently owing to their natural jealousy of the advan-
tages of civilization over barbarism. From the principle last
stated, Peter the Great visited this country, and worked in our
dock-yards as a common shipwright. To the same source may
be traced the curiosity of the Duchess of Oldenburgh to see a
beef-steak cooked, to take a peep into Mr. Meux's great brew-
ing-vat, and to hear Mr. Whitbread speak !
The common regal character is then the reverse of what it
ought to be. It is the purely personal, occupied with its own
petty feelings, prejudices, and pursuits ; whereas it ought to be
the purely philosophical, exempt from all personal considerations,
and contemplating itself only in its general and paramount rela-
tion to the State. This is the reason why there have been so few
great Kings. They want the power of abstraction : and their
situations are necessarily at variance with their duties, in this
respect; for eveiy thing forces them to concentrate their attention
upon themselves, and to consider their rank and privileges in con-
nexion with their private advantage, rather than with public good.
This is but natural. It is easier to employ the power they pos-
sess in pampering their own appetites and passions, than to wield
it for the benefit of a great empire. They see well enough how
the community is made for them, not so well how they are made
for the community. Not knowing how to act as stewards for their
trust, they set up for heirs to the estate, and waste it at their
pleasure : — without aspiring to reign as Kings, they are contented
to live as spunges upon royalty. A great King ought to be the
greatest philosopher and the truest patriot in his dominions : he-
reditary Kings can be but common mortals. It is not that they
are not equal to other men, but to be equal to their rank as
z 2
340
Kings, they ought to be more than men. Theii' power is equal
to that of the whole community : their wisdom and virtue ought
to keep pace with their power. But in ordinary cases, the height
to which they are raised, instead of enlarging their views or en-
nobling their sentiments, makes them giddy with vanity, and ready
to look down on the world which is subjected to their power, as
the plaything of their will. They regard men crawling on the
face of the earth, as we do insects that cross our path, and survey
the common drama of human life, as a fantoccini exhibition got
up for their amusement. There is no sympathy between Kings
and their subjects — except in a constitutional monarchy like ours,
through the medium of Lords and Commons ! Take away that
check upon their ambition and rapacity, and their pretensions be-
come as monstrous as they are ridiculous. Without the common
feelings of humanity in their own breasts, they have no regard for
them in their aggregate amount and accumulating force. Reign-
ing in contempt of the people, they would crush and trample
upon all power but their own. They consider the claims of jus-
tice and compassion as so many impertinent interferences with the
royal prerogative. They despise the millions of slaves whom they
see linked to the foot of the throne ; and they soon hate what they
despise. They will sacrifice a kingdom for a caprice, and man-
kind for a bauble. Weighed in the scales of their pride, the
meanest things become of the greatest importance : weighed in
the balance of reason, the universe is nothing to them. It is
this overweening, aggravated, intolerable sense of swelling pride
and ungovernable self-will, that so often drives them mad;
as it is their blind fatuity and insensibility to all beyond
themselves, that, transmitted through successive generations and
confirmed by regal intermarriages, in time makes them idiots.
When we see a poor creature like Ferdinand VII., who can
hardly gabble out his words like a human being, more imbecile
than a woman, more hypocritical than a priest, decked and dan-
dled in the long robes and swaddling-clothes of legitimacy, lulla-
bied to rest with the dreams of superstition, drunk with the patriot
,341
blood of his country, and launching the thunders of his coward-
arm against the rising liberties of a new world, while he claims
the style and title of Image of the Divinity, we may laugh or
weep, but there is nothing to wonder at. Tyrants lose ail respect
for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it ; — taught
to believe themselves of a different species, they really become
so ; lose their participation with their kind ; and, in mimicking
the God, dwindle into the brute ! Blind with prejudices as a
mole, stung with truth as with scorpions, sore all over with
wounded pride like a boil, their minds a heap of morbid proud
flesh and bloated humours, a disease and gangrene in the State,
instead of its life-blood and vital principle ; — foreign despots claim
mankind as their property, " independently of their conduct or
merits,"' and there is one Englishman found base enough to echo
the foul calumny against his country and his kind.
We might, in the same manner, account for the disparity be-
tween the public and private character of Kings. It is the mis-
fortune of most Kings (not their fault) to be born to thrones, a
situation which ordinary talents or virtue cannot fill with impu-
nity. We often find a very respectable man make but a very
sorry figure as a Sovereign. Nay, a Prince may be possessed of
extraordinary virtues and accomplishments, and not be the more
thought of for them. He may, for instance, be a man of good
nature and good manners, graceful in his person, the idol of the
other sex, the model of his own ; every word or look may be
marked with the utmost sense of propriety and delicate attention
to the feelings of others ; he may be a good classic, well versed
in history, — may speak Italian, French, Spanish, and German
fluently ; he may be an excellent mimic ; he may say good things,
and do friendly ones ; he may be able to join in a catch, or utter
a repartee, or dictate a billet-doux ; he may be master of Hoyle,
and deep in the rules of the Jockey club ; he may have an equal
taste in ragouts and poetry, in dancing and in dress ; he may ad-
just a toupee with the dexterity of a friseur, or tie a cravat with the
hand and eye of a man-milliner: he may have all these graces and
342
accomplishments^ and as many more, and yet he may be nothing ;
as without any one of them he may be a great Prince. They are
not the graces and accomplishments of a Sovereign, but of a
lord of the bedchamber. They do not shew a great mind, bent
on great objects, and swayed by lofty views. They are rather
foibles and blemishes in the character of a ruler, for they imply
that his attention has been turned as much upon adorning his own
person as upon advancing the State. Charles II. was a King,
such as we have here described ; amiable, witty, and accom-
plished, and yet his memory is equally despised and detested.
Charles was without strength of mind, or public principle. He
could not arrive at the comprehension of that mixed mass of
thought and feeling, a kingdom — he thought merely of the throne.
He was as unlike Cromwell in the manner in which he came by
the sovereignty of the realm as in the use he made of it. He saw
himself, not in the glass of history, but in the glass on his toilette;
not in the eyes of posterity, but in those of his courtiers and mis-
tresses. Instead of regulating his conduct by public opinion and
abstract reason, he did every thing from a feeling of personal
vanity. Charles would have been more annoyed with the rejec-
tion of a licentious overture than with the rebellion of a province;
and poured out the blood of his subjects with the same gaiety and
indifference as he did a glass of wine. He had no idea of his
obligations to the State, and only laid aside the private gentleman,
to become the tyrant of his people. Charles was popular in his
life-time, Gibber tells us, because he used to walk out with his
spaniels and feed his ducks in St. James's park. History has
consigned his name to infamy for the executions under Jefferies,
and for his league with a legitimate despot (Louis XIV.), to
undermine the liberties of his country.
What is it, then, that makes a great Prince ? Not the under-
standing Purcell or Mozart, but the having an ear open to the
voice of truth and justice! Not a taste in made dishes, or French
wines, or court-dresses, but a fellow-feeling with the calamities
of hunger, of cold, of disease, and nakedness ! Not a knowledge
343
of the elegances of fashionable life, but a heart that feels for the
millions of its fellow-beings in want of the common necessaries of
life ! Not a set of brilliant frivolous accomplishments, but a
manly strength of character, proof against the seductions of a
throne ! He, in short, is a patriot King, who without any other
faculty usually possessed by Sovereigns, has one which they sel-
dom possess, — ihe power in imagination of changing places with
his people. Such a King may indeed aspire to the character of
a ruling providence over a nation; any other is but the head-
cypher of a court.
THE FUDGE FAMILY IN PJRIS.
Edited by Thomas Brown, the younger, Author of the
" Twopenny Post-hag" — Longmans.
April '25, 1818.
The spirit of poetry in Mr. Moore is not a lying spirit.
" Set it down, my tables " — we have still, in the year 1818, three
years after the date of Mr. Southey's laureateship, one poet,
who is an honest man. We are glad of it : nor does it spoil
our theory, for the exception proves the rule. Mr. Moore
unites in himself two names that were sacred, till they were
prostituted by our modern mountebanks, the Poet and the Pa-
triot. He is neither a coxcomb nor a catspaw, — a whiffling
turncoat, nor a thorough-paced tool, a mouthing sycophant,
" a full solempne man," like Mr. Wordsworth,-— a whining
monk, like Mr. Southey, — a maudlin Methodistical lay-preacher,
like Mr. Coleridge, — a merry Andrew, like the fellow that plays
on the salt- box at Bartlemy Fair,— or the more pitiful jack-
pudding, that makes a jest of humanity in St. Stephen's Cha-
pel. Thank God, he is like none of these — he is not one of
the Fudge Family. He is neither a bubble nor a cheat. He
makes it his business neither to hoodwink his own understanding,
nor to blind or gag others. He is a man of wit and fancy, but
344
he does not sharpen his wit on the edge of human agony, Hke
the House of Commons' jester, nor strew the flowers of fancy,
like the Jesuit Burke, over the carcase of corruption, for he is
a man not only of wit and fancy, but of common sense and
common humanity. He sees for himself, and he feels for
others. He employs the arts of fiction, not to adorn the de-
formed, cr disguise the false, but to make truth shine out the
clearer, and beauty look more beautiful. He does not make
verse, " immortal verse," the vehicle of lies, the bawd of Le-
gitimacy, the pander of antiquated prejudices, and of vamped-up
sophistry; but of truths, of home, heartfelt truths, as old as
human nature and its wrongs. Mr. Moore calls things by their
right names : he shews us kings as kings, priests as priests,
knaves as knaves, and fools as fools. He makes us laugh at the
ridiculous, and hate the odious. He also speaks with authority,
and not as certain scribes that we could mention. He has been
at Court, and has seen what passes there.
'* Tarn knew what's wliat full brawly."
But he was a man before he became a courtier, and has con-
tinued to be one afterwards ; nor has he forgotten what passes in
the human heart. From what he says of the Prince, it is evident
that he speaks from habits of personal intimacy : he speaks of
Lord Castlereagh as his countryman. In the Epistles of the
Fudge Family, we see, as in a glass without a wrinkle, the mind
and person of Royalty in full dress, up to the very throat, and
we have a whole-length figure of his Lordship, in the sweeping,
serpentine line of beauty, down to his very feet.* — We have
heard it said of our poet, by a late celebrated wit and orator,
that " there was no man who put so much of his heart into his
fancy as Tom Moore ; that his soul seemed as if it were a par-
ticle of fire separated from the sun, and were always fluttering
to get back to that source of light and heat." We think this
* '* I look down towards his feet ;
But that's a fable."— Otheho.
345
criticism as happy as it is just : but it will be evident to the
readers of the Fudge Family, that the soul of " a certain little
gentleman " is not attracted with the same lively or kindly symp-
toms to the Bourbons, or to their benefactors and restorers " under
Providence ! " The title of this delightful little collection of
sweets and bitters, of honey and gall, is, we suppose, an allu-
sion to the short ejaculation which honest Burchell, in the " Vicar
of Wakefield," uttered at the end of every sentence, in the con-
versation of Miss Amelia Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs and her
friend, on the Court and Fashionables; and which word,
" Fudge," our malicious Editor thinks equally applicable to the
cant upon the same subjects at the present day, — to the fade
politesse of the ancient regime, — to " the damnable face-making"
of Holy Alliances, and " the Jiocci-nauci-pili-nihili-fication" of
Legitimacy. He may be wrong in this ; but if so, we are
most assuredly in the wrong with him : and we confess, it gives
us as much pleasure to agree with this writer, as it does to differ
with some others that we could mention, but that they are not
worth mentioning. — The Correspondents of the Fudge Family
in Paris are much of the same stamp (with one exception) as
the Correspondents of Dr. S , in his work of that name,
which was lately put a stop to by that sort of censorship of the
press which is exercised by the reading public ; only the Cor-
respondents in the present volume have a very different Editor
from him of " The Day and New Times," or, as it is at present
called. The New Times alone, the Day having been left out as
an anomaly, " ut lucus a non lucendo : " for the readers of that
paper roll their eyes in vain, and " find no dawn ; but, in its
stead, total eclipse and ever-during dark surrounds them." —
But to return from " the professional gentleman," as he calls
himself, his scavenger's bell, his mud-cart of liberal phraseolo-
gies, and go-cart of slavery and superstition, to something as
different as genius from dulness, as wit from malice, as sense
from moon-struck madness, as independence from servility, as
the belles-lettres from law-stationery, as Parnassus from Grub-
346
street, or as the grub from the butterfly, — as the man who
winged his airy way from a Court which was unworthy of him,
and which would have made him unworthy of himself, " as
light as bird from brake," is from the man (if so he can be
called) who would grope his way there on all fours, bringing,
as the sacrifice best worthy of himself and of the place, his own
dignity of spirit and the rights of his fellow-creatures, to be
trampled down by the obscene hoofs of a base oligarchy. But
we have already in another place spoken our minds of that per-
son, in a way to cut off the communication between his " bhnd
mouth " and the Midas ears of the Stock Exchange ; and we do
not wish to deprive him of a livelihood. He may receive his
Treasury wages for us, so that he no longer levies them on public
credulity, and we no longer confound " his sweet voice " with
that of the country or city, though it may echo the Court. The
New Times is a nuisance ; but it is not one that requires to be
abated. It speaks a plain, intelligible language. Its principles
are as palpable as they are base. Its pettifogging pedantry and
its Billingsgate slang can deceive nobody that is worth unde-
ceiving. It is the avowed organ of the deliberate, detestable
system which has long been covertly pursued in a certain quar-
ter. This paper raves aloud, under the ambiguous garb of
phrenzy, what its patrons think in secret. It proclaims on the
house-tops what is whispered in the high places. It soothes the
ears of flatterers, of tyrants, and of slaves, — but it sounds the
alarm to free men. It is so far a great public good. It tells
the people of England what is prepared for them, and what they
have to expect. " Nothing is sacred in its pages but tyranny."
It links this country in chains of vassalage to the legitimate des-
potisms of the Continent, which have been a bye-word with us
for ages. It binds this nation, hand and foot, in the trammels
of lasting servitude, — it puts the yoke upon our necks as we put
pack-saddles upon asses, — marks the brand upon our foreheads
as we ruddle over sheep, — binds us in " with shame, with
rotten parchments, and vile inky blots," — makes England, that
347
threw off the yoke of a race of hereditary pretenders, shew
" like a rebel's whore," and every morning illegitimates the
House of Brunswick, and strikes at the title of the Prince Re-
gent to the succession of the Crown, to which his ancestors had
no just claim but the choice of the people. It is not a paper for
a free people to endure, if a people that has oppressed the
struggling liberties of another nation can dare to call itself free ;
or for the Sovereign of a free people to look at, if a Prince who
had restored a despot to a throne, in contempt of the voice of
the people, could be supposed to respect the rights of human
nature more than his own power. It reverses the Revolution of
1688, by justifying the claims of the Bourbons, — brings back
Popery and slavery here, by parity of reasoning, — and sends the
illustrious members of the present Royal Family a packing, as
vagabonds and outlaws — by right divine. If this is not a
legitimate conclusion from the Doctor's reasoning, — from his
" brangle and brave-all, discord and debate," — why then
" The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."
The chief Dramatis Persona in the Fudge Family are, — Co-
mic Personages, Miss Biddy Fudge and Mr. Bob Fudge, her
brother : Mr. Philip Fudge, their father, and a friend of Lord
Castlereagh, a grave gentleman; and a Mr. Phelim Connor,
who is a patriotic, or, which is the same thing, a tragic writer.
Miss Biddy Fudge takes the account of poke-bonnets and love-
adventures upon herself; Mr. Bob, the pates, jockey-boots,
and high collars : Mr. Phil. Fudge addresses himself to the
Lord Viscount Castlereagh ; and Mr. Phelim, " the sad histo-
rian of pensive Europe," appeals, we confess, more eflfectually
to us, in words
" As precious as the ruddy drops
That visit our sad hearts."
348
Take for example the following magnanimous aud most heroical
Epistle : —
FROM PHELIM CONNOR TO
" Return ! " — no never, while the withering hand
Of bigot power is on that helpless land ;
While, for the faith my fathers held to God,
Ev'n in the fields where free those fathers trod,
I am proscrib'd, and — like the spot left bare
In Israel's halls, to tell the proud and fair
Amidst their mirth, that Slavery had been there —
On all I love, home, parents, friends, I trace
The mournful mark of bondage and disgrace !
No ! — let them stay, who in their country's pangs
See nought but food for factions and harangues ;
Who yearly kneel before their masters' doors.
And hawk their wrongs, as beggars do their sores :
* Still let your *****
* *******
Still hope and suffer, all who can ! — but I,
Who durst not hope, and cannot bear, must fly.
But whither ? — every-where the scourge pursues —
Turn where he will, the wretched wanderer views.
In the bright, broken hopes of all his race.
Countless reflections of th' Oppressor's face !
Every-where gallant heai'ts, and spirits true.
Are serv'd up victims to the vile and few ;
While E******, every-where — the general foe
Of Truth and Freedom, wheresoe'er they glow —
Is first, when tyrants strike, to aid the blow !
* I have thought it prudent to omit some parts of Mr. Pheiiiu Connoi'i
letter. He is evidently an intemperate young man, and has associated with
his cousins, the Fudges, to very little purpose.
349
Oh, E****** 1 could such poor revenge atone
For wrongs, that well might claim the deadliest one ;
Were it a vengeance, sweet enough to sate
The wretch who flies from thy intolerant hate.
To hear his curses on such barbarous sway
Echoed, where'er he bends his cheerless way ;—
Could this content him, every lip he meets
Teems for his vengeance with such poisonous sweets ;
Were this his luxury, never is thy name
PronouncM, but he doth banquet on thy shame ;
Hears maledictions ring from every side
Upon that grasping power, that selfish pride.
Which vaunts its own, and scorns all rights beside ;
That low and desperate envy, which to blast
A neighbour's blessings, risks the few thou hast ; —
That monster. Self, too gross to be conceal'd
Which ever lurks behind thy profFer'd shield ;—
That faithless craft, which in thy hour of need.
Can court the slave, can swear he shall be freed.
Yet basely spurns him, when thy point is gain'd.
Back to his masters, ready gagg'd and chain'd !
Worthy associate of that band of Kings,
That royal, rav'ning flock, whose vampire wings
O'er sleeping Europe treacherously brood.
And fan her into dreams of promis'd good.
Of hope, of freedom— but to drain her blood !
If thus to hear thee branded be a bliss
That Vengeance loves, there's yet more sweet than tliis,-
That 'twas an Irish head, an Irish heart.
Made thee the fall'n and tarnish'd thing thou art ;
That, as the Centaur gave th' infected vest
In which he died, to rack his conqueror's breast,
We sent thee C gh :— as heaps of dead
Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread.
So hath our land breath'd out— thy fame to dim,
Thy strength to waste, and rot thee, soul and limb —
350
Her worst infections all condens'd in him !
*********
When will the world shake off such yokes? Oh, when
Will that redeeming day shine out on men.
That shall behold them rise, erect and free
As Heav'n and Nature meant mankind should be ?
When Reason shall no longer blindly bow
To the vile pagod things, that o'er her brow.
Like him of Jaghernaut, drive trampling now ;
Nor conquest dare to desolate God's earth ;
Nor drunken Victory, with a Nero's mirth.
Strike her lewd harp amidst a people's groans ; —
But, built on love, the world's exalted thrones
Shall to the virtuous and the wise be given —
Those bright, those sole Legitimates of Heaven !
When will this be ? — or, oh ! is it, in truth.
But one of those sweet, day -break dreams of youtli.
In which the Soul, as round her morning springs,
'Twixt sleep and waking, sees such dazzling things !
And must the hope, as vain as it is bright,
Be all giv'n up ? — and are they only right.
Who say this world of thinking souls was made
To be by Kings partition'd, truck'd, and weigh'd
In scales that, ever since the world begun.
Have counted millions but as dust to one ?
Are they the only wise, who laugh to scorn
The rights, the freedom to which man was born ;
Who *******
*********
Who, proud to kiss each separate rod of power.
Bless, while he reigns, the minion of the hour ;
Worship each would-be God, that o'er them moves.
And take the thundering of his brass for Jove's !
If this be wisdom, then farewell my books.
Farewell ye shrines of old, ye classic brooks.
351
Which fed my soul with currents, pure and fair.
Of living truth, that now must stagnate there ! —
Instead of themes that touch the lyre with light, —
Instead of Greece, and her immortal fight
For Liberty, which once awak'd my strings.
Welcome the Grand Conspiracy of Kings,
The High Legitimates, the Holy Band,
Who, bolder ev'n than He of Sparta's land.
Against whole millions, panting to be free.
Would guard the pass of right-line tyranny !
Instead of him, th' Athenian bard, whose blade
Had stood the onset which his pen pourtray'd.
Welcome ******
* * ******
And, 'stead of Aristides — woe the day
Such names should mingle ! — welcome C -gh !
Here break we off, at this unballowM name.
Like priests of old, when words ill-omen'd came.
My next shall tell thee, bitterly shall tell.
Thoughts that *****
********
Thoughts that — could patience hold — 'twere wiser far
To leave still hid and burning where they are !
I/idignatio facit versus. Mr. Moore's better genius is here
his spleen. The politician sharpens the poet's pen. Poor
Phelim resumes this subject twice afterwards, and the last time
with such force and spirit, that he is corapelled to break off in
the middle, for fear of consequences. But as far as he goes, we
will accompany him.
Yes — 'twas a cause, as noble and as great
As ever hero died to vindicate —
A Nation's right to speak a Nation's voice.
And own no power but of the Nation's choice \
352
Such was the grand, the glorious cause that now
Hung trembling on Napoleon's single brow ;
Such the sublime arbitrement, that pour'd.
In patriot eyes, a light around his sword,
A glory then, which never, since the day
Of his young victories, had illum'd its way !
Oh, 'twas not then the time for tame debates.
Ye men of Gaul, when chains were at your gates ;
When he, who fled before your Chieftain's eye.
As geese from eagles on Mount Taurus fly,
Denounc'd against the land, that spurn'd his chain.
Myriads of swords to bind it fast again —
Myriads of fierce invading swords, to track
Through your best blood his path of vengeance back;
When Europe's Kings, that never yet combin'd
But (like those upper Stars, that, when conjoin'd.
Shed woe and pestilence) to scourge mankind,
Gather'd around, with hosts from every shore.
Hating Napoleon much, but Freedom more ;
And, in that coming strife, appall'd to see
The world yet left one chance for liberty ! —
No, 'twas not then the time to weave a net
Of bondage round your Chief; to curb and fret
Your veteran war-horse, pawing for the fight.
When every hope was in his speed and might —
To waste the hour of action in dispute.
And coolly plan how Freedom's boughs should shoot.
When your invader's axe was at the root !
No, sacred Liberty ! that God, who throws
Thy light around, like his own sunshine, knows
How well I love thee, and how deeply hate
All tyrants, upstart and Legitimate —
Yet, in that hour, were France my native land,
I would have followed, with quick heart and hand,
Napoleon, Nero — ay, no matter whom —
To snatch my country from that damning doom, —
353
iThat deaJliefit curse that on the conquered waits —
jA. Conqueror's satrap, thron'tl within her gates!
True, he was false, despotic — all you please —
Had trampled ■down man's holiest libertVss —
•Had, by a genius form'd for nobler tilings
Than lie withiji the grasp of vulgar Kings,
"But rais'd the hopes of men — as eaglets fly
With tortoises aloft into the sky —
To dash them down a^ain more shatteringly !
•*A11 .this I own— but still -x- » ♦
Ail is QOt In this high-vv-rotight strain, which we like as well a*
«:ihe War Eclogues of Tyrteeus, or the Sirth-day Odes (which seem
also to have broke off in the middle) of Mr. Soulhey. Mr. Thomas
Brown the Younger, is a man of hinnauity, as Mr. Soutbey for-
nierly was: he is also a man of wit;, which Mr. Southey is not.
For instance. Miss Biddy Fudge^ in her first letter, writes as
follows : —
By the "bye (hough at Calais, Papa liad a touch
Of romance on the pier, which affected me much.
At the sight of that spot, where our darling Dixbuit,
Set the first of bis own dear legitimate feet,!"
(Modell'd out so -exactly, and. — God bless the mark!
'Tis a foot, Dolly, worthy so Grand a IMonarque)
He exclaim'd, " Oh mon Roi !" and, with tear-dropping eye^
Stood to gaze on the spot — while some Jacobin nigh,
Mutter'd out with a shrug (what an insolent thing I)
^' Ma foi, he be right — 'tis de Englivshma'^'s King ;
* Sumeboi'y (Foutenelle, I believe) lias said, that if lie had his hand full of
ffrutlie, he would open but one finger at a time; and I find it necessary to use
s'lhe same sort of reserve witli respect to Mr. P'lteliin Connor's very plain-
spoken letters. The remainder of this Epistle is so fiiil of linsafe matter of
fact, that it must, far tiie present at least, be witliheld from the pubiic.
t To coranieniorate the landing of Louis le Desir6 from England, the iin-
.pression of his foot is marked out upon the pier at Calaifl, and a pillar with an
■inscrij[)tion raised opposite to tlie «pol."
\
354
And dat gros pied de cochon — begar, me vil say
Dat de foot look mosh better, if turn'd toder way."
Mr. Phil. Fudge, in his dreams, thinks of a plan for changing
heads.
Good Viscount S — dm — th, too, instead
Of his own grave, respected head.
Might wear (for aught I see that bars)
Old Lady Wilhelmina Frump's —
So while the hand sign'd Circulars,
The head might lisp out, " What is trumps?"
The R — g — t*s brains could we transfer
To some robust man-milliner.
The shop, the shears, the lace, and ribbon.
Would go, I doubt not, quite as glib on ;
And, vice versa, take the pains
To give the P — ce the shopman's brains.
The only change from thence would flow.
Ribbons would not be wasted so !
Or here is another proposal for weighing the head of the
State ;
Suppose, my Lord, — and far from me
To treat such things with levity —
But just suppose the R — g — t's weight
Were made thus an affair of state ;
And, ev'ry sessions, at the close,
'Stead of a speech, which, all can see, is
Heavy and dull enough, God knowS' —
We were to try how heavy he is.
Much would it glad all hearts to hear
That, while the Nation's Revenue
Loses so many pounds a year.
The P e, God bless him ! gains a few.
With bales of muslin, chintzes, spices,
I see the Easterns weigh their Kings; —
355
But, for the R — g — t, my advice is.
We should throw in much heavier things :
For instance, 's quarto volumes.
Which, though not spices, serve to wrap them;
Dominie St — dd — t's Daily columns,
" Prodigious !" — in, of course we'd clap them —
Letters, that C— rtvv — t's pen indites,
In which, with logical confusion.
The Major like a Minor writes.
And never comes to a conclusion :
Lord S — m — rs' pamphlet, or his head —
(Ah, that were worth its weight in lead!)
Along with which we in may whip, sly.
The Speeches of Sir John C — x H — pp — sly ;
That Baronet of many words.
Who loves so, in the House of Lords,
To whisper Bishops — and so nigh
Unto their wigs in whisp'ring goes.
That you may always know him by
A patch of powder on his nose ! —
If this won't do, we must in cram
The " Reasons" of Lord B — ck — gh — m ;
(A book his Lordship means to write.
Entitled, " Reasons for my Ratting :"
Or, should these prove too small and light.
His 's a host, we'll bundle that in !
And, still should all these masses fail
To stir the R — g — t's ponderous scale.
Why then, my Lord, in heaven's name.
Pitch in, without reserve or stint.
The whole of R — g — ly's beauteous dame —
If that won't raise him, devil's in't.
But we slop here, or we shall quote the whole work. We
like the political part of this jeu d'esprit belter, on the whole,
than the merely comic and familiar. Bob Fudge is almost too
suffocating a coxcomb, even in description, with his stays and
pates; and Miss Biddy Fudge, with her poke bonnet and her
A a 2
356
pnncely lover, wlio turned out to be no better than a man-
milliner, is not half so interesting as a certain Marchioness in the
Twopenny Post Bag, with curls " in the maimer of Ackermann's
dresses for May, and her yellow charioteer." Besides, Miss
Biddy's amour ends in nothing. In short, the Fudges abroad
are not such fat subjects for ridicule as the Fudges at home.
*' They do not cut up so well in the cawl ; they do not tallow so
in the kidneys:" but as far as they go, Mr. Brown, Junior, uses
the dissecting knife with equal dexterity, and equally to the de-
light and edilicaliou of the byestauders.
CHJUJCTER OF LORD CHATHAM,
1807.
liORD Chatham's genius burnt brightest at the last. The
spark of hberty, which had lain concealed and dormant, buried
uudei- the dirt and rubbish of state intrigue and vulgar faction,
now met willi congenial matter, and kindled up " a flame of
sacred vehemence" in his breast It burst forth with a fury
and a splendour that might have awed the world, and made kings
tremble. He spoke as a man should speak, because he felt as a
man should feel, in such circumstances. He came forward as
the advocate of liberty, as the defender of the rights of his
fellow-citizens, as the enemy of tyranny^ as the friend of hia
country, and of mankind. He did not stand up to make a vain
(display of his talents, but to discharge a duty, to maintain that
■cause which lay nearest to his heart, to preserve the ark of the
British constitution from every sacrilegious touch, as the high-
jjriest of his calling, with a pious zeal. The feelings and the
rights of Englishmen were enshrined in his heart ; and with their
united force braced every nerve, possessed every faculty, and
communicated warmth and vital energy to every part of his being.
The wliole man moved under this impidse. He felt the cause
357
of libertj as his own. He resented every injury done to her as
an injury to himself, ai>d every attempt to defend it as an
insult upon his understanding. He did not stay to dispute about
words, about nice distinctions, about trifling forms. He laughed
at the httle attempts of little retailers of logic to entangle him
in senseless argument. He did not come there as to a debating
club, or law court, to start questions and bunt them down ; to
wind and unwind the web of sophistry; to pick out the threads,
and untie every knot with scrupulous exactness ; to bandy logic
with every pretender to a paradox ; to examine, to sift evidence ;
to dissect a doubt and halve a scruple ; to weigh folly and knavery
in scales together, and see on which side the balance prepondera-
ted ; to prove that liberty, truth, virtue, and justice were good
things, or that slavery and corruption were bad things. He did
»ot try to prove those truths which did not require any proof, but
to make others feel them with the same force that he did; and to
tear off the flimsy disguises with which the sycophants of power
attempted to cover tliem, — The business of an orator is not to
convince, but persuade; not to inform, but to rouse the mind ;
to build upon the habitual prejudices of mankind, (for reason of
itself will do nothing,) and to add feeling to prejudice, and action
to feeling. There is nothing new or curious or profound ir»
Lord Chatham's speeches. All is obvious and common ; there
is nothing but what we already knew, or might have found out
for ourselves. We see nothing but the familiar every-day face
of nature. We are always in broad day-light. But then there
is the same difference between our own conceptions of things and
his representation of them, as there is belweea the same objects
seen on a dull cloudy day, or in the blaze of sunshine. His
common sense has the effect of inspiration. He electrifies his
hearers, not by the novelty of his ideas, but by their force and
intensity. He has the same ideas as other men, but he has them
in a thousand times greater clearness and strength and vividness.
Perhaps there is no man so poorly furnished with thoughts and
feelings but that if he could recollect all that he knew, and had
358
all his ideas at perfect command, he would be able to confound
the puny arts of the most dexterous sophist that pretended to make
a dupe of his understanding. But in the mind of Chatham, the
great substantial truths of common sense, the leading maxims of
the Constitution, the real interests and general feelings of man-
kind, were in a manner embodied. He comprehended the whole
of his subject at a single glance — every thing was firmly rivetted
to its place ; there was no feebleness, no forgetfulness, no pause,
no distraction ; the ardour of his mind overcame every obstacle,
and he crushed the objections of his adversaries as we crush an
insect under our feet. — His imagination was of the same charac-
ter with his understanding, and was under the same guidance.
Whenever he gave way to it, it " flew an eagle flight, forth and
right on ; " but it did not become enamoured of its own motion,
wantoning in giddy circles, or " sailing with supreme dominion
through the azure deep of air." It never forgot its errand, but
went strait forward, like an arrow to its mark, with an unerring
aim. It was his servant, not his master.
To be a great orator does not require the highest faculties of
the human mind, but it requires the highest exertion of the
common faculties of our nature. He has no occasion to dive
into the depths of science, or to soar aloft on angels' wings. He
keeps upon the surface, he stands firm upon the ground, but his
form is majestic, and his eye sees far and near : he moves
among his fellows, but he moves among them as a giant among
common men. He has no need to read the heavens, to unfold
the system of the universe, or create new worlds for the delighted
fancy to dwell in ; it is enough that he sees things as they are ;
that he knows and feels and remembers the common circum-
stances and daily transactions that are passing in the world around
him. He is not raised above others by being superior to the
common interests, prejudices, and passions of mankind, but by
feeling them in a more intense degree than they do. Force then
is the sole characteristic excellence of an orator ; it is almost the
only one that can be of any service to him. Refinement, depth,
359
elevation, delicacy, originality, ingenuity, invention, are not
wanted : he must appeal to the sympathies of human nature, and
whatever is not foiuided in these, is foreign to his purpose. He
does not create, he can only imitate or echo back the public sen-
timent. His object is to call up the feelings of the human
breast ; but he cannot call up what is not already there. The
first duty of an orator is to be understood by every one ; but it is
evident that what all can understand, is not in itself difficult of
comprehension. He cannot add any thing to the materials
afforded him by the knowledge and experience of others.
Lord Chatham, in his speeches, was neither philosopher nor
poet. As to the latter, the difference between poetry and elo-
quence I take to be this : that the object of the one is to delight
the imagination, that of the other to impel the will. The one
ought to enrich and feed the mind itself with tenderness and
beauty, the other furnishes it with motives of action. The one
seeks to give immediate pleasure, to make the mind dwell with
rapture on its own workings — it is to itself " both end and use : "
the other endeavours to call up such images as will produce the
strongest effect upon the mind, and makes use of the passions
only as instruments to attain a particular purpose. The poet lulls
and soothes the mind into a forgetfulness of itself, and " laps it
in Elysium : " the orator strives to awaken it to a sense of its real
interests, and to make it feel the necessity of taking the most
effectual means for securing them. The one dwells in an ideal
world; the other is only conversant about realities. Hence poetry
must be more ornamented, must be richer and fuller and more
delicate, because it is at liberty to select whatever images are
naturally most beautiful, and Ijkely to give most pleasure ; whereas
the orator is confined to particular facts, which he may adorn as
well as he can, and make the most of, but which he cannot strain
beyond a certain point without running into extravagance and
affectation, and losing his end. However, from the very nature
of the case, the orator is allowed a greater latitude, and is com-
pelled to make use of harsher and more abrupt combinations in
S{y
th-e decoration of his subject ; for bis art is an attemj)! fo fecoW"
cile beauty and deformity together : on the contrary, the material
cf poetry, which are chosen at pleasure, are in themselves beau-
tiful, and naturally combine with whatever else is beautifulv
Grace and harmony are therefore essential to poetry, becaiwe they
naturally arise out of the subject ; but whatever adds to the
effect, whatever- tencb t& strengthen the idea or give energy to the
mind, is of the nature of eloquence. The orator is only con^
cerned to give a tone of masculine firmness to the will, to brace
the sinews and muscles of the mind ; not to delight our nervous
sensibilities, or soften the mind into voluptuous indolence. The
iiowery and sentimental style is of all others tire most intolerable
in a speaker. — I shall only add on this subject, that modesty, im-
partiality, and candottr, are not the virtues of a public speaker.
He must be confident, inflesible, uncontrolable, overcoming all
opposition by his ardour and impetuosity. We do not command
others by sympathy with them, but by power, by passion, by wilK
Calm inquiry, sober truth, and speculative indifference will never
carry any point. The passions are contagious ; and we carmot
contend against opposite passions with nothing but naked reasonv
Concessions to an enemy are clear loss ; he will take advantage
of them, btrt make us none in return'. He will magnify the weak
sides of our argument, but will be blind to whatever makes
against himself. The multitude will always be inclined to side
with that party, whose passions are the most inflamed, and whose
prejudices are the most inveterate. Passion should therefore
never be sacrificed to punctilio. It should indeed be governed
by prudence, but it should itself govern aiwl lend its impulse
and direction to abstract reason. Fox was a reasoner^ Lord
Chatham was an orator, Burke was both a reasoner and a
poet ; and was therefore still farther removed from that con-
formity with the vulg:ir notions and mechanical feelings of
mankind, which will always be necessary to give a man the chief
sway in a popular assembly.
3(>T
CHJRACTER OF MR. BURKE, 1807.*
The following speech rs perhaps the fairest specimen I could
give of Mr. Burke's various talents as a speaker. Tlie subject itself
is not the most interesting, nor does it admit of that weight and
closeness of reasoning which he displayed on other occasions.
But there is no single speech which can convey a satisfactory
idea of his powers of mind : to do him justice, it would be ne-
cessary to quote all his works ; the only specimen of Burke is,
all that he wrote. With respect to most other speakers, a
specimen is generally enough, or more than enough. When you
are acquainted with their manner, and see what proficiency they
have made in the mechanical exercise of their profession, with
what facility they can borrow a simile, or round a period, how
dexterously they can argue, and olvject, and rejoin, you are
satisfied ; there is no other difference in their speeches than what
arises from the difference of the subjects. But this was not the
case with Burke. He brought his subjects along with him 5 he
drew his materials from himself. The only limits which circum-
scribed his variety were the stores of his own mind. His stock
of ideas did not consist of a few meagre facts, meagrely stated,
of half a dozen common-places tortured in a thousand different
ways : but his mine of wealth was a profound understanding, in-
exhaustible as the human heart, and various as the sources of
nature. He therefore enriched every subject to which he applied
himself, and new subjects were only the occasions of calling forth
fresh powers of mind which had not been before exerted. It
would therefore be in vain to look for the proof of his powers in
any one of his speeches or writings : tliey all contain some
additional proof of power. In speaking of Burke, then, I shall
speak of the whole compass and circuit of his mind — not of that
small part or section of him which I have been able to give : to
do otherwise would be like the story of the man who put the
* This character was written in a fit of extravagant candour, at a tirae when
I tlionjiht I could do justice, or more tlian justice, to an enemy, williout be-
traying a cause.
362
brick in his pocket, thinking to shew it as the model of a house.
1 have been able to manage pretty well with respect to all my
other speakers, and curtailed them down without remorse. It
was easy to reduce them within certain limits, to fix their spirit,
and condense their variety ; by having a certain quantity given,
you might infer all the rest ; it was only the same thing over
again. But who can bind Proteus, or confine the roving flight
of genius ?
Burke's writings are better than his speeches, and indeed his
speeches are writings. But he seemed to feel himself more at
ease, to have a fuller possession of his faculties in addressing
the public, than in addressing the House of Commons. Burke
was raised into public life : and he seems to have been prouder
of this new dignity than became so great a man. For this reason,
most of his speeches have a sort of parliamentary preamble to
them : there is an air of affected modesty, and ostentatious trifling
in them : he seems fond of coqueting with the House of Com-
mons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance a minuet
with him, before he begins. There is also something like an
attempt to stimulate the superficial dulness of his hearers by ex-
citing their surprise, by running into extravagance : and he some-
times demeans himself by condescending to wliat may be considered
as bordering too much upon buffoonery, for the amusement of
the company. Those lines of Milton were admirably applied to
him by some one—" The elephant to make them sport wreathed
his proboscis lithe." The truth is, that he was out of his place
in the House of Commons ; he was eminently qualified to shine
as a man of genius, as the instructor of mankind, as the brightest
luminary of his age : but he had nothing in common with that
motley crew of knights, citizens, and burgesses. He could not
be said to be " native and endued unto that element." He was
above it; and never appeared like himself, but when, forgetful
of the idle clamours of party, and of the little views of little
men, he appealed to his country, and the enlightened judgment
of mankind.
363
I am not going to make an idle panegyric on Burke (he has
no need of it); but I cannot help looking upon him as the chief
boast and ornament of the English House of Commons. What
has been said of him is, I think, strictly true, that " he was the
most eloquent man of his time : his wisdom was greater than his
eloquence." The only public man that in my opinion can be put
in any competition with him, is Lord Chatham : and he moved
in a sphere so very remote, that it is almost impossible to com-
pare them. But though it would perhaps be difficult to determine
which of them excelled most in his particular way, there is
nothing in the world more easy than to point out in what their
peculiar excellences consisted. They were in every respect the
reverse of each other. Chatham's eloquence was popular : his
wisdom was altogether plain and practical. Burke's eloquence
was that of the poet ; of the man of high and unbounded fancy :
his wisdom was profound and contemplative. Chatham's elo-
quence was calculated to make men act; Burke's was calculated
to make them think. Chatham could have roused the fury of a
multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he pleased :
Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the mind of the retired
and lonely student, opened the recesses of the human breast, and
lighted up the face of nature around him. Chatham supplied
his hearers with motives to immediate action : Burke furnished
them with reasons for action which might have little effect upon
them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser and
better all their lives after. In research, in originality, in variety
of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth and compre-
hension of mind, Burke had as much the advantage of Lord
Chatham as he was excelled by him in plain common sense, in
strong feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehemence, in warmth,
in enthusiasm, and energy of mind. Burke was the man of
genius, of fine sense, and subtle reasoning ; Chatham was a man
of clear understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions.
Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation : Chatham's was
essentially active: it could not rest without an object. The
364
power which governed Burke's mind was his Imagination ; thaff
which gave its impetus to Chatham's was Will. The one was
almost the creature of pure intellect, the other of physical terai-
perament.
There are two very different ends which a man of genius may
propose to himself either in writing or speaking, and which will
accordingly give birth to very different styles. He can have but
one of these two objects j either to enrich or strengthen the mind ;
either to furnish us with new ideas, to lead the mind into new
trains of thought, to which it was before unused, and which it
was incapable of striking out for itself ; or else to collect and
embody what we already knew, to rivet our old impressions more
deeply ; to make what was before plain still plainer, and to give
to that which was familiar all the effect of novelty. In the one
case we receive an accession to the stock of our ideas ; in tlie
other, an additional degree of life and energy is infused into tliem :
our thoughts continue to flow in the same channels, but their
pulse is quickened and invigorated. I do not know how to dis-
tinguish these different styles better than by calling them severally
the inventive and refined, or the impressive and vigorous styles.
It is only the subject-matter of eloquence, however, which is
allowed to be remote or obscure. The things in themselves may
be subtle and recondite, but they nmst be dragged out of their
obscurity and brouglit struggling to the light ; they must be ren-
dered plain and palpable, (as far as it is in the wit of man to do
so) or they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural
impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark and
difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which the imagiaa-
nation can shed no lustre, which can be clothed with no beauty,
is not a subject for the orator or poet. At the same time it
cannot be expected that abstract trutiis or profound observations
should ever be placed in the same strong and dazzling points of
view as natural objects and mere matters of fact. It is enough
if they receive a reflex and borrowed lustre, like that which cheers
the first dawn of morning, where the effect of surprise and. novelty
365
gilds every object, and llie joy of beholding anotlier world gra-
dually emerging out of the gloom of night, *' a new creation
rescued from his reign," fills the mind with a sober rapture.
Philosophical eloquence is in writing what cliiaro scuio is in
painting ; he would be a fool who should object that the colours
in the shaded part of a picture were not so bright as those on the
opposite side ; the eye of the connoisseur receives an equal de-
light from both, balancing the want of brilliancy and effect with
the greater delicacy of the tints, and difficulty of the execution.
In judging of Burke, therefore, we are to consider tirst the style
of eloquence which he adopted, and secondly the effects which
he produced with it. If he did not produce the same effects on
vulgar xninds, as some others have done, it was not for want of
power, but from the turn and direction of his mind.* It was
because his subjects, his ideas, his arguments, were less vulgar.
The question is not whether he brought certain truths equally
home to us, but how much nearer he brought them than they
were before. In my opinion, be united the two extremes of
refinement and strength in a higher degree than any other writer
whatever.
The subtlety of his mind was undoubtedly that which rendered
Burke a less popular writer and speaker than he otherwise would
have been. It weakened the impression of his observations upon
others, but I cannot admit that it weakened the observations
themselves; that it took any thing from their real weight and
solidity. Coarse minds think all that is subtle, futile : that be-
cause it is not gross and obvious ai>d palpable to the senses, it is
therefore light and frivolous, and of no importance in the real
affairs of life ; thus making their own confined understandings the
measure of truth, and supplying that whatever they do not dis-
tinctly perceive, is nothing. Seneca, who was not one of the
* For instance : be produced less effect on Ihe mob lliat compose tUe
iEiiglisb House of Commons than Cbatbam or Fox, or even Pitt
366
vulgar, also says, that subtle truths are those which have the least
substance in them, and consequently approach nearest to non-
entity. But for my own part I cannot help thinking that the
most important truths must be the most refined and subtle ; for
that very reason, that they must comprehend a great number of
particulars, and instead of referring to any distinct or positive fact,
must point out the combined effects of an extensive chain of
causes, operating gradually, remotely, and collectively, and there-
fore imperceptibly. General principles are not the less true or
important because from their nature they elude immediate obser-
vation ; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary
because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence
which binds the world together, and holds the planets in their
orbits. The very same persons who are the most forward to
laugh at all systematic reasoning as idle and impertinent, you will
the next moment hear exclaiming bitterly against the baleful
effects of new-fangled systems of philosophy, or gravely descanting
on the immense importance of instilling sound principles of
morality into the mind. It would not be a bold conjecture, but
an obvious truism to say, that all the great changes which have
been brought about in the moral world, either for the better or
worse, have been introduced not by the bare statement of facts,
which are things already known, and which must always operate
nearly in the same manner, but by the development of certain
opinions and abstract principles of reasoning on life and manners,
on the origin of society and man's nature in general, which being
obscure and uncertain, vary from time to time, and produce cor-
respondent changes in the human mind. They are the wholesome
dew and rain, or the mildew and pestilence that silently destroy.
To this principle of generalization all religious creeds, the insti-
tutions of wise lawgivers, and the systems of philosophers, owe
their influence.
It has always been with me a test of the sense and candour of
any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed
Burke to be a great man. Of all the persons of this description
367
that I have ever known, I never met with above one or two who
would make this concession ; whether it was that party feelings
ran too high to admit of any real candour, or whether it was
owing to an essential vulgarity in iheir habits of thinking, they all
seemed to be of opinion that he was a wild enthusiast, or a hol-
low sophist, who was to be answered by bits of facts, by smart
logic, by shrewd questions, and idle songs. They looked upon
him as a man of disordered intellects, because he reasoned in a
style to which they had not been used and which confounded
their dim perceptions. If you said that though you differed with
him in sentiment, yet you thought him an admirable reasoner,
and a close observer of human nature, you were answered with a
loud laugh, and some hackneyed quotation. " Alas ! Leviathan
was not so tamed ! " They did not know whom they had to
contend with. The corner stone, which the builders rejected,
became the head-corner, though to the Jews a stumbling block,
and to the Greeks foolishness ; for indeed I cannot discover that
he was much better understood by those of his own party, if we
may judge from the little affinity there is between his mode of
reasoning and theirs. — ^The simple clue to all his reasonings on
politics is, I think, as follows. He did not agree with some
writers, that that mode of government is necessarily the best
which is the cheapest. He saw in the construction of society
other principles at work, and other capacities of fulfilling the
desires, and perfecting the nature of man, besides those of se-
curing the equal enjoyment of the means of animal life, and doing
this at as little expense as possible. He thought that the wants
and happiness of men were not to be provided for, as we pro-
vide for those of a herd of cattle, merely by attending to their
physical necessities. He thought more nobly of his fellows.
He knew that man had affections and passions and powers of
imagination, as well as hunger and thirst and the sense of heat
and cold. He took his idea of political society from the pattern
of private life, wishing, as he himself expresses it, to incorpo-
rate the domestic charities with the orders of the state, and to
368
feleod them together. He strove to establish an analogy between
the compact that binds together the community at large, and that
which hinds together the several families tliat compose it. He
knew that the rules that form the basis of private morality are
«iot founded in reason, that is, in the abstract properties of those
things which are the subjects of them, but in the nature of man,
and his capacity of being affected by certain things from habit,
from imagination, and sentiment, as well as from reason.
Thus, the reason why a man ought to be attached to his wife
and children is -not, «urely, that they are belter than others, (for
in this case every one else ought to be of the same opinion) but
because be must be chiefly interested in those things which are
Tiear-est t® him, and with wliich he is best acquainted, since his
'understaBding cannot reach equally to every thing; because he
must be most attached to those objects uhich he has known the
longest, and which by their sit^iatioM liave actually affected him
the most, not those wliich in tJiemselves are the most affecting,
whether they have ever made any impression on him or no ; that
is, because he is by his nature the creature of habit and feeling,
and because it is reasonable that he should act in conformity to
his nature. Burke was so far right in saying that it is no objec-
tion to an institution, th^t it is founded in prejudice, but the
contrary, if that prejudice is natural and right; that is, if it
arises from those circumstances which are properly subjects of
feeling and association, not from any defect or perversion of the
understanding in those things which fall strictly under its juris-
diction. On this profound maxim he took his stand- Thus he
<:ontended, that the prejudice in favour of nobility was natural and
proper, and fit to be encouraged by the positive institutions of
society; not on account of the real or personal merit of the
individuals, but because such an institution has a tendency to
enlarge and raise the mind, to keep alive the memory of past
greatness, to connect the different ages of tlie world together, to
carry back the imagination over a long tract of time, and feed li
•with the contemplation of remate .events.: because it is natural ia
369
think highly of that which inspires us with high thoughts, which
has been connected for many generations with splendour, and
affluence, and dignity, and power, and privilege. He also con-
ceived, that by transferring the respect from the person to the
thing, and thus rendering it steady and permanent, the mind
would be habitually formed to sentiments of deference, attach-
ment, and fealty, to whatever else demanded its respect : that it
would be led to fix its view on what was elevated and lofty, and
be weaned from that low and narrow jealousy which never vvil-
hngly or heartily admits of any superiority in others, and is glad
of every opportunity to bring down all excellence to a level with
its own miserable standard. Nobility did not therefore exist to
the prejudice of the other orders of the state, but by, and for
them. The inequality of the different orders of society did not
destroy the unity and harmony of the whole. The health and
well-being of the moral world was to be promoted by the same
means as the beauty of the natural world ; by contrast, by change,
by light and shade, by variety of parts, by order and proportion.
To think of reducing all mankind to the same insipid level, seem-
ed to him the same absurdity as to destroy the inequalities of
surface in a country, for the benefit of agriculture and commerce.
In short, he believed that the interests of men in society should
be consulted, and their several stations and employments assigned,
with a view to their nature, not as physical, but as moral beings,
so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagination, to enlivea
their fancy, to rouse their activity, to strengthen their virtue, and
to furnish the greatest number of objects of pursuit and means of
enjoyment to beings constituted as man is, consistently with the
order and stability of the whole.
The same reasoning might be extended farther. 1 do not say
that his arguments are conclusive : but they are profound and
true, as far as they go. There may be disadvantages and abuses
necessarily interwoven with his scheme, or opposite advantages of
infinitely greater value, to be derived from another order of things
and state of society. This however does not invalidate either the
B b
370
truth or importance of Burke's reasoning ; since the advantages
he points out as connected with the mixed form of government
are really and necessarily inherent in it : since they are compatible
in the same degree with no other ; since the principle itself on
which he rests his argument (whatever we may think of the appli-
cation) is of the utmost weight and moment; and since on which-
ever side the truth lies, it is impossible to make a fair decision
without having the opposite side of the question clearly and fully
stated to us. This Burke has done in a masterly manner. He
presents to you one view or face of society. Let him, who
thinks he can, give the reverse side with equal force, beauty, and
clearness. It is said, I know, that truth is one ; but to this I
cannot subscribe, for it appears to me that truth is many. There
are as many truths as there are things and causes of action and
contradictory principles at work in society. In making up the
account of good and evil, indeed, the final result must be one
way or the other ; but the particulars on which that result depends
are infinite and various.
It will be seen from what I have said, that I am very far from
agreeing with those who think that Burke was a man without un-
derstanding, and a merely florid writer. There are two causes
which have given rise to this calumny ; namely, that narrowness
of mind which leads men to suppose that the truth lies entirely
on the side of their own opinions, and that whatever does not
make for them is absurd and irrational ; secondly, a trick we have
of confounding reason with jadgrnent, and supposing that it is
merely the province of the understanding to pronounce sentence,
and not to give in evidence, or argue the case ; in short, that it
is a passive, not an active faculty. Thus diere are persons who
never run into any extravagance, because they are so buttressed
up with the opinions of others on all sides, that they cannot lean
much to one side or the other ; they are so little moved with any
kind of reasoning, that they remain at an equal distance from
every extreme, and are never sery far from the truth, because the
slowness of their faculties will not suffer them to make much
371
progress in error. These are persons of great judgment. The
scales of the mind are pretty sure to remain even, when there is
nothing in them. In this sense of the word, Burke must be
allowed to have wanted judgment, by all those who think tiiat he
was wrong in his conclusions. The accusation of want of judg-
ment, in fact, only means that you yourself are of a different
opinion. But if in arriving at one error he discovered a hundred
truths, I should consider myself a hundred times more indebted
to him than if, stumbling on that which 1 consider as the right
side of the question, he had committed a hundred absurdities in
striving to establish his point. 1 speak of him now merely as an
author, or as far as I and other readers are concerned with him ;
at the same time, I should not differ from any one who may be
disposed to contend that the consequences of his writings as in-
struments of political power have been tremendous, fatal, such as
no exertion of wit or knowledge or genius can ever counteract or
atone for.
Burke also gave a hold to his antagonists by mixing up senti-
ment and imagery with his reasoning ; so that being unused to
such a sight in the region of politics, they were deceived, and
could not discern the fruit from the flowers. Gravity is the cloke
of wisdom ; and those who have nothing else think it an insult to
affect the one without the other, because it destroys the only
foundation on which their pretensiosis are built. The easiest part
of reason is dulness ; the generality of the world are therefore
concerned in discouraging any example of unnecessary briUiancy
that might tend to shew that the two things do not always go
together. Burke in some measure dissolved the spell. It was
discovered, that his gold was not the less valuable for being
wrought into elegant shapes, and richly embossed with curious
figures ; that the solidity of a building is not destroyed by adding
to it beauty and ornament ; and that the strength of a man's un-
derstanding is not always to be estimated in exact proportion to
his want of imagination. His understanding was not the less real,
B b 2
372
because it was not the only faculty he possessed. He justified
the description of the poet, —
" How charming is divine philosophy !
Not harsh and rrabbed as dull fools suppose.
But musical as is Apollo's late !"
Those who object to this union of grace and beauty with reason,
are in fact weak-sighted people, who cannot distinguish the noble
and majestic form of Truth from that of her sister Folly, if they
are dressed both alike ! But there is always a difference even in
the adventitious ornaments they wear, which is sufficient to dis-
tinguish them.
Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer, that
he was one of the severest writers we have. His words are the
most like things ; his style is the most strictly suited to the subject.
He unites every extreme and every variety of composition; the
lowest and the meanest words and descriptions with the highest.
He exults in the display of power, in shewing the extent, the
force, and intensity of his ideas; he is led on by the mere impulse
and vehemence of his fancy, not by the affectation of dazzling his
readers by gaudy conceits or pompous images. He was com-
pletely carried away by his subject. He had no other object but
to produce the strongest impression on his reader, by giving the
truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and most forcible de-
scription of things, trusting to the power of his own mind to
mould them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a
splendid effect by setting fire to the light vapours that float in the
regions of fancy, as the chemists make fine colours with phospho-
rus, but by the eagerness of his blows struck fire from the flint,
and melted the hardest substances in the furnace of his imagina-
tion. The wheels of his imagination did not catch fire from the
rottenness of the materials, but from the rapidity of their motion.
One would suppose, to hear people talk of Burke, that his style
was such as would have suited ihe " Lady's Magazine;" soft,
373
smooth, showy, tender, insipid, full of fine words, without any
meaning. The essence of the gaudy or glittering style consists in
producing a momentary effect by fine words and images brought
together, without order or connexion. Burke most frequently
produced an effect by the remoteness and novelty of his combina-
tions, by the force of contrast, by the striking manner in which
the most opposite and unpromising materials were harmoniously
blended together ; not by laying his hands on all the fine things
he could think of, but by bringing together those things which he
knew would blaze out into glorious light by their collision. The
florid style is a mixture of affectation and common-place. Burke's
was an union of uniameable vigour and originality.
Burke was not a verbose writer. If he sometimes multiplies
words, it is not for want of ideas, but because there are no words
that fully express his ideas, and he tries to do it as well as he can
by different ones. He had nothing of the set or formal style, the
measured cadence, and stately phraseology of Johnson, and most
of our modern writers. This style, w hich is what we understand
by the artificial, is all in one key. It selects a certain set of
words to represent all ideas whatever, as the most dignified and
elegant, and excludes all others as low and vulgar. The words
are not fitted to the things, but the things to the words. Every
thing is seen through a false medium. It is putting a mask on
the face of nature, which may indeed hide some specks and
blemishes, but takes away all beauty, delicacy, and variety. It
destroys all dignity or elevation, because nothing can be raised
where all is on a level, and completely destroys all force, expres-
sion, truth, and character, by arbitrarily confounding the differ-
ences of things, and reducing every thing to the same insipid stan-
dard. To suppose that this stiff uniformity can add any thing to
real grace or dignity, is like supposing that the human body in
order to be perfectly graceful, should never deviate from its up-
right posture. Another mischief of this method is, that it con-
founds all ranks in literature. Where there is no room for variety,
00 discrimination, no nicety to be shewn in matching the idea
374
with its proper word, there can be no room for taste or elegance.
A man must easily learn the art of writing, when every sentence
is to be cast in the same mould : where he is only allowed the
tise of one word, he cannot choose wrong, nor will he be in
much danger of making himself ridiculous by aflfectation or false
glitter, when, whatever subject he treats of, he must treat of it
in the same way. This indeed is to wear golden chains for the
sake of ornament.
Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I have here
endeavoured to expose. His style was as original, as expressive,
as rich and varied, as it was possible ; his combinations were as
exquisite, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as bold and dar-
ing, as his fancy. If any thing, he ran into the opposite extreme
of too great an inequality, if truth and nature could ever be car-
ried to an extreme.
Those who are best acquainted with the writings and speeches
of Burke will not think the praise I have here bestowed on them
exaggerated. Some proof will be found of this in the following
extracts. But the full proof must be sought in his works at large,
and particularly in the '* Thoughts on the Discontents ;" in his
" Reflections on the French Revolution ;" in his " Letter to the
Duke of Bedford ;" and in the " Regicide Peace." The two last
of these are perhaps the most remarkable of all his writings, from
the contrast they afford to each other. The one is the most de-
lightful exhibition of wild and brilliant fancy, that is to be found
in English prose, but it is too much like a beautiful picture painted
upon gauze; it wants something to support it: the other is with-
out ornament, but it has all the solidity, the weight, the gravity
of a judicial record. It seems to have been written with a certain
constraint upon himself, and to shew those who said he could not
reason, that his arguments might be stripped of their ornaments
without losing any thing of their force. It is certainly, of all his
works, that in which he has shewn most power of logical deduc-
tion, and the only one in which he has made any important use of
facts. In general he certainly paid little attention to them : they
375
were the plajtliings of his mind. He saw ihem as he pleased, not
as they were ; with the eye of the philosopher or the poet, regard-
ing them only in tlieir general principle, or as they might serve to
decorate his subject. Thiij is the natural consequence of much
imagination : things that are probable are elevated into the rank
of realities. To those who can reason on the essences of things,
or who can invent according to nature, the experimental proof is
of little value. This was the case with Burke. In the present
instance, however, he seems to have forced his mind into the ser-
vice of facts : and he succeeded completely. His comparison
between our connexion with France or Algiers, and his account
of the conduct of the war, are as clear, as convincing, as forcible
examples of this kind of reasoning, as are any where to be met
with. Indeed I do not think there is any thing in Fox, (whose
mind was purely historical) or in Chatham, (who attended to feel-
ings more than facts) that will bear a comparison with them.
Burke has been compared to Cicero — I do not know for what
reason. Their excellences are as different, and indeed as oppo-
site, as they well can be. Burke had not the polished elegance ;
the glossy neatness, the artful regularity, the exquisite modulation
of Cicero : he had a thousand times more richness and originality
of mind, more strength and pomp of diction.
It has been well observed, that the ancients had no word that
properly expresses what we mean by the word genius. They
perhaps had not the thing. Their minds appear to have been
too exact, too retentive, too minute and subtle, too sensible to
the external differences of things, too passive under their impres-
sions, to admit of those bold and rapid combinations, those lofty
flights of fancy, which, glancing from heaven to earth, unite the
most opposite extremes, and draw the happiest illustrations from
things the most remote. Their ideas were kept too confined and
distinct by the material form or vehicle in which they were con-
veyed, to unite cordially together, or be melted down in the ima-
gination. Their metaphors are taken from things of the same
class, not from things of different classes ; the general analogy,
376
not the individual feeling, directs them in their choice. Hevice,
as Dr. Johnson observed, their similes are either repetitions of
the same idea, or so obvious and general as not to lend any addi-
tional force to it ; as when a huntress is compared to Diana, or a
warrior rushing into battle to a lion rushing on his prey. Their
forte was exquisite art and perfect imitation. Witness their sta-
tues and other things of the same kind. But they had not that
high and enthusiastic fancy uhich some of our own writers have
shewn. For the proof of this, let any one compare Milton and
Shakspeare with Homer and Sophocles, or Burke with Cicero.
It may be asked whether Burke was a poet. He was so only
in the general vividness of his fancy, and in richness of invention.
There may be poetical passages in his works, but 1 certainly
think that his writings in general are quite distinct from poetry ;
and that for the reason before given, namely, that the subject-
matter of them is not poetical. The finest parts of them are il-
lustrations or personifications of dry abstract ideas;* and the union
between the idea and the illustration is not of that perfect and
pleasing kind as to constitute poetry, or indeed to be admissible,
but for the effect intended to be produced by it ; that is, by every
means in our power to give animation and attraction to subjects in
themselves barren of ornament, but which at the same time are
pregnant with the most important consequences, and in which the
understanding and the passions are equally interested.
I have heard it remarked by a person, to whose opinion I
would sooner submit than to a general council of critics, that
the sound of Burke's prose is not musical ; that it wants cadence ;
and that instead of being so lavish of his imagery as is generally
supposed, he seemed to him to be rather parsimonious in the
use of it, always expanding and making the most of his ideas.
This may be true if we compare him with some of our poets, or
perhaps with some of our early prose writers, but not if we com-
pare him with any of our political writers or parliamentary speakers.
* As in the comparison of the British Constitution to the " proud keep of
Windsor," &c. the most splendid passage in his works.
377
There are some very fine things of Lord Bolingbroke's on the
same subjects, but not equal to Burke's. As for Junius, he is
at the head of his class ; but that class is not the highest. He
has been said to have more dignity than Burke. Yes — if the
stalk of a giant is less dignified than the strut of a petit-maitre.
I do not mean to speak disrespectfully of Junius, but grandeur is
not the character of his composition ; and if it is not to be found
in Burke, it is to be found nowhere.
CHARACTER OF MR. FOX, 1807.*
I SHALL begin with observing generally, that Mr. Fox ex-
celled all his contemporaries in the extent of his knowledge, in
the clearness and distinctness of his views, in quickness of appre-
hension, in plain, practical common sense, in the full, strong, and
absolute possession of his subject. A measure was no sooner
proposed than he seemed to have an instantaneous and intuitive
perception of its various bearings and consequences ; of the
manner in which it would operate on the different classes of soci-
ety, on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic or foreign
policy ; of the difficulties attending its execution ; in a word, of
all its practical results, and the comparative advantages to be
gained either by adopting or rejecting it. He was intimately
acquainted with the interests of the different parts of the commu-
nity, with the minute and complicated details of political eco-
nomy, with our external relations, with the views, the resources,
and the maxims of other states. He was master of all those facts
and circumstances which it was necessary to know in order to
judge fairly and determine wisely ; and he knew them not loosely
or lightly, but in number, weight, and measure. He had also
* If I had to write a character of IMr. Fox at present, the praise here bestowed
on him would be " craftily qualified." His life was deficient in the three prin-
cipal points, the beginning, the middle, and the end. He began a violent
Tory, and became a flaming patriot out of private picque ; he afterwards coa-
lesced with Lord North, and died an accomplice with Lord Grenrille. But—
ichat I have writlen, 1 have written. So let it pass.
378
stored his memory by reading and general study, and improved
his understanding by the lamp of history. He was well acquainted
with the opinions and sentiments of the best authors, with the
maxims of the most profound politicians, with the causes of the
rise and fall of states, with the general passions of racu, with the
characters of different nations, and the laws and constitution of
his own country. He was a man of a large, capacious, power-
ful, and highly cultivated intellect. No man could know more
than he knew ; no man's knowledge could be more sound, more
plain and useful; no man's knowledge could lie in more connected
and tangible masses ; no man could be more perfectly master of
his ideas, could reason upon them more closely, or decide upon
them more impartially. His mind was full, even to overflowing.
He was so habitually conversant with the most intricate and com-
prehensive trains of thought, or such was the natural vigour and
exuberance of his mind, that he seemed to recal them without
any effort. His ideas quarrelled for utterance. So far from ever
being at a loss for them, he was obliged rather to repress and
rein them in, lest they should overwhelm and confound, instead
of informing the understandings of his hearers.
If to this we add the ardour and natural impetuosity of his
mind, his quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence of truth,
and his impatience of every thing that looked like trick or artifice
or affectation, we shall be able in some measure to account for
the character of his eloquence. His thoughts came crowding in
too fast for the slow and mechanical process of speech. What
he saw in an instant, he could only express imperfectly, word by
word, and sentence after sentence. He would, if he could,
" have bared his swelling heart," and laid open at once the rich
treasures of knowledge with which his bosom was fraught. It is
no wonder that this difference between the rapidity of his feelings,
and the formal round-about method of communicating them,
should produce some disorder in his frame; that the throng of his
ideas should try to overleap the narrow boundaries which con-
fined them, and tumultuously break down their prison-doors, in-
stead of waiting to be let out one by one, and following patiently
379
at due intervals and with mock dignity, like poor dependents, in
the train of words : — that he should express himself in hurried
sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by vehement gestures, by
sudden starts and bursts of passion. Every thing shewed the agi-
tation of his mind. His tongue faltered, his voice became almost
suffocated, and his face was bathed in tears. He was lost in the
magnitude of his subject. He reeled and staggered under the
load of feehng which oppressed him. He rolled hke the sea
beaten by a tempest.*'' Whoever, having the feelings of a man,
compared him at these times with his boasted rival, — his stiff,
straight, upright figure, his gradual contortions, turning round as
if moved by a pivot, his solemn pauses, his deep tones, *' whose
sound reverbed their own hollowness," must have said, This is a
man ; that is an automaton. If Fox had needed grace, he would
have had it ; but it was not the character of his mind, nor would
it have suited with the style of his eloquence. It was Pitt's ob-
ject to smooth over the abruptness and intricacies of his argument
by the gracefulness of his manner, and to fix the attention of his
hearers on the pomp and sound of his words. Lord Chatham,
'again, strove to command others ; he did not try to convince
them, but to overpower their understandings by the greater
strength and vehemence of his own ; to awe them by a sense of
personal superiority : and he therefore was obliged to assume a
lofty and dignified manner. It was to him they bowed, not to
truth ; and whatever related to himself, must therefoie have a
tendency to inspire respect and admiration. Indeed, he would
never have attempted to gain that ascendant over men's minds
that he did, if either his mind or body had been different from
what they were ; if his temper had not urged him to control and
command others, or if his personal advantages had not enabled
him to secure that kind of authority which he coveted. But it
would have been ridiculous in Fox to have affected either the
* See an excellent character of Fox by a celebrated and admirable writer,
which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, November, 1806, from which this
passage is taken as nearly as I could recollect it.
380
smooth plausibility, the stately gravity of the one, or the proud,
domineering, imposing dignity of the other ; or even if he could
have succeeded, it would only have injured the effect of his
speeches.* What he had to rely on was the strength, the solid-
ity of his ideas, his complete and thorough knowledge of his sub-
ject. It was his business therefore to fix the attention of his
hearers, not on himself, but on his subject ; to rivet it there, to
hurry it on from words to things : — the only circumstance of which
they required to be convinced with respect to himself, was the
sincerity of his opinions ; and this would be best done by the
earnestness of his manner, by giving a loose to his feelings, and
by shewing the most perfect forgetfulness of himself, and of what
others thought of him. The moment a man shews you either by
affected words or looks or gestures, that he is thinking of himself,
and you, that he is trying either to please or terrify you into com-
pliance, there is an end at once to that kind of eloquence which
owes its effect to the force of truth, and to your confidence in
the sincerity of the speaker. It was, however, to the confidence
inspired by the earnestness and simplicity of his manner, that Mr.
Fox was indebted for more than half the effect of his speeches.
Some others (as Lord Lansdown for Instance) might possess nearly
as much information, as exact a knowledge of the situation and
interests of the country ; but they wanted that zeal, that animation,
that enthusiasm, that deep sense of the Importance of the sub-
ject, which removes all doubt or suspicion from the minds of the
hearers and communicates its own warmth to every breast. We
may convince by argument alone ; but it is by the interest we dis-
cover in the success of our reasonings, that we persuade others to
feel and act with us. There are two circumstances which Fox's
* There is an admirable, judicious, and truly useful remark in the preface to
Spenser, (not by Dr. Johnson, for he left Spenser out of his poets, but by one
Upton,) that the question was not whether a better poem might not have been
written on a different plan, but whether Spenser would have written a better
one on a different plan. I wish to apply this to Fox's ungainly manner. I do
not mean to say, that bis manner was the best possible, (for that would be to
say that he was the greatest man conceivable,) but that it was the best for him.
381
speeches and Lord Chatham's had in common : they are alike
distinguished by a kind of plain downright common sense, and by
the vehemence of their manner. But still there is a great differ-
ence between them, in both these respects. Fox in his opinions
was governed by facts —Chatham was more influenced by the
feelings of others respecting those facts. Fox endeavoured to
find out what the consequences of any measure would be; Chat-
ham attended more to what people would think of it. Fox
appealed to the practical reason of mankind; Chatham to popular
prejudice. The one repelled the encroachments of power by
supplying his hearers with arguments against it ; the other by
rousing their passions and arming their resentment against those
who would rob them of their birthright. Their vehemence and
impetuosity arose also from very different feelings. In Chatham
it was pride, passion, self-will, impatience of control, a deter-
mination to have his own way, to carry every diing before him ;*
in Fox it was pure good nature, a sincere love of truth, an ardent
attachment to what he conceived to be right ; an anxious concern
for the welfare and liberties of mankind. Or if we suppose that
ambition had taken a strong hold of both their minds, yet their
ambition was of a very different kind : in the one it was the love
of power, in the other it was the love of fame. Nothing can be
more opposite than these two principles, both in their origin and
tendency. The one originates in a selfish, haughty, domineering
spirit ; the other in a social and generous sensibility, desirous of
the love and esteem of others, and anxiously bent upon gaining
merited applause. The one grasps at immediate power by any
means within its reach ; the other, if it does not square its actions
by the rules of virtue, at least refers them to a standard which
comes the nearest to it — the disinterested applause of our coun-
try, and the enlightened judgment of posterity. The love of
• This may seem to contradict what I have before said of Chatham — that he
spoke like a man who was discharging a duty, &c. but I there spoke of the
tone he assumed, or his immediate feehngs at the time, rather than of the real
motives by which he was actuated.
382
fame is consistent with the steadiest attachment to principle, and
indeed strengthens and supports it ; whereas the love of power;,
where this is the ruling passion, requires the sacrifice of principle
at every turn, and is inconsistent even with the shadow of it. I
do not mean to say that Fox had no love of power, or Chatham
no love of fame, (this would be reversing all we know of human
nature,) but that the one principle predominated in the one, and
the other in the other. My reader will do me great injustice if
he supposes that in attempting to describe the characters of dif-
ferent speakers by contrasting their general qualities, I mean any
thing beyond the more or less: but it is necessary to describe
those qualities simply and in the abstract, in order to make the
distinction intelligible. Chatham resented any attack made upon
the cause of liberty, of which he was the avowed champion, as
an indignity offered to himself. Fox felt it as a stain upon the
honour of his country, and as an injury to the rights of his fellow
citizens. The one was swayed by his own passions and purposes,
with very little regard to the consequences ; the sensibility of the
other was roused, and his passions kindled into a generous flame,
by a real interest in whatever related to the welfare of mankind,
and by an intense and earnest contemplation of the consequences
of the measures he opposed. It was this union of the zeal of the
patriot with the enlightened knowledge of the statesman, that
gave to the eloquence of Fox its more than mortal energy ; that
warmed, expanded, penetrated every bosom. He relied on the
force of truth and nature alone ; the refinements of philosophy,
the pomp and pageantry of the imagination were forgotten, or
seemed light and frivolous ; the fate of nations, the welfare of
millions, hung suspended as he spoke ; a torrent of manly elo-
quence poured from his heart, bore down every thing in its course,
and surprised into a momentary sense of human feeling the breath-
ing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the stuffed figures, the
flexible machinery, the " deaf and dumb things " of a court.
1 find (I do not know how the reader feels) that it is difficult
to write a character of Fox without running into insipidity or ex-
383
travagaiice. And the reason of this is, there are no splendid
contrasts, no striking irregularities, no curious distinctions to
\vork upon ; no "jutting frieze, buttress, nor coigne of 'vantage,"
for the imagination to take hold of. It was a plain marble slab,
inscribed in plain legible characters, without either hieroglyphics
or carving. There was the same directness and manly simplicity
in every thing that he did. The whole of his character may in-
deed be summed up in two words — strength and simplicity. Fox
was in the class of common men, but he was the first in that class.
Though it is easy to describe the differences of things, nothing is
more difficult than to describe their degrees or quantities. In
what I am going to say, I hope I shall not be suspected of a
design to under-rate his powers of mind, when in fact I am only
trying to ascertain their nature and direction. The degree and
extent to which he possessed ihem can only be known by reading,
or indeed by having heard his speeches.
His mind, as I have already said, was, I conceive, [)urely his-
torical : and having said this, I have I believe said all. But
perhaps it v.ill be necessary to explain a little farther what I mean.
I mean, then, that his memory was in an extraordinary degree
tenacious of facts ; that they were crowded together in his mind
without the least perplexity or confusion; that there was no chain
of consequences too vast for his powers of comprehension ; that
the different parts and ramifications of his subject were never so
involved and intricate but that they were easily disentangled in the
clear prism of his understanding. The basis of his vvisdom was
experience : however, he not only knew what had happened ; but
by an exact knowledge of the real state of things, he could always
tell what in the common course of events would happen in future.
The force of his mind was exerted upon facts : as long as he
could lean directly upon these, as long as he had the actual ob-
jects to refer to, to steady himself by, he could analyse, he could
combine, he could compare and reason upon them, with the ut-
most exactness ; but he could not reason out of them. He was
what is understood by a matter-of-fact reasoner. He was better
384
acquainted with the concrete masses of things, their substantial
forms, and practical connexions, than with their abstract nature
or general definitions. He was a man of extensive information,
of sound knowledge, and clear understanding, rather than the
acute observer or profound thinker. He was the man of busi-
ness, the accomplished statesman, rather than the philosopher.
His reasonings were, generally speaking, calculations of certain
positive results, which, the data being given, must follow as
matters of course, rather than unexpected and remote truths
drawn from a deep insight into human nature, and the subtle ap-
plication of general principles to particular cases. They consisted
chiefly in the detail and combination of a vast number of items in
an account, worked by the known rules of political arithmetic ;
not in the discovery of bold, comprehensive, and original theo-
rems in the science. They were rather acts of memory, of con-
tinued attention, of a power of bringing all his ideas to bear at
once upon a single point, than of reason or invention. He was
the attentive observer who watches the various effects and succes-
sive movements of a machine already constructed, and can tell
how to manage it while it goes on as it has always done ; but
who knows little or nothing of the principles on which it is con-
structed, nor how to set it right, if it becomes disordered, except
by the most common and obvious expedients. Burke was to
Fox what the geometrician is to the mechanic. Much has been
said of the " prophetic mind" of Mr. Fox. The same epithet has
been applied to Mr. Burke, till it has become proverbial. It
has, I think, been applied without much reason to either. Fox
wanted the scientific part, Burke wanted the practical. Fox had
too little imagination, Burke had too much : that is, he was care-
less of facts, and was led away by his passions to look at one side
of a question only. He had not that fine sensibility to outward
impressions, that nice tact of circumstances, which is necessary
to the consummate politician. Indeed, his wisdom was more
that of the legislator than of the active statesman. They both
tried their strength in the Ulysses' bow of politicians, the French
385
Revolution : and they were both foiled. Fox indeed foretold the
success of the French in combating with foreign powers. But
this was no more than what every friend of the liberty of France
foresaw or foretold as well as he. All those on the same side of
the question were inspired with the same sagacity on the subject.
Burke, on the other hand, seems to have been before- hand with
the public in foreboding the internal disorders that would attend
the Revolution, and its ultimate failure ; but then it is at least a
question whether he did not make good his own predictions : and
certainly he saw into the causes and connexion of events much
more clearly after they had happened than before. He was how-
ever undoubtedly a profound commentator on that apocalyptical
chapter in the history of human nature, which I do not think Fox
was. Whether led to it by the events or not, he saw thoroughly
into the principles that operated to produce them ; and he pointed
them out to others in a manner which could not be mistaken. I
can conceive of Burke, as the genius of the storm, perched over
Paris, the centre and focus of anarchy, (so he would have us be-
lieve) hovering " with mighty wings outspread over the abyss, and
rendering it pregnant," watching the passions of men gradually
unfolding themselves in new situations, penetrating those hidden
motives which hurried them from one extreme into another, ar-
ranging and analysing the principles that alternately pervaded the
vast chaotic mass, and extracting the elements of order and the
cement of social life from the decomposition of all society: while
Charles Fox in the meantime dogged the heels of the Allies, (all
the way calling out to them to stop) with bis sutler's bag, his
muster-roll, and army estimates at his back. He said. You have
only fifty thousand troops, the enemy have a hundred thousand :
this place is dismantled, it can make no resistance : your troops
were beaten last year, they must therefore be disheartened this.
This is excellent sense and sound reasoning, but I do not see
what it has to do with philosophy. But why was it necessary
that Fox should be a philosopher ? Why, in the first place,
Burke was a philosopher, and Fox, to keep up with him, must
c c
386
be so too. In the second place, it was necessary, in order that
his indiscreet admirers, who have no idea of greatness but as it
consists in certain names and pompous titles, might be able to
talk big about their patron. It is a bad compliment we pay to
our idol when we endeavour to make him out something different
from himself; it shews that we are not satisfied with what he
was. I have heard it said that he had as much imagination as
Burke. To this extravagant assertion I shall make what I con-
ceive to be a very cautious and moderate answer: that Burke was
as superior to Fox in this respect as Fox perhaps was to the first
person you would meet in the street. There is in fact hardly an
instance of imagmation to be met with in any of his speeches ;
what there is, is of the rhetorical kind. I may, however, be
wrong. He might excel as much in profound thought, and rich-
ness of fancy, as he did in other things; though I cannot perceive
it. However, when any one publishes a book called The Beau-
ties of Fox, containing the original reflections, brilliant passages,
lofty metaphors, &c. to be found in his speeches, without the
detail or connexion, I shall be very ready to give the point up.
In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt — indeed, in all the formalities
of eloquence, in which the latter excelled as much as he was de-
ficient in the soul or substance. When I say that Pitt was supe-
rior to Fox in logic, I mean that he excelled him in the formal
division of the subject, in always keeping it in view, as far as he
chose ; in being able to detect any deviation from it in others ;
in the management of his general topics ; in being aware of the
mood and figure in which the argument must move, with all its
nonessentials, dilemmas, and alternatives ; in never committing
himself, nor ever suft'ering his antagonist to occupy an inch of the
plainest ground, but under cover of a syllogism. He had more
of " the dazzling fence of argument," as it has been called. He
was, in short, better at his weapon. But then, unfortunately, it
was only a dagger of lath that the wind could turn aside ;
whereas Fox wore a good trusty blade, of solid metal, and real
execution.
587
I shall not trouble myself to inquire whether Fox was a man
of strict virtue and principle ; or in other words, how far he was
one of those who screw themselves up to a certain pitch of ideal
perfection, who, as it were, set themselves in the stocks of mo-
rality, and make mouths at their own situation. He was not one
of that tribe, and shall not be tried by their self-denying ordi-
nances. But he was endowed with one of the most excellent
natures that ever fell to the lot of any of God's creatures. It has
been said, that " an honest man's the noblest work of God."
There is indeed a purity, a rectitude, an integrity of heart, a
freedom from every selfish bias, and sinister motive, a manly
simplicity and noble disinterestedness of feeling, which is in my
opinion to be preferred before every other gift of nature or art.
There is a greatness of soul that is superior to all the brilliancy of
the understanding. This strength of moral character, which is
not only a more valuable but a rarer quality than strength of un-
derstanding (as we are oftener led astray by the narrowness of our
feelings, than want of knowledge) Fox possessed in the highest
degree. He w'as superior to every kind of jealousy, of suspicion,
of malevolence ; to every narrow and sordid motive. He was
perfectly above every species of duplicity, of low art and cun-
ning. He judged of every thing in the downright sincerity of his
nature, without being able to impose upon himself by any hollow
disguise, or to lend his support to any thing unfair or dishonour-
able. He had an innate love of truth, of justice, of probity, of
whatever was generous or liberal. Neither his education, nor his
connexions, nor his situation in life, nor the low intrigues and
virulence of party, could ever alter the simplicity of his taste, nor
the candid openness of his nature. There was an elastic force
about his heart, a freshness of social feeling, a warm glowing
humanity, which remained unimpaired to the last. He was by
nature a gentleman. By this I mean that he felt a certain defer-
ence and respect for the person of every man ; he had an unaflfec-
ted frankness and benignity in his behaviour to others, the utmost
liberality in judging of their conduct and motives. A refined
c c C
38B
humanlly constitutes the character of a gentleman.* He \vas
the true friend of his country, as far as it is possible for a states-
man to be so. But his love of his country did not consist in his
hatred of the rest of mankind. I shall conclude this account by
repeating what Burke said of him at a time when his testimony
was of the most value. " To his great and masterly understand-
ing he joined the utmost possible degree of moderation : he was
of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition ;
disinterested in the extreme ; of a temper mild and placable, even
to a fault ; and without one drop of gall in his constitution."
CHARACTER OF MR. PITT, 1806.
The character of Mr. Pitt was, perhaps, one of the most
singular that ever existed. With few talents, and fewer virtues,
he acquired and preserved in one of the most trying situations,
and in spite of all opposition, the highest reputation for the pos-
session of every moral excellence, and as having carried the at-
tainments of eloquence and wisdom as far as human abilities
could go. This he did (strange as it appears) by a negation
(together with the common virtues) of the common vices of
human nature, and by the complete negation of every other talent
that might interfere with the only one which he possessed in a
supreme degree, and which indeed may be made to include the
appearance of all others — ^an artful use of words, and a certain
dexterity of logical arrangement. In these alone his power con-
sisted ; and the defect of all other qualities, which usually consti-
tute greatness, contributed to the more complete success of these.
Having no strong feelings, no distinct perceptions, his mind
* To this character none of those who could be compared with him in talents
had the least pretensions, as Chatham, Burke, Pitt, &c. They would black'
gua^d and bully any man upon the slightest piovocation, or ditfereace of
opinion.
389
having no link, as it were, to connect it w illi llie world of external
nature, every subject presented to him nothing more than a
tabula rasa, on which he was at liberty to lay whatever colouring
of language he pleased ; having no general principles, no com-
prehensive views of things, no moral habits of thinking, no system
of action, there was nothing to hinder him from pursuing any par-
ticular purpose, by any means that offered ; having never any plan,
he could not be convicted of inconsistency, and his own pride and
obstinacy were the only rules of his conduct. Having no insight
into human nature, no sympathy with the passions of men, or
apprehension of their real designs, he seemed perfectly insensible
to the consequences of things, and would believe nothing till it
actually happened. The fog and haze in which he saw every
thing communicated itself to others ; and the total indistinctness
and uncertainty of his own ideas tended to confound the percep-
tions of his hearers more effectually than the most ingenious mis-
representation could have done. Indeed, in defending his conduct
he never seemed to consider himself as at all responsible for the
success of his measures, or to suppose that future events were in
our own power ; but that as the best-laid schemes might fail, and
there was no providing against all possible contingencies, this was
a sufficient excuse for our plunging at once into any dangerous or
absurd enterprize, without the least regard to consequences. His
reserved logic confined itself solely to the possible and the im-
possible; and he appeared to regard the probable and improbable,
the only foundation of moral prudence or political wisdom, as
beneath the notice of a profound statesman ; as if the pride of
the human intellect were concerned in never entrusting itself with
subjects, where it may be compelled to acknowledge its weakness.*
* One instance may serve as an example for all the rest: — Wlicn Mr. Fox
last summer (1805) prcdicte<i the failure of the new confederacy against
France, from a consideration of the circumstances and relative situation of both
parties, that is, from an exact knowledge of the actual state of things, Mr. Pitt
contented himself with answering — and, as in the blindness of his infatuation,
he seemed to think quite satisfactorily, — " That be could not assent to the
390
From his manner of reasoning, lie seemed not to have believed
that the truth of his statements depended on the reaUty of the
facts, but that the things depended on the order in which he
arranged them in words : you would not suppose him to be agi-
tating a serious question which had real grounds to go upon, but
to be declaiming upon an imaginary thesis, proposed as an exer-
cise in the schools. He never set himself to examine the force
of the objections that were brought against his measures, or at-
tempted to establish them upon clear, solid grounds of his own ; but
constantly contented himself with first gravely stating the logical
form, or dilemma, to which the question reduced itself, and then,
after having declared his opinion, proceeded to amuse his hearers
by a series of rhetorical common places, connected together in
grave, sonorous, and elaborately constructed periods, without
ever shewing their real application to the subject in dispute.
Thus, if any member of the Opposition disapproved of any mea-
sure, and enforced his objections by pointing out the many evils
with which it was fraught, or the difficulties attending its exe-
cution, his only answer was, " that it was true there might be
inconveniences attending the measure proposed, but we were to
bononrable gentleman's reasoning, for that it went to this, that we were never
to attempt to mend the situation of our affairs, because in so doing we might
possibly make them worse." No ; it was not on account of this abstract pos-
sibility in liuman affairs, or because we were not absolutely sure of succeeding
(for that any child might know), but because it was in the highest degree pro-
bable, or morally certain, that the scheme would fail, and leave us in a worse
situation than we were before, that Mr. Fox disapproved of the attempt.
Tlicre is in this a degree of weakness and imbecility, a defect of understanding
bordering on idiotism, a fundamental ignorance of the first principles of human
reason and prudence, that in a great minister is utterly astonishing, and almost
incredible. Nothing could ever drive him out of his dull forms, and naked
generalities; which, as tiiey are susceptible neither of degree nor variation,
are therefore equally applicable to every emergency that can happen: and in
the most critical aspect of affairs, he saw nothing but the same flimsy web of
remote possibilities and metaphysical uncertainty. In his mind the wholesome
pulp of practical wisdom and salutary advice was immediately converted into
the dry chaff and husks of a miserable logic.
.391
remember, ihat every expedient that could be devised might be
said to be nothing more than a clioice of difliculties, and that all
that human prudence could do was to consider on which side the
advantages lay ; that for his part, he conceived that the present
measure was attended with more advantages and fewer disadvan-
tages than any other that could be adopted ; that if we were di-
verted from our object by every appearance of difficulty, the
Avheels of government would be clogged by endless delays and
imaginary grievances ; that most of the objections made to the
measure appeared to him to be trivial, others of them unfounded
and improbable ; or that if a scheme free from all these objec-
tions could be proposed, it might after all prove inefficient ;
while, in the mean time, a material object remained unprovided
for, or the opportunity of action was lost." This mode of
reasoning is admirably described by Hobbes, in speaking of the
writings of some of the Schoolmen, of whom he says, that " they
had learned the trick of imposing what they list upon their
readers, and declining the force of true reason by verbal forks ;
that is, distinctions which signify nothing, but serve only to
astonish the multitude of ignorant men." That what I have here
stated comprehends the whole force of his mind, which consisted
solely in this evasive dexterity and perplexing formality, assisted
by a copiousness of words and common-place topics, will, I think,
be evident to any one who carefully looks over his speeches, un-
dazzled by the reputation or personal influence of the speaker.
It will be in vain to look in them for any of the common proofs
of human genius or wisdom. He has not left behind him a
single memorable saying — not one profound maxim — one solid
observation — one forcible description — one beautiful thought —
one humorous picture — one affecting sentiment.* He has made
* I do remember one passage which has some meaning in it. At tlie time
of the Regency Bill, speaking of the proposal to take the King's servants from
him, he says, " What must that great personage feel wiien he waked from the
trance of his faculties, and asked for his attendants, if he were told that bis
subjects had taken advantage of his momentary absence of mind, and stripped
392
no addition whatever to the stock of human knowledge. He did
not possess any one of those faculties which contribute to the
instruction and delight of mankind — depth of understanding, ima-
gination, sensibility, wit, vivacity, clear and solid judgment. But
it may be asked, If these qualities are not to be found in him,
where are we to look for them ? And I may be required to point
out instances of them. I shall answer then, that he had none of
the profound legislative wisdom, piercing sagacity, or rich, im-
petuous, high-wrought imagination of Burke; the manly elo-
quence, strong sense, exact knowledge, vehemence and natural
simplicity of Fox ; the ease, brilliancy, and acuteness of Sheridan.
It is not merely that he had not all these qualities in the degree
that they w ere severally possessed by his rivals, but he had not any
of them in any striking degree. His reasoning is a technical ar-
rangement of unmeaning common-places ; his eloquence merely
rhetorical ; his style monotonous and artificial. If he could pre-
tend to any one excellence in an eminent degree, it was to taste
in composition. There is certainly nothing low, nothing puerile,
nothing far-fetched or abrupt in his speeches ; there is a kind of
faultless regularity pervading them throughout ; but in the con-
fined, mechanical, passive mode of eloquence which he adopted,
it seemed rather more difficult to commit errors than to avoid
them. A man who is determined never to move out of the
beaten road, cannot lose his way. However, habit, joined to
the peculiar mechanical memory which he possessed, carried this
correctness to a degree which, in an extemporaneous speaker, was
almost miraculous ; he perhaps hardly ever uttered a sentence that
was not perfectly regular and connected. In this respect, he not
only had the advantage over his own contemporaries, but perhaps
no one that ever lived equalled him in this singular faculty. But
for this, he would always have passed for a common man ; and to
him of the symbols of his personal elevation." There is some grandeur in this.
His admirers should have it inscribed iu letters of gold; for tliey will not find
another instance of the same kind.
393
this the constant sameness, and, if I may so say, vulgarity of his
ideas, must have contributed not a little, as there was nothing to
distract his mind from this one object of his unintermitted atten-
tion ; and as even in his choice of words he never aimed at any
thing more than a certain general propriety, and stately uniformity
of style. His talents were exactly fitted for the situation in which
he was placed ; where it was his business, not to overcome others,
but to avoid being overcome. He was able to baffle opposition,
not from strength or firmness, but from the evasive ambiguity and
impalpable nature of his resistance, which gave no hold to the
rude grasp of his opponents : no force could bind the loose
phantom, and his mind (though " not matchless, and his pride
humbled by such rebuke,") soon rose from defeat unhurt,
" And in its liquid texture mortal wound
" Receiv'd no njore than can the fluid air." *
* I would recommend to the reader a masterly and unanswerable essay
on this subject, in the Morning Post, by Mr. Coleridge, (see following
page) from which most of the above remarks are taken. See also Dr.
Beddoes's Letter on the public merits of Mr. Pitt. I will only add, that it
is the property of true genius, to force the admiration even of enemies. No
one was ever hated or envied for bis powers of mind, if others were con-
vinced of their real excellence. The jealousy and uneasiness produced iu the
mind by the display of superior talents almost always arises from a suspicion
that there is some trick or deception in the case, and that we are imposed on
by an appearance of what is not really there. True warmth and vigour com-
municate warmth and vigour ; and we are no longer inclined to dispute the
inspiration of the oracle, when we feel the ^' presens Divus " in our own bosoms.
But when, without gaining any new light or heat, we only find our ideas thrown
into perplexity and confusion by an art that we cannot comprehend, this is a
kind of superiority which must always be painful, and can never be cordially
admitted. For this reason the extraordinary talents of Mr. Pitt were always
viewed, except by those of his own party, with a sort of jealousy, and grudg-
ingly acknowledged ; while those of his rivals were admitted by all parties in
the most unreserved manner, and carried by acclamation.
394
PITT AND BUONAPJRTE.
From the Mornim Post, March 19, 1800.
{{
Plutarch, in his comparative biography of Rome and
Greece, has generally chosen for each pair of Lives the two
contemporaries who most nearly resemble each other. His
work would, perhaps, have been more interesting, if he had
adopted the contrary arrangement, and selected those rather,
who had attained to the possession of similar influence, or similar
fame, by means, actions, and talents the most dissimilar. For
power is the sole object of philosophical attention in man, as in
inanimate nature ; and in the one equally as in the other, we un-
derstand it more intimately, the more diverse the circumstances
are with which we have observed it to exist. In our days, the
two persons who appear to have influenced the interests and
actions of men the most deeply and the most diff'usively, are,
beyond doubt, the Chief Consul of France, and the Prime
Minister of Great Biitain : and in these two, are presented to us
similar situations, with the greatest dissimilitude of characters.
William Pitt was the younger son of Lord Chatham ; a fact
of no ordinary importance in the solution of his character, of no
mean significance in the heraldry of morals and intellect. His
father's rank, fame, political connexions, and parental ambition,
were his mould : he was cast, rather than grew. A palpable
election, a conscious predestination controlled the free agency,
and transfigured the individuality of his mind, and that, which he
might have been, was compelled into that, which he was to be.
From his early childhood it was his father's custom to make him
stand upon a chair, and declaim before a large company ; by
which exercise, practised so frequently, and continued for so
many years, he acquired a premature and unnatural dexterity in the
combination of words, which must of necessity have diverted his
attention from present objects, obscured his impressions, and
deadened his genuine feelings. Not the thing on which he was
395
speaking, but the praises to be gained by the speech, were
present to his intuition ; hence he associated all the operations of
his faculties with words, and his pleasures with the surprise ex-
cited by them. But an inconceivably large portion of human
knowledge and human power is involved in the science and
management of words ; and an education of words, though it
destroys genius, will often create and always foster, talent. The
young Pitt was conspicuous far beyond his fellows, both at school
and at college. He was always full-grown : he had neither the
promise nor the awkwardness of a growing intellect. Vanity,
early satiated, formed, and elevated itself into a love of power ;
and in losing this colloquial vanity, he lost one of the prime links
that connect the individual with the species, too early for the
affections, though not too early for the understanding. At Col-
lege he was a severe student ; his mind was founded and ele-
mented in words and generalities, and these too formed all the
superstructure. That revelry and that debauchery, which are so
often fatal to the powers of intellect, would probably have been
serviceable to him ; they would have given him a closer commu-
nion with realities, they would have induced a greater preseniness
to present objects. But Mr. Pitt's conduct was correct, unim-
pressibly correct. His after-discipline in the special pleader's
office, and at the Bar, carried on the scheme of his education
with unbroken uniformity. His first political connexions were
with the Reformers ; but those who accuse him of sympathising
or coalescing with their intemperate or visionary plans, misun-
derstand his character, and are ignorant of the historical facts.
Imaginary situations in an imaginary state of things, rise up in
minds that possess a power and facility in combining images.
Mr. Pitt's ambition was conversant with old situations in the old
state of things, which furnish nothing to the imagination, though
much to the wishes. In his endeavours to realize his father's
plan of reform, he was probably as sincere as a being, who had
derived so little knowledge from actual impressions, cuuld be.
But his sincerity had no living root of affection : while it was
396
propped up by his love of praise and immediate power, so long
it stood erect, and no longer. He became a member of the
Parliament, supported the popular opinions, and in a few years,
by the influence of the popular party, was placed in that high
and awful rank in which he now is. The fortunes of his country,
we had almost said the fates of the world, were placed in his
wardship — we sink in prostration before the inscrutable dispensa-
tions of Providence, when we reflect in whose wardship the
fates of the world were placed.
The influencer of his country and of his species was a youno"
man, the creature of another's predetermination, sheltered and
weatherfended from all the elements of experience; a young
man, whose feet had never wandered, whose very eye had never
turned to the right or to the left, whose whole track had been as
curveless as the motions of a fascinated reptile ! It was a young
man, whose heart was solitary, because he had existed always
amid objects of futurity, and whose imagination too was unpo-
pulous, because those objects of hope, to which his habitual
wishes had transferred, and as it were, projected his existence,
were all familiar and long established objects. A plant sown and
reared in a hot-house, for whom the very air that surrounded him,
had been regulated by the thermometer of previous purpose ; to
Avhom the light of nature had penetrated only through glasses and
covers, who had had the sun without the breeze ; whom no storm
had shaken; on whom no rain had pattered; on whom the dews
of Heaven had not fallen ! A being, who had had no feeling*
connected with man or nature ; no spontaneous impulses ; no un-
biassed and desultory studies ; no genuine science ; nothing that
constitutes individuality in intellect ; nothing that teaches brother-
hood in affection. Such was the man, such, and so denaturalized
the spirit, on whose wisdom and philanthropy the lives and living
enjoyments of so many milhons of human beings were made una-
voidably dependent. From this time a real enlargement of mind
became almost impossible. Pre-occupations, intrigue, the undue
pas&ion and anxiety, with which all facts must be surveyed ; the
397
crowd and confusion of these facts, none of them seen, but all
communicated, and by that very circumstance, and by the neces-
sity of perpetually classifying them, transmuted into words and
generalities ; pride, flattery, irritation, artificial power ; these, and
circumstances resembling these, necessarily render the heights of
office barren heights, which command indeed a vast and extensive
prospect, but attract so many clouds and vapours, that, most
often, all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. Pitt's
situation, however inauspicious for his real being, was favourable
to his fame. He heaped period on period ; persuaded himself
and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences
was eloquence ; and that eloquence implied wisdom. His father's
struggles for freedom, and his own attempts, gave him an almost
unexampled popularity ; and his office necessarily associated with
his name all the great events, that happened during his adminis-
tration. There were not, however, wanting men, who saw
through the delusion : and refusing to attribute the industry, in-
tegrity, and enterprising spirit of our merchants, the agricultural
improvements of our landholders, the great inventions of our
manufacturers, or the valor and skilfulness of our sailors, to the
merits of a Minister : they have continued to decide on his cha-
racter from those acts and those merits which belong to him, and
to him alone. Judging him by this standard, they have been able
to discover in him no one proof or symptom of a commanding
genius. They have discovered him never controlling, never
creating, events, but always yielding to them with rapid change,
and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefinite-
ness. In the Russian War, they saw him abandoning meanly
what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. In the
debates on the Regency, they detected the laxity of his constitu-
tional principles, and received proofs that his eloquence consisted
not in the ready application of a general system to particular
questions, but in the facility of arguing for or against any question
by specious generalities, without reference to any system. Ip
these debates, he combined what is most dangerous in democracy,
with all that is most degrading in the old superstitions of Mp-
398
narchy, and taught an inherency of the office in the person of the
King, which made the office itself a nullity, and the Premiership,
with its accompanying majority, the sole and permanent power
of the State. And now came the French Revolution. This was
a new event ; the old routine of reasoning, the common trade of
politics, were to become obsolete. He appeared wholly unpre-
pared for it. Half favouring, half condemning, ignorant of what
he favoured, and why he condemned ; he neither displayed the
honest enthusiasm and fixed principle of Mr. Fox, nor the inti-
mate acquaintance with the general nature of man, and the con-
sequent prescience of Mr. Burke. After the declaration of war,
long did he continue in the common cant of office, in declama-
tion about the Scheld, and Holland, and all the vulgar causes of
common contests, and when at last the immense genius of his new
supporter had beat him out of these words (words signifying
places and dead objects, and signifying nothing more) he adopted
other words in their places^ other generalities — Atheism and Ja-
cobinism, phrases, which he had learnt from Mr. Burke, but
without learning the philosophical definitions and involved conse-
quences, with which that great man accompanied those words.
Since the death of Mr. Burke, the forms and the sentiments,
and the tone of the French, have undergone many and important
changes : how indeed is it possible, that it should be otherwise,
while man is the creature of experience ? But still Mr. Pitt
proceeds in an endless repetition of the same general phrases.
This is his element ; deprive him of general and abstract phrases,
and you reduce him to silence. But you cannot deprive him of
them. Press him to specify an individual fact of advantage to be
derived from a war, and he answers. Security. Call upon him to
particularise a crime, and he exclaims. Jacobinism. Abstractions
defined by abstractions — generalities defined by generalities ! As
a minister of France, he is still, as ever, the man of words and
abstractions, figures, Custom-house reports, imports and exports,
commerce and revenue all flourishing, all splendid. Never was
such a prosperous country as England under his administration.
Let it be objected, that the agriculture of the country is, by the
399
overbalance of commerce, and by various and complex causes, in
such a state, that the country hangs as a pensioner for bread on
its neighbours, and a bad season uniformly threatens us with
famine, this (it is replied) is owing to our prosperity — all pros-
perous nations are in great distress for food. Still prosperity,
still general phrases, uninforced by one single image, one single
fact of real national amelioration, of any one comfort enjoyed,
where it was not before enjoyed, of any one class of society be-
coming healthier, or wiser, or happier. These are things, these
are realities ; and these Mr. Pitt has neither the imagination to
body forth, or the sensibility to feel for. Once, indeed, in an
evil hour intriguing for popularity, he suffered himself to be per-
suaded to evince a talent for the real, the individual : and he
brought in his Poor Bill. When we hear the Minister's talents for
finance so loudly trumpeted, we turn involuntarily to his Poor
Bill, to that acknowledged abortion, that unanswerable evidence
of his ignorance respecting all the fundamental relations and
actions of property, and of the social union.
As his reasonings, even so is his eloquence. One character per-
vades his whole being. Words on words finely arranged, and so
dexterously consequent, that the whole bears the semblance of
argument, and still keeps awake a sense of surprise ; but when
all is done, nothing rememberable has been said ; no one philo-
sophical remark, no one image, not even a pointed aphorism.
Not a sentence of Mr. Pitt's has ever been quoted, or formed
the favourite phrase of the day, a thing unexampled in any man
of equal reputation. But while he speaks, the effect varies ac-
cording to the character of his auditor. The man of no talent is
swallowed up in surprise : and when the speech is ended, he re-
members his feelings, but nothing distinct of that which produced
them ; (how opposite an effect to that of nature and genius, from
whose works the idea still remains, when the feeling is passed
away, remains to connect itself with other feelings, and combine
with new impressions !) The mere man of talent hears him with
admiration, the mere man of genius with contempt ; the philo-
sopher neither admires nor contemns, but listens to him with a^
400
deep and solemn interest, tracing in the effects of his eloquence
the power of words and phrases, and that peculiar constitution of
human affairs in their present state, which so eminently favours
this power.
Such appears to us to be the Prime Minister of Great Britain,
whether we consider him a statesman or an orator. The same
character betrays itself in his private life, the same coldness to
realities, to images of realities, and to all whose excellence re-
lates to reality.
He has patronised no science, he has raised no man of genius
from obscurity ; he counts no one prime work of God among his
friends. From the same source he has no attachment to female
society, no fondness for children, no perceptions of beauty in
natural scenery ; but he is fond of convivial indulgences, of that
stimulation, which, keeping up the glow of self-importance and
the sense of internal power, gives feelings without the mediation
of ideas.
These are the elements of his mind ; the accidents of his for-
tune, the circumstances that enabled such a mind to acquire and
retain such a power, would form the subject of a philosophical
history, and that too of no scanty size. We scarcely furnish the
chapter of contents to a work which would comprise subjects so
important and delicate, as the causes of the diffusion and intensity
of secret influence, the machinery and state intrigue of marriages,
the overbalance of the commercial interest ; the panic of property
struck by the late Revolution, the short-sightedness of the careful,
the carelessness of the far-sighted ; and all those many and various
events which have given to a decorous profession of religion, and
a seemliness of private morals, such an unwonted weight in the
attainment and preservation of public power. We are unable to
determine whether it be more consolatory or humiliating to human
nature, that so many complexities of event, situation, character,
age, and country, should be necessary in order to the production
of a Mr. Pitt."
401
AN EXAMINATION OF MR. MALTHUS'S
DOCTRINES.
1. OF THE GEOMETRICAL AND ARITHMETICAL SERIES.
Wallace, the author of" Various Prospects of Mankind,
Nature, and Providence," was the first person, we believe, who
apphed the principle of the superior power of increase in popu-
lation over the means of subsistence, as an insuperable objection
to the arguments for the perfectibility of man, for which, in other
respects, this author was an advocate. He has devoted a long
and elaborate Essay to prove these two points: — 1. That there
is a natural and necessary inability in tlie means of subsistence to
go on increasing always in the same ratio as the population, the
limits of the earth necessarily limiting the actual increase of the
one, and there being no limits to the tendency to increase in
the other ; 2. That the checks which have hitherto, and which
always must keep population down to the level of the means of
subsistence, are vice and misery; and consequently, that in a
state of perfectibility, as it is called, viz. in a state of perfect
wisdom, virtue, and happiness, where these indispensable checks
to population, vice and misery, were entirely removed, popu-
lation would go on increasing to an alarming and most excessive
degree, and unavoidably end in the utmost disorder, confusion,
vice and misery. — (See Furious Prospects, Sfc, p. 113-123.)
The principle laid down by this author, that population could
not go on for ever increasing at its natural rate, or free from
every restraint, either moral or physical, without ultimately
outstripping the utmost possible increase of the means of sub-
sistence, we hold to be unquestionable, if not self-evident : the
other principle assumed by the original author, viz. that vice
and misery are the only possible checks to population, we hold
to be false as a matter of fact, and peculiarly absurd and con-
tradictory, when applied to that state of society contemplated bj'
Dd
402
the author, that is to say, one in which abstract reason and pure
virtue, or a regard to the general good, should have !2ot the
better of every animal instinct and selfish pission. Of this,
perhaps, a word hereafter. But be this as it may, both the
principle of the necessary increase of the population beyond the
means of subsistence, and the application of that principle as a
final obstacle to all Utopian perfectibility schemes, are borrowed
(whole) by Mr. Malthus from Wallace's work. This is not
very stoutly denied by his admirers; but, say they, Mr. Malthus
was the first to reduce the inequality between the possible in-
crease of food and population to a mathematical certainty, to
the arithmetical and geometrical ratios. In answer to which,
we say, that those ratios are, in a strict and scientific view of the
subject, entirely fallacious — a pure fiction. For a grain of corn
or of mustard-seed has the same or a greater power of propa-
gating its species than a man, till it has overspread the whole
earth, till there is no longer any room for it to grow or to spread
farther. A bushel of wheat will sow a whole field : the produce
of that field will sow twenty fields, and produce twenty harvests.
Till there are no longer fields to sow, that is, till a country or
the earth is exhausted, the means of subsistence will go on in-
creasing in more than a geometrical ratio; will more than double
itself in every generation or season, and will more than keep
pace with the progress of population ; for this is supposed only
to double itself, where it is unchecked, every twenty years.
Therefore it is not true as an abstract proposition, that of itself,
or in the nature of the growth of the produce of the earth, food
can only increase in the snail-pace progress of an arithmetical
ratio, while population goes on at a swinging geometrical rate :
for the food keeps pace, or more than keeps pace, with the
population, while there is room to grow it in, and after that room
is filled up, it does not go on, even in that arithmetical ratio —
it does not increase at all, or very little. That is, the ratio,
instead of being always true, is never true at all : neither before
the soil is fully cultivated, nor afterwards. Food does not
403
increase in an arithmetical series in China, or even in England :
it increases in a geometrical series, or as fast as the population, in
America. The rates at which one or the other increase naturally,
or can be made to increase, have no relation to an arithmetical
and geometrical series. They are co-ordinate till tfie earth,
or any given portion of it, is occupied and cultivated, and,
after that, they are quite disproportionate : or rather, both stop
practically at the same instant ; the means of subsistence with
the limits of the soil, and the population with the limits of the
means of subsistence. All that is true of Mr. Malthus's doctrine,
then, is this, that the tendency of population to increase remains
after the power of the earth to produce more food is gone ;
that the one is limited, the other unlimited. This is enough
for the morality of the question : his mathematics are altogether
spurious. Entirely groundless as they are, they have still been
of the greatest use to Mr. Malthus, in alarming the imaginations
and confounding the understandings of his readers. For, if the
case had been represented as it stands, the increase of population
would have seemed, till the limits of the earth were full, a great
moral good ; and after they were passed, a physical impossibility,
the state of society remaining the same. But, by means of the
arithmetical and geometrical series, ever present to the mental
eye, and overlaying the whole question, whether applicable to it
or not, it seems, first, as if this inordinate and unequal pressure
of population on the means of subsistence was, at all limes, and
in all circumstances, equally to be dreaded, and equally inevitable ;
and again, as if, the more that population advanced, the greater
the evil became, the actual excess as well as the tendency to
excess. For it appears by looking at the scale, at the " stop-
watch " of the new system of morals and legislation, as if, when
the population is at 4, the means of subsistence is at 3 ; so that
there is here only a deficit of 1 in the latter, and a small cor-
responding quantity of vice and misery; but that when it gets on
to 32, the means of subsistence being only 6, here is a necessary
deficiency of food, and all the comforts of life, to 26 persons
Dd 2
404
out of 3^, so that life becomes an evil, and the world a wretched
lazar-house, a monstrous sink of misery and famine, one foul
abortion, in proportion as it is full of human beings enjoying the
comforts and necessaries of life. It consequently follows, that
the more we can, by the wholesome preventive checks of vice
and misery, keep back the principle of population to its first
stages, and the means of subsistence to as low a level as possible,
we keep these two mechanical, and otherwise unmanageable
principles, in closer harmony, — hinder the one from pressing ex-
cessively on the other, and by producing the least possible quantity
of good, prevent the greatest possible quantity of evil. This
doctrine is false in fiict and theory. Its advocates do not under-
stand it, nor is it intelligible. The actual existence of ^Q persons
in want, when there is only food for six out of 32, is a chimera
which never entered the brains of any one not an adept in Mr.
Malthus's mathematical series ; the population confessedly never
can or does exceed the means of subsistence in a literal sense ;
and the tendency to exceed it in a moral sense, that is, so as to
destroy the comforts and happiness of society, and occasion vice
and misery, does not depend on the actual population supported
by actual means of subsistence, but solely on the greater or less
degree of moral restraint, in any number of individuals (ten
hundred or ten millions), inducing them to go beyond or stop
short of impending vice and misery in the career of population.
The instant, however, any increase in population, with or with-
out an increase in the means of subsistence, is hinted, the
disciples of Mr. Malthus are struck with horror at the vice and
misery which must ensue to keep this double population down ;
nay, mention any improvement, any reform, any addition to
the comforts or necessaries of life, any diminution of vice and
misery, and the infallible result in their apprehensive imagina-
tions is only an incalculable increase of vice and misery, from
the increased means of subsistence, and the increased population
that would follow. They have but this one idea in their heads ;
it comes in at every turn, and nothing can drive it out. Twice
405
last year did Major Torrens go down to the City Meeting with
Mr. Malthus's arithmetical and geometrical ratios in his pocket,
as a double and effectual bar to Mr. Owen's plan, or, indeed,
if he is consistent, to any other plan of reform. He appeared
to consider these ratios as decisive against any philosophical
scheme of perfectibility, and as proportionably inimical to any
subordinate approximation to any such ultimate visionary per-
fection. He argued that Mr. Owen's " projected villages," if
realised in all their pauper splendour, and to the projector's
heart's content, would, by providing for the support and in-
creased comforts of an additional population, only (by that very
means) give a double impetus to the mechanical operation of the
ratios in question, and produce a double quantity of crime and
misery, by making the principle of population press with ex-
tended force on the means of subsistence. This is what we can-
not comprehend. Suppose Mr. Owen's plan, or any other,
would afford double employment, double comfort and sub-
sistence to the poor throughout the country, where would be the
harm of this, where the objection, near or remote, except on
the false principles laid down or insinuated in Mr. Malthus's
work ? For instance, if another island such as England could
by an enchanter be conjured up in the middle of the sea, with
all the same means of subsistence, arts, trades, agriculture, ma-
nufactures, institutions, laws, &c. as this country, we ask whether
this new country would not be a good in proportion to the
number of beings maintained in such a state of comfort : or,
if these gentlemen will have it so, in proportion to the increase
of population pressing on the means of subsistence ? We say
it would be a good, just in the same sense and proportion that
it would be an evil, if England as it is, with all its inhabitants,
means of subsistence, arts, trades, manufactures, agriculture,
institutions, laws. King, Lords and Commons, were sunk in
the sea ? Who would not weep for England so sunk, — who
would not rejoice to see another England so rising up out of the
same element? The good would be immense, and the evil
406
would be none : for it is evident, that though the population of
both islands would be double that of either singly, it is the
height of absurdity to suppose this would increase the tendency
of the population to press more upon the means of subsistence,
or to produce a greater quantity of vice and misery in either,
than if the one or the other did not exist. But the case is pre-
cisely the same if we suppose England itself, our England, to
be doubled in population and the means of subsistence : — if we
suppose such an improvement in our arts, trade, manufactures,
agriculture, institutions, laws, every thing, possible, as to main-
tain double the same number of Englishmen, in the same or in
a greater degree of comfort and enjoyment, of liberty, virtue,
knowledge, happiness, and independence. The population being
doubled would not press more unequally on double the means
of subsistence, than half that population would press on half
those means of subsistence. If this increase would be an evil,
the destroying half the present population, and half the present
means of subsistence, the laying waste more lands, the destroying
arts and the implements of husbandry, the re-barbarising and the
re-enslaving the country, would be a good. The shiking the
maritime counties with all their inhabitants in the Channel,
instead of " redeeming tracts from the sea/' would be a great
good to the community and the State ; the flooding the fen
districts would do something, in like manner, to prevent the
pressure of the principle of population on the level of the means
of subsistence ; and if thirty-nine out of forty of the counties
could be struck off the list of shires, and the whole island re-
duced to a sand-bank, the King of England would reign, ac-
cording to these speculatists, over forty or forty thousand times
the quantity of liberty, happiness, wisdom, and virtue, that he
now does, having no subjects, or only a select few, for the prin-
ciple of population to commit its ravages upon, by overstepping
the means of subsistence. The condition of New Zealand must
approach nearer to the beau ideal of political philosophy con-
templated by these persons, than the state of Great Britain in
407
the reign of George III. Such is the logical result of their
mode of reasoning, though they do not push it to this length ; —
they only apply it to the defence of all existing abuses, and the
prevention of all timely refornri ! Its advocates are contented to
make use of it as a lucky diversion against all Utopian projects
of perfectibility, and against every practical advance in human
improvement. But they cannot consistently stop here, for it
requires not only a slirmking back from every progressive refine-
ment, but a perpetual deterioration and retrograde movement
from the positive advances we have made in civilization, comfort,
and population, to the lowest slate of barbarism, ignorance, and
depopul ition — till we come back to the age of acorns and pig-
nuts, and reduce this once flourishing, populous, free, industrious,
independent, and contented people, to a horde of wandering
savages, housing in thickets, and living on dewberries, shell-fish,
and crab-apples. This will never do.
ON THE
ORIGINJLITY OF MR. MJLTHUS'S ESSAY.
We asserted in a former article, upon what we thought suffi-
cient and mature grounds, that the author of the " Essay on Po-
pulation" had taken the leading principle of that essay, and the
general inference built on it, from Wallace's work, entitled,
" Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature and Providence." We
here repeat that assertion ; and to enable our readers to judge for
themselves, shall give the passage in Wallace on which it is
founded. It is as follows : —
" But without entering further into these abstracted and un-
certain speculations, it deserves our particular attention that as
no Government which hath hitherto been established is free from
all seeds of corruption, or can be expected to be eternal ; so if
we suppose a Government to be perfect in its original frame,
408
and to be administered in the most perfect manner, after what-
ever model we suppose it to have been framed, such a perfect
form would be so far from lasting for ever, that it must come
to an end so much the sooner on account of its perfection. For,
though happily such Governments should be firmly established —
though they should be found consistent with the reigning passions
of human nature, though they should spread far and wide — nay,
though they should prevail universally, they must at last involve
mankind in the deepest perplexity, and in universal confusion.
For how excellent soever they may be in their own nature, they
are altogether inconsistent with the present frame of nature, and
with a limited extent of earth.
" Under a perfect Government, the inconveniences of having
a family would be so entirely removed, children would be so well
taken care of, and every thing become so favourable to popu-
lousness, that though some sickly seasons or dreadful plagues in
particular climates might cut off multitudes, yet in general, man-
kind would increase so prodigiously, that the earth would at
last be overstocked, and become unable to support its numerous
inhabitants.
*' How long the earth, with the best culture of which it is
capable from human genius and industry, might be able to nou-
rish its perpetually increasing inhabitants, is as impossible as it
is unnecessary to be determined. It is not probable that it could
have supported them during so long a period as since the creation
of Adam. But whatever may be supposed of the length of this
period, of necessity it must be granted, that the earth could not
nourish them for ever, unless either its fertility could be con-
tinually augmented, or by some secret in nature, like what certain
enthusiasts have expected from the philosopher's stone, some
wise adept in the occult sciences should invent a method of sup-
porting mankind quite different from any thing known at present.
Nay, though some extraordinary method of supporting them
might possibly be found out, yet if there was no bound to the
increase of mankind, which would be the case under a perfec'
409
Government, there would not even be sufficient room for con-
taining their bodies upon the surface of the earth, or upon any
limited surface whatsoever. It would be necessary, therefore,
in order to find room for such multitudes of men, that the earth
should be continually enlarging in bulk, as an animal or vegetable
body.
" Now since philosophers may as soon attempt to make man-
kind immortal, as to support the animal frame without food, it
is equally certain that limits are set to the fertility of the earth ;
and that its bulk, so far as is hitherto known, hath continued
always the same, and probably could not be much altered with-
out making considerable changes in the solar system. It would
be impossible, therefore, to support the great numbers of men
who would be raised up under a perfect government ; the earth
would be overstocked at last, and the greatest admirers of such
fanciful schemes must foresee the fatal period when they would
come to an end, as they are altogether inconsistent with the
limits of that earth in which they must exist.
" What a miserable catastrophe of the most generous of all
human systems of Government! How dreadfully would the
Magistrates of such commonwealths find themselves discon-
certed at that fatal period, when there was no longer any room
for new colonies, and when the earth could produce no farther
supplies ! During all the preceding ages, while there was room
for increase, mankind must have been happy; the earth must
have been a paradise in the literal sense, as the greatest part of it
must have been turned into delightful and fruitful gardens. But
when the dreadful time should at last come, when our globe, by
the most diligent culture, could not produce what was sufficient
to nourish its numerous inhabitants, what happy expedient could
then be found out to remedy so great an evil ?
" In such a cruel necessity, must there be a law to restrain
marriage ? Must multitudes of women be shut up in cloisters,
like the ancient vestals or modern nuns ? To keep a balance
between the two sexes, must a proportionable number of men
410
be debarred from marriage ? Shall the Utopians, following the
wicked policy of superstition, forbid their priests to marry ; or
shall they rather sacrifice men of some other profession for the
good of the state ? Or shall they appoint the sons of certain
families to be maimed at their birth, and give a sanction to the
unnatural institution of eunuchs ? If none of these expedients
can be thought proper, shall they appoint a certain number of
infants to be exposed to death as soon as they are born, deter-
mining the proportion according to the exigencies of the state ;
and pointing out the particular victims by lot, or according to
some established rule? Or, must they shorten the period of
human life by a law, and condemn all to die after they had com-
pleted a certain age, which might be shorter or longer, as pro-
visions were either more scanty or plentiful ? Or, what other
method should they devise (for an expedient would be absolutely
necessary) to restrain the number of citizens within reasonable
bounds ?
** Alas ! how unnatural and inhuman must every such expedient
be accounted ! The natural passions and appetites of mankind
are planted in our frame, to answer the best ends for the happi-
ness both of the individuals and of the species. Shall we be
obliged to contradict such a wise order ? Shall we be laid under
the necessity of acting barbarously and inhumanly ? Sad and fatal
necessity! And which, after all, could never answer the end,
but would give rise to violence and war. For mankind would
never agree about such regulations. Force, and arms, must at
last decide their quarrels, and the deaths of such as fell in battle,
leave sufficient provisions for the survivors, and make room for
others to be born.
" Thus the tranquillity and numerous blessings of the Utopian
governments would come to an end ; war, or cruel and unnatural
customs, be introduced, and a stop put to the increase of man-
kind, to the advancement of knowledge, and to the culture of
the earth, in spite of the most excellent laws and wisest precau-
tions. The more excellent the laws had been, and the more
411
strictly they had been observed, mankind must have sooner be-
come miserable. The remembrance of former times, the great-
ness of their wisdom and virtue, would conspire to heighten their
distress ; and the world, instead of remaining the mansion of
wisdom and happiness, become the scene of vice and confusion.
Force and fraud must prevail, and mankind be reduced to the
same calamitous condition as at present.
" Such a melancholy situation, in consequence merely of the
want of provisions, is, in truth, more unnatural than all their pre-
sent calamities. Supposing men to have abused their liberty, by
which abuse vice has once been introduced into the world ; and
that wrong notions, a bad taste, and vicious habits have been
strengthened by the defects of education and government, our
present distresses may be easily explained. They may even be
called natural, being the natural consequences of our depravity.
They may be supposed to be the means by which Providence
punishes vice ; and by setting bounds to the increase of mankind,
prevents the earth's being overstocked, and men being laid under
the cruel necessity of killing one another. But to suppose that,
in the course of a favourable Providence, a perfect government
had been established, under which the disorders of human pas-
sions had been powerfully corrected and restrained ; poverty,
idleness, and war banished ; the earth made a paradise ; universal
friendship and concord established, and human society rendered
flourishing in all respects ; and that such a lovely Constitution
should be overturned, not by the vices of men, or their abuse of
liberty, but by the order of nature itself, seems wholly unnatural,
and altogether disagreeable to the methods of Providence.
" By reasoning in this manner, it is not pretended that 'tis un-
natural to set bounds to human knowledge and happiness, or to
the grandeur of society, and to confine what is finite to proper
limits. It is certainly fit to set just bounds to every thing accord-
ing to its nature, and to adjust all things in due proportion to
one another. Undoubtedly, such an excellent order is actually
established throughout all the works of God, in his wide dorai-
412
nions. But there are certain primary determinations in nature,
to which all other things of a subordinate kind must be adjusted.
A limited earth, a limited degree of fertility, and the continual
increase of mankind, are three of these original constitutions.
To these determinations, human affairs, and the circumstance of
all other animals, must be adapted. In which view, it is un-
suitable to our ideas of order, that while the earth is only capable
of maintaining a determined number, the human race should in-
crease without end. This would be the necessary consequence
of a perfect government and education. On which account it is
more contrary to just proportion, to suppose that such a perfect
government should be established, in such circumstances, than
that by permitting vice, or the abuse of liberty, in the wisdom
of Providence, mankind should never be able to multiply so as
to be able to overstock the earth.
" From this view of the circumstances of the world, notwith-
standing the high opinion we have of the merits of Sir Thomas
More, and other admired projectors of perfect governments in
ancient or modern times, we may discern how little can be ex-
pected from their most perfect systems.
" As for those worthy philosophers, patriots, and law-givers,
who have employed their talents in framing such excellent models,
we ought to do justice to their characters, and gratefully to ac-
knowledge their generous efforts to rescue the world out of that
distress into which it has fallen, through the imperfection of go-
vernment. Sincere, and ardent in their love of virtue, enamoured
of its lovely form, deeply interested for the happiness of mankind,
to the best of their skill, and with hearts full of zeal, they have
strenuously endeavoured to advance human society to perfection.
For this, their memory ought to be sacred to posterity. But if
they expected their beautiful systems actually to take place, their
hopes were ill founded, and they were not sufficiently aware of
the consequences.
" The speculations of such ingenious authors enlarge our views,
and amuse our fancies. They are useful for directing us to cor-
413
rect certain errors at particular times. Able legislators ought to
consider them as models, and honest patriots ought never to lose
sight of them, or any proper opportunity of transplanting the
wisest of their maxims into their own governments, as far as they
are adapted to their particular circumstances, and will give no
occasion to dangerous convulsions. But this is all that can be
expected. Though such ingenious romances should chance to be
read and admired, jealous and selfish politicians need not be
alarmed. Such statesmen need not fear that ever such airy sys-
tems shall be able to destroy their craft, or disappoint them of
their intention to sacrifice the interests of mankind to their own
avarice or ambition. There is too powerful a charm, which
works secretly in favour of such politicians, which will for ever
defeat all attempts to establish a perfect government. There i»
no need of miracles for this purpose. The vices of mankind are
sufficient. And we need not doubt but Providence will make
use of them, for preventing the establishment of governments
which are by no means suitable to the present circumstances of
the earth." — See " Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and
Providence," chap. 4. p. 113. 17G1.
Here then we have not only the same argument stated, but
stated in the same connexion, and brought to bear on the very
same subject to which it is applied by the author of the Essay on
Population. The principle, and the consequences deduced from
it, are exactly the same. It may happen (and often does) that
one man is the first to make a particular discovery or observation,
and that another draws from it an important inference of which
the former was not at all aware. But this is not the case in the
present instance. As far as general reasoning will go, it is im-
possible that any thing should be stated more clearly, more fully
and explicitly, than Wallace has here stated the argument against
the progressive and ultimate amelioration of human society, from
the sole principle of population. We have already seen that the
addition which Mr. Malthus has made to the argument, from the
geometrical and arithmetical series, is a fallacy, and not an im-
414
provement. The conclusion itself insisted on in the above pas-
sage, by Wallace, appears to us no better than a contradiction in
terms. Of the possibility of realising such a Utopian system as
he first supposes, that is, of making every motive and principle
of action in the human mind absolutely and completely subser-
vient to the dictates of reason and the calculation of conse-
quences, we do not say a word ; but we do say, that if such a
system is possible, and if it were realised, it would not be des-
troyed by the principle of population, that is, by the unrestrained
propagation of the species from a blind, headlong, instinctive,
iriatiunal impulse, and with a total and sovereign disregard of the
fatal and overwhelming consequences which would ensue. The
argument is a solecism ; but if Wallace shewed his ingenuity in
inventing it, Mr. Malthus has not shown his judgment in adopting
it. Through the whole of the first edition of the Essay on Po-
pulation, the author assumed the impulse to propagate the
species as a law, and a physical necessity of the same force as
that of preserving the individual, or, in other words, he sets
down, 1st, hunger, 2d, the sexual appetite, as two co-ordinate,
and equally irresistible principles of action. It was necessary
that he should do this, in order to bear out his conclusion against
the Utopian systems of his antagonists; for, in order to maintain
that this principle of population would be proof against the
highest possible degree of reason, we must suppose it to be an
absolute physical necessity. If reason has any practical power
over it, the highest reason must be able to attain an habitual
power over it. Mr. Malthus, however, having by the rigid in-
terpretation which he gave to his favourite principle, or by what
he called the iron lazo of necessiti/, succeeded in laying the bug-
bear of the modern philosophy, relaxed considerably in the
second and following editions of his book, in which he intro-
duced moral restraint as a third check upon the principle of
population, in addition to the two only ones of vice and misery,
with which he before combated the Utopian philosophers ; and
though he does not lay an exaggerated or consistent stress on this
415
third check, yet he thinks something may be done to lighten the
intolerable pressure, the heavy hand of vice and misery, by flat-
tering old maids, and frightening the poor into the practice of
moral restraint ! It will be recollected by those who are familiar
with the history of Mr. Malthus's writings, that his first and
grand effort was directed against the modern philosophy. The
use which this author has since made of his principle, and of the
arithmetical and geometrical ratios to shut up the workhouse, to
snuh the poor, to stint them in their wages, to deny them relief
from the parish, and preach lectures to them on the new invented
crime of matrimony, was an after-thought ; of the merit of which
we shall speak in another article.
ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION AS AFFECTING
THE SCHEMES OF UTOPIAN IMPROVEMENT.
" A swaggering paradox, when once explained, soon sinks into an unmeaning
common-place."
This excellent saying of a great man was never more strictly
applicable to any system than it is to Mr. Malthus's paradox, and
his explanation of it. It seemed, on the first publication of the
Essay on Population, as if the whole world was going to be
turned topsy-turvy, all our ideas of moral good and evil, were ia
a manner confounded, we scarcely knew whether we stood on
our head or our heels : but after exciting considerable expectation,
giving us a good shake, and making us a little dizzy, Mr. Malthus
does as we do when we shew the children London, — sets us on
our feet again, and every thing goes on as before. The common
notions that prevailed on this subject, till our author's first popu-
lation-scheme tended to weaken them, were that life is a blessing,
and that the more people could be maintained in any state in a
tolerable degree of health, comfort and decency, the better : that
416
want and misery are not desirable in themselves, that famine is
not to be courted for its own sake, that wars, disease and pesti-
lence are not what every friend of his country or his species
should pray for in the first place : that vice in its different shapes
is a thing that the world could do very well without, and that if it
could be got rid of altogether, it would be a great gain. In
short, that the object both of the moralist and politician was to
diminish as much as possible the quantity of vice and misery
existing in the world : without apprehending that by thus effec-
tually introducing more virtue and happiness, more reason and
good sense, that by improving the manners of a people, removing
pernicious habits and principles of acting, or securing greater
plenty, and a greater number of mouths to partake of it, they
were doing a disservice to humanity. Then comes Mr. Malthus
with his octavo book, and tells us there is another great evil,
which had uever been found out, or at least not sufficiently
attended to till his time, namely, excessive population : that this
evil was infinitely greater and more to be dreaded than all others
put together ; and that its approach could only be checked by
vice and misery : that any increase of virtue or happiness was the
direct way to hasten it on ; and that in proportion as we attempt-
ed to improve the condition of mankind, and lessened the restraints
of vice and misery, we threw down the only barriers that could
protect us from this most formidable scourge of the species, po-
pulation. Vice and misery were indeed evils, but they were abso-
lutely necessary evils ; necessary to prevent the introduction of
others of an incalculably and inconceivably greater magnitude ;
and that every proposal to lessen their actual quantity, on which
the measure of our safety depended, might be attended with the
most ruinous consequences, and ought to be looked upon with
horror. I think that this description of the tendency and com-
plexion of Mr. Malthus's first essay is not in the least exagge-
rated, but an exact and faithful picture of the impression, which
it made on every one's mind.
After taking some time to recover from the surprise and hurry
417
into which so great a discovery would naturally throw him, he
comes forward again with a large quarto, in which he is at great
pains both to say and unsay all that he has said in his former
volume ; and upon the whole concludes, that population is in
itself a good thing, that it is never likely to do much harm, that
virtue and happiness ought to be promoted by every practicable
means, and that the most effectual as well as desirable check to
excessive population is moral restraint. The mighty discovery
thus reduced to, and pieced out by common sense, the wonder
vanishes, and we breathe a little freely again. Mr. Malthus is,
however, by no means willing to give up his old doctrine, or eat
his ozcn zcorih : he stickles stoutly for it at times. He has his fits
of reason and his fits of extravagance, his yielding and his ob-
stinate moments, fluctuating between the two, and vibrating
backwards and forwards with a dexterity of self-contradiction
which it is wonderful to behold. The following passage is so
curious in this respect that I cannot help quoting it in this place.
Speaking of the Reply of the author of the Political Justice to
his fornier work, he observes, " But Mr. Godwin says, that if
he looks into the past history of the world, he does not see that
increasing population has been controlled and confined by vice
and misery alone. In this observation I cannot agree with him.
I will thank Mr. Godwin to name to me any check, that in past
ages has contributed to keep down the population to the level
of the means of subsistence, that does not fairly come under
some form of vice or misery ; except indeed the check of moral
restraint, which I have mentioned in the course of this work ;
and which to say the truth, whatever hopes we may entertain of
its prevalence in future, has undoubtedly in past ages operated
with very inconsiderable force." * When I assure the reader
that I give him this passage fairly and fully, I think he will be
of opinion with me, that it would be difficult to produce an
* The prevalence of this check may be estimated by the general proportion
of virtue and happiness in the wodd, for if there were no such check, there
could be uothini; but vice and misery.
E e
418
instance of a more miserable attempt to reconcile a contradiction
by childish evasion, to insist upon an argument, and give it up
in the same breath. Does Mr. Malthus really think that he has
such an absolute right and authority over this subject of popula-
tion, that provided he mentions a principle, or shews that he is
not ignorant of it, and cannot be caught napping by the critics,
he is at liberty to say that it has or has not had any operation,
just as he pleases, and that the state of the fact is a matter of
perfect indifference ? He contradicts the opinion of Mr. Godwin
that vice and misery are not the only checks to population, and
gives as a proof of his assertion, that he himself truly has men-
tioned another check. Thus after flady denying that moral re-
straint has any effect at all, he modestly concludes by saying that
it has had some, no doubt, but promises that it will never have
a great deal. Yet in the very next page, he says, " On this
sentiment, whether virtue, prudence or pride, which I have
already noticed under the name of moral restraint, or of the
more comprehensive title, the preventive check, it will appear,
(hat in the sequel of this work, I shall lay considerable stress."
p. 385. This kind of reasoning is enough to give one the head-
ache.
The most singular thing in this singular performance of our
author is, that it should have been originally ushered into the
world as the most complete and only satisfactory answer to the
speculations of Godwin, Condorcet and others, or to what has
been called the modern philosophy. A more complete piece of
wrong-headedness, a more strange perversion of reason could
hardly be devised by the wit of man. Whatever we may think
of the doctrine of the progressive improvement of the human mind,
or of a state of society in which every thing will be subject to the
absolute control of reason, however absurd, unnatural, or im-
practicable we may conceive such a system to be, certainly it
cannot without the grossest inconsistency be objected to it, that
such a system would necessarily be rendered abortive, because if
reason should ever get the mastery over all our actions, we shall
419
then be governed entirely by our physical appetites and passions,
without the least regard to consequences. This appears to me a
refinement on absurdity. Several philosophers and speculatists
had supposed that a certain state of society very different from
any that has hitherto existed was in itself practicable ; and that
if it were realised, it would be productive of a far greater degree
of human happiness than is compatible with the present institu-
tions of society. I have nothing to do with either of these points.
I will allow to any one who pleases that all such schemes are
" false, sophistical, unfounded in the extreme." But I cannot
agree with Mr.Malthus that they would be bad, in proportion
as they were good; that their excellence would be their ruin ; or
that the true and only unanswerable objection against all such
schemes is that very degree of happiness, virtue, and improvement,
to which they are supposed to give rise. And I cannot agree
with him in this, because it is contrary to common sense, and leads
to the subversion of every principle of moral reasoning. Without
perplexing himself with the subtle arguments of his opponents,
Mr. Malthus comes boldly forward, and says, " Gentlemen, I am
willing to make you large concessions, I am ready to allow the
practicability and the desirableness of your schemes ; the more
happiness, the more virtue, the more refinement they are produc-
tive of, the better ; all these will only add to the ' exuberant
strength of my argument ; ' I have a short answer to all objec-
tions, to be sure I found it in an old political receipt-book,
called Prospects, &c. by one Wallace, a man not much known,
but no matter for that, finding is keeping, you know : " and
with one smart stroke of his wand, on which are inscribed certain
mystical characters, and algebraic proportions, he levels the fairy
enchantment with the ground. For, says Mr. Malthus, though
this improved state of society were actually realised, it could not
possibly continue, but must soon terminate in a state of things
pregnant with evils far more insupportable than any we at present
endure, in consequence of the excessive population which would
follow, and the impossibility of providing for its support.
E e 2
420
This is what I do not understand. It is, in other words, to
assert that the doubling the population of a country, for example,
after a certain period, will be attended with the most pernicious
effects, by want, famine, bloodshed, and a state of general violence
and confusion ; this will afterwards lead to vices and practices still
worse than the physical evils they are designed to prevent, &c.
and yet that at this period those who will be the most interested
in preventing these consequences, and the best acquainted witb
the circumstances that lead to them, will neither have the under-
standing to foresee, nor the heart to feel, nor the will to prevent
the sure evils to which they expose themselves and others, though
this advanced state of population, which does not admit of any
addition without danger is supposed to be the immediate result
of a more general diffusion of the comforts and conveniences of
life, of more enlarged and liberal views, of a more refined and
comprehensive regard to our own permanent interests, as well as
those of others, of correspondent habits and manners, and of a
state of things, in which our gross animal appetites will be sub-
jected to the practical control of reason. The influence of
rational motives, of refined and long-sighted views of things is
supposed to have taken place of narrow, selfish, and merely
sensual motives : this is implied in the very statement of the
question. " What conjuration and what mighty magic " should
thus blind our philosophical descendants on this single sub-
ject in which they are more interested than in all the rest,
so that they should stand with their eyes open on the edge of a
precipice, and instead of retreating from it, should throw them-
selves down headlong, I cannot comprehend ; unless indeed we
suppose that the impulse to propagate the species is so strong
and uncontrolable, that reason has no power over it. This is
what Mr. Malthus was at one time strongly disposed to assert,
and what he is at present half inclined to retract. Without this
foundation to rest on, the whole of his reasoning is unintelligible.
It seems to me a most childish way of answering any one, who
chooses to assert that mankind are capable of being governed
421
entirely by their reason, and that it would be better for them if
they were, to say. No, for if they were governed entirely by it,
they would be much less able to attend to its dictates than they
are at present : and the evils, which would thus follow from the
unrestrained increase of population, would be excessive. — Almost
every little Miss, who has had the advantage of a boarding-school
education, or been properly tutored by her mamma, whose hair
is not of an absolute flame-colour, and who has hopes in time,
if she behaves prettily, of getting a good husband, waits patiently
year after year, looks about her, rejects or trifles with half a dozen
lovers, favouring one, laughing at another, chusing among them
" as one picks pears, saying, this I like, that 1 loathe," with the
greatest indifference, as if it were no such very pressing affair,
and all the while behaves very prettili/ : — why, what an idea
does Mr. Malthus give us of the grave, masculine genius of our
Utopian philosophers, their sublime attainments and gigantic en-
ergy, that they will not be able to manage these matters as de-
cently and cleverly as the silliest woman can do at present ! Mr.
Malthus indeed endeavours to soften the absurdity by saying that
moral restraint at present owes its strength to selfish motives :
what is that to the purpose ? If Mr. Malthus chooses to say,
that men will always be governed by the same gross mechanical
motives that they are at present, I have no objection to make to
it ; but it is shifting the question : it is not arguing against the
state of society we are considering from the consequences to which
it would give rise, but against the possibility of its ever existing.
It is absurd to object to a system on account of the consequences
which would follow if we once suppose men to be actuated
by entirely different motives and principles from what they are at
present, and then to say, that those consequences would neces-
sarily follow, because men would never be what we suppose
them. It is very idle to alarm the imagination by deprecating
the evils that must follow from the practical adoption of a parti-
cular scheme, yet to allow that we have no reason to dread those
consequences, but because the scheme itself is impracticable.—
422
But 1 am ashamed of wasting the reader's time and my own in
thus beating the air. It is not however my fault that Mr. MaUhus
has written nonsense, or that others have admired it. It is not Mr.
Malthus's nonsense, but the opinion of the world respecting it, that
I would be thought to compliment by this serious refutation of what
in itself neither deserves nor admits of any reasoning upon it. If,
however, we recollect the source from whence Mr. Malthus bor-
rowed his principle and the application of it to improvements in po-
litical philosophy, we must allow that he is merely passive in error.
The principle itself would not have been worth a farthing to him
without the application, and accordingly he took them as he found
them lying snug together ; and as Trim having converted the old
jack-boots into a pair of new mortars immediately planted them
against whichever of my uncle Toby's garrisons the allies were
then busy in besieging, so the public-spirited gallantry of our
modern engineer directed him to bend the whole force of his
clumsy discovery against that system of philosophy which was the
most talked of at the time, but to which it was the least applica-
ble of all others. Wallace, I have no doubt, took up his idea
either as a paradox, or a jeu d'esprit, or because any thing, he
thought, was of weight enough to overturn what had never existed
any where but in the imagination ; or he was led into a piece of
false logic by an error we are very apt to fall into, of supposing
because he had never been struck himself by the difficulty of po-
pulation in such a state of society, that therefore the people them-
selves would not find it out, nor make any provision against it.
But though I can in some measure excuse a lively paradox, I do
not think the same favour is to be shewn to the dull, dogged, vo-
luminous repetition of an absurdity.
I cannot help thinking that our author has been too much in-
fluenced in his different feelings on this subject, by the particular
purpose he had in view at the time. Mr. Malthus might not
improperly have taken for the motto of his first edition, — " These
three bear record on earth, vice, misery, and population." In
his answer to Mr. Godwin, this principle was represented as an
423
evil, for which no remedy could be found but in evil ; — that its
operation was mechanical, unceasing, necessary ; that it went
straight forward to its end, unchecked by fear, or reason, or re-
morse ; that the evils, which it drew after it, could only be
avoided by other evils, by actual vice and misery. Population
Mas, in fact, the great Devil, the untamed Beelzebub that was
only kept chained down by vice and misery, and which, if it were
once let loose from these restraints, would go forth, and ravage
the earth. That they were, of course, the two main props and
pillars of society, and that the lower and weaker they kept this
principle, the better able they were to contend with it: that there-
fore any diminution of that degree of them, which at present
prevails, and is found sufficient to keep the world in order,
was of all things chiefly to be dreaded. — Mr. Malthus seems fully
aware of the importance of the stage-maxim. To elevate and
surprise. Having once heated the imaginations of his readers, he
knows that he can afterwards mould them into whatever shape
he pleases. All this bustle and terror, and stage-effect, and the-
atrical mummery was only to serve a temporary purpose, for all
of a sudden the scene is sliifled, and the storm subsides. Having
frighted away the boldest champions of modern philosophy, this
monstrous appearance, full of strange and inexplicable horrors, is
suffered quietly to shrink back to its natural dimensions, and we
find it to be nothing more than a common-sized tame looking ani-
mal, which however requires a chain and the whip of its keeper
to prevent it from becoming mischievous. Mr. Malthus then
steps forward and says, " The evil we were all in danger of was
not population, — but philosophy. Nothing is to be done with the
latter by mere reasoning. I, therefore, thought it right to make
use of a little terror to accomplish the end. As to the principle
of population you need be under no alarm ; only leave it to me,
and I shall be able to manage it very well. All its dreadful con-
sequences may be easily prevented by a proper application of the
motives of common prudence and common decency." If, how-
ever, any one should be at a loss to know how it is possible to
424
reconcile such contradictions, I would suggest to Mr. Malthus
the answer which Hamlet makes to his friend Guilderstern, " 'Tis
as easy as lying: govern these ventiges (the poor-rates and private
charity) with your fingers and thumb, and this same instrument
will discourse most excellent music ; look you, here are the
stops," (namely, Mr. Malthus's Essay and Mr. Whitbread's
Poor Bill).*
ON THE APPLICATION OF BIR. MALTHUS'S PRINCIPLE
TO THE POOR LAWS.
In speaking of the abolition of the Poor Laws, Mr. Malthus
says : —
" To this end, I should propose a regulation to be made, de-
claring, that no child born from any marriage, taking place after
the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegiti-
mate child born two years from the same date, should ever be
entitled to parish assistance. And to give a more general know-
ledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the minds
of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish
should, after the publication of banns, read a short address,
stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own
children; the impropriety, and even immorality, of marrying
M'ithout a prospect of being able to do this ; the evils which had
resulted to the poor themselves from the attempt which had been
made to assist by public institutions in a duty which ought to be
exclusively appropriated to parents; and the absolute necessity
which had at length appeared of abandoning all such institutions,
* Written in 1807, at a time when Mr. Whitbread's scheme was in agitation
in the House of Commons, and Mr. Malthus used to wait in the lobbies with
his essay in his hand, for the instruction and compliments of Honourable
Members. The above article is taken from a Reply to Mr. Malthus, one of
my very early Essays, the style of whicli is, T confess, a little exuberant, but
of the arguments I see uo reason to be ashamed.
425
on account of their producing effects totally opposite to those
which were intended.
" This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice,
which no man could well mistake, and, without pressing hard
on any particular individuals, would at once throw off the rising
generation from that miserable and helpless dependence upon the
government and the rich, the moral as well as physical conse-
quences of which are almost incalculable.
" After the public notice which 1 have proposed had been given,
and the system of poor-laws had ceased with regard to the rising
generation, if any man chose to marry, without a prospect of be-
ing able to support a family, he should have the most perfect li-
berty so to do. Though to marry, in this case, is, in my opinion,
clearly an immoral act, yet it is not one which society can justly
take upon itself to prevent or punish ; because the punishment
provided for it by the laws of nature falls directly and most se-
verely upon the individual who commits the act, and through him,
only more remotely and feebly, on the society. When Nature
will govern and punish for us, it is a very miserable ambition to
wish to snatch the rod from her hands, and draw upon ourselves
the odium of executioner. To the punishment therefore of Na-
ture he should be left, the punishment of want. He has erred in
the face of a most clear and precise warning, and can have no just
reason to complain of any persons but himself when he feels the
consequences of his error. All parish assistance should be most
rigidly denied him ; and he should be left to the uncertain support
of private charity. He should be taught to know, that the laws
of Nature, which are the laws of God, had doomed him and his
family to starve,* for disobeying their repeated admonitions ; that
he had no claim of right on society for the smallest portion of
food, beyond that which his labour would fairly purchase ; and
that if he and his family were saved from feeling the natural con-
sequences of his imprudence, he would owe it to the pity of some
* Altered ia the last edition, to " suffer."
426
kiud benefactor, to whom, therefore, he ought to be bound by
the strongest ties of gratitude."
This passage has been well answered by Mr. Cobbett in one
word, " Parson;" — the most expressive apostrophe that ever was
made ; and it might be answered as effectually by another word,
which I shall omit. When Mr. Malthus asserts, that the poor man
and his family have been doomed to starve by the laws of nature,
which are the laws of God, he means by the laws of God and
nature, the physical and necessary inability of the earth to supply
food for more than a certain number of human beings ; but if
he means that the wants of the poor arise from the impossibility
of procuring food for them, while the rich roll in abundance, or,
we will say, maintain their dogs and horses, &c. out of their
ostentatious superfluities, he asserts what he knows not to be true.
Mr. Malthus wishes to confound the necessary limits of the pro-
duce of the earth with the arbitrary and artificial distribution of
that produce according to the institutions of society, or the caprice
of individuals, the laws of God and nature with the laws of man.
And what proves the fallacy is, that the laws of man in the pre-
sent case actually afford the relief, which he would wilfully deny ;
he proposes to repeal those laws, and then to tell the poor man
impudently, that " the laws of God and nature have doomed
him and his family to starve, for disobeying their repeated admo-
nitions," stuck on the church-door for the last twelve months !
*Tis much.
I have in a separate work made the following remarks on the
above proposal, which are a little cavalier, not too cavalier ; — a
little contemptuous, not too contemptuous ; — a little gross, but
not too gross for the subject. —
" I am not sorry that 1 am at length come to this passage. It
will I hope decide the reader's opinion of the benevolence, wis-
dom, piety, candour, and disinterested simplicity of Mr. Mal-
thus's mind. Any comments that 1 might make upon it to
strengthen this impression must be faint and feeble. I give up
427
the task of doing justice to the moral beauties that pervade every
line of it, in despair. There are some instances of an heroical
contempt for the narrow prejudices of the world, of a perfect re-
finement from the vulgar feelings of human nature, that must
only suffer by a comparison with any thing else.
I shall not myself be so uncandid as not to confess, that I
think the poor laws bad things ; and that it would be well, if
they could be got rid of, consistently with humanity and justice.
This I do not think they could in the present state of things, and
other circumstances remaining as they are. The reason why I
object to Mr. Malthus's plan is, that it does not go to the root
of the evil, or attack it in its principle, but its effects. He con-
founds the cause with the effect. The wide spreading tyranny,
dependence, indolence, and unhappiness, of which Mr, M althus
is so sensible, are not occasioned by the increase of the poor-
rates, but these are the natural consequence of that increasing
tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness occasioned by
other causes.
Mr. Malthus desires his readers to look at the enormous pro-
portion in which the poor-rates have increased within the last ten
years. But have they increased in any greater proportion than
the other taxes, which rendered them necessary, and, which I
think, were employed for much more mischievous purposes ? I
would ask, what have the poor got by their encroachments for
the last ten years ? Do they work less hard ? Are they bet-
ter fed ? Do they marry oftener, and with better prospects ?
Are they grown pampered and insolent? Have they changed
places with the rich ? Have they been cunning enough, by means
of the poor-laws, to draw off all their wealth and superfluities
from the men of property ? Have they got so much as a quarter
of an hour's leisure, a farthing candle, or a cheese-paring more
than they had ? Has not the price of provisions risen enor-
mously ? Has not the price of labour almost stood still ? Have
not the government and the rich had their way in every thing ?
428
Have they not gratified their ambition, their pride, their obsti-
nacy, their ruinous extravagance ? Have they not squandered the
resources of the country as they pleased ? Have they not heaped
up wealth on themselves, and their dependents ? Have they not
multiplied sinecures, places, and pensions ? Have they not
doubled the salaries of those that existed before ? Has there been
any want of new creations of peers, who would thus be impelled to
beget heirs to their titles and estates, and saddle the younger
branches of their rising families, by means of their new influence,
on the country at large ? Has there been any want of contracts,
of loans, of monopolies of corn, of a good understanding between
the rich and the powerful to assist one another, and to fleece the
poor? Have the poor prospered? Have the rich declined?
What then have they to complain of? What ground is there for
the apprehension, that wealth is secretly changing hands, and that
the whole property of the country will shortly be absorbed in the
poor's fund ? Do not the poor create their own fund ? Is not
the necessity for such a fund first occasioned by the unequal
weight with which the rich press upon the poor; and has not the
jncrease of that fund in the last ten years been occasioned by the
additional exorbitant demands, which have been made upon the
poor and industrious, which, without some assistance from the
public, they could not possibly have answered ? Whatever is the
increase in the nominal amount of the poor's fund, will not the
rich always be able ultimately to throw the burthen of it on the
poor themselves ? But Mr. Mallhus is a man of general prin-
ciples. He cares little about these circumstantial details, and
petty objections. He takes higher ground. He deduces all his
conclusions, by an infallible logic, from the laws of God and
nature. When our Essayist shall prove to me, that by these
paper bullets of the brain, by his ratios of the increase of food,
and the increase of mankind, he has prevented one additional tax,
or taken off" one oppressive duty, that he has made a single rich
man retrench one article at his table : tliat he has made him keep
429
a dog or a horse the less, or part with a single vice, arguing from
a mathematical admeasurement of the size of the earth, and the
number of inhabitants it can contain, he shall have my perfect
leave to disclaim the right of the poor to subsistence, and to tie
them down by severe penalties to their good behaviour, on the
same profound principles. But why does Mr. Malthus practise
his demonstrations on the poor only ? Why are they to have a
perfect system of rights and duties prescribed to them ? I do not
see why they alone should be put to live on these metaphysical
board-wages, why they should be forced to submit to a course of
abstraction ; or why it should be meat and drink to them, more
than to others, to do the will of God. Mr. Malthus's gospel is
preached only to the poor ! — Even if 1 approved of our author's
plan, I should object to the principle on which it is founded.
The parson of the parish, when a poor man comes to be mar-
ried — No, not so fast. The author does not say, whether the
lecture he proposes is to be read to the poor only, or to all ranks
of people. Would it not sound oddly, if when the squire, who is
himself worth a hundred thousand pounds, is going to be married
to the rector's daughter, who is to have fifty, the curate should
read them a formal lecture on their obligation to maintain their
own children, and not turn them on the parish ? Would it be
necessary to go through the form of the address, when an amorous
couple of eighty presented themselves at the altar? If the ad-
monition were left to the parson's own discretion, what affronts
would he not subject himself to, from his neglect of old maids,
and superannuated widows, and from his applying himself familiarly
to the little shopkeeper, or thriving mechanic ? Well, then, let us
suppose that a very poor hard-working man comes to be married,
and that the clergyman can take the liberty with him : he is to
warn him first against fornication, and in the next place against
matrimony. These are the two greatest sins which a poor man
can commit, who can neither be supposed to keep his wife, nor
his girl. Mr. Malthus, however, does not think them equal : for
he objects strongly to a country fellow's marrying a girl whom he has
430
debauched, or, as the phrase is, making an honest woman of her,
as aggravating the crime ; because, by this means, the parish will
probably have three or four children to maintain instead of one.
However, as it seems rather too late to give advice to a man who
is actually come to be married, it is most natural to suppose that
he would marry the young woman in spite of the lecture. Here
then he errs in the face of a precise warning, and should be left
to the punishment of nature^ the punishment of severe want.
When he begins to feel the consequences of his error, all parish
assistance is to be rigidly denied him, and the interests of huma-
nity imperiously require that all other assistance should be with-
held from him, or most sparingly administered. In the mean
time, to reconcile him to this treatment, and let him see that he
has nobody to complain of but himself, the parson of the parish
comes to him with the certificate of his marriage, and a copy of
the warning he had given him at the time, by which he is taught
to know that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, had
doomed him and his family to starve for disobeying their repeated
admonitions ; that he had no claim of right to the smallest portion
of food beyond what his labour would actually purchase; and
that he ought to kiss the feet and lick the dust ofif the shoes of
him, who gave him a reprieve from the just sentence which the
laws of God and nature had passed upon him. To make this
clear to him, it would be necessary to put the Essay on Popula-
tion into his hands, to instruct him in the nature of a geometrical
and arithmetical series, in the necessary limits to population from
the size of the earth ; and here would come in Mr. Malthus's
plan of education for the poor, writing, arithmetic, the use of the
globes, &c. for the purpose of proving to them the necessity of
their being starved. It camiot be supposed that the poor man
(what with his poverty and what with being priest-ridden) should
be able to resist this body of evidence, he would open his eyes
to his error, and " would submit to the suflFerings that were abso-
" lutely irremediable, with the fortitude of a man, and the resig-
" nation of a Christian." He and his family might then be sent
431
round the parish in a starving condition, accompanied by the con-
stables and quondam overseers of the poor, to see that no person,
blind to " the interests of humanity," practised upon them the
abominable deception of attempting to relieve their remediless
sufferings ; and by the parson of the parish, to point out to the
spectators the inevitable consequences of sinning against the laws
of God and man. By celebrating a number of these Auto dafes
yearly in every parish, the greatest publicity would be given to
the principle of population, " the strict line of duty would be
pointed out to every man," enforced by the most powerful sanc-
tions ; justice and humanity would flourish, they would be under-
stood to signify that the poor have no right to live by their labour,
and that the feelings of compassion and benevolence are best
shewn by denying them charity ; the poor would no longer be
dependent on the rich, the rich could jio longer wish to reduce
the poor into a more complete subjection to their will, all causes
of contention, of jealousy, and of irritation would have ceased
between them, the struggle would be over, each class would
fulfil the task assigned by heaven ; the rich would oppress the
poor without remorse, the poor would submit to oppression with
a pious gratitude and resignation ; the greatest harmony would
prevail between the government and the people ; there would be
no longer any seditions, tumults, complaints, petitions, partisans
of liberty, or tools of power ; no grumbling, no repining, no dis-
contented men of talents proposing reforms, and frivolous re-
medies, but we should all have the same gaiety and lightness of
heart, and the same happy spirit of resignation that a man feels
when he is seized with the plague, who thinks no more of the
physician, but knows that his disorder is without cure. The best-
laid schemes are subject, however, to unlucky reverses. Some
such seem to lie in the way of that pleasing Euthanasia, and con-
tented submission to the grinding law of necessity, projected by
Mr. Malthus. We might never reach the philosophic temper of
the inhabitants of modern Greece and Turkey in this respect.
Many little things might happen to interrupt our progress, if we
432i
were put into ever so fair a train. For instance, the men might
perhaps be talked over by the parson, and their understandings
being convinced by the geometrical and arithmetical ratios, or at
least so far puzzled, that they would have nothing to say for
themselves, they might prepare to submit to their fate with a
tolerable grace. But I am afraid that the women might prove
refractory. They never will hearken to reason, and are much
more governed by their feelings than by calculations. While the
husband was instructing his wife in the principles of population,
she might probably answer that " she did not see why her children
should starve, when the squire's lady, or the parson's lady kept
half a dozen lap-dogs, and that it was but the other day, that
being at the hall, or the parsonage-house, she heard Miss declare
that not one of the brood that were just littered should be
drowned — It was so inhuman to kill the poor little things —
Surely the children of the poor are as good as puppy-dogs !
Was it not a week ago that the rector had a new pack of terriers
sent down, and did I not hear the squire swear a tremendous
oath, that he would have Mr. Such-a-one's fine hunter, if it cost
him a hundred guineas? Half that sum would save us from
ruin." — After this curtain-lecture, 1 conceive that the husband
might begin to doubt the force of the demonstrations he had read
and heard, and the next time his clerical monitor came, might
pluck up courage to question the matter with him ; and as we of
the male sex, though dull of apprehension, are not slow at taking
a hint, and can draw tough inferences from it, it is not impos-
sible but the parson might be gravelled. In consequence of
these accidents happening more than once, it would be buzzed
about that the laws of God and nature, on which so many fa-
milies had been doomed to starve, were not so clear as had been
pretended. This would soon get wind among the mob : and at
the next grand procession of the Penitents of famine, headed by
Mr. Malthus in person, some discontented man of talents, who
could not bear the distresses of others with the fortitude of a man
and the resignation of a Christian, might undertake to question
433
Mr. Malthus, whether the laws of nature or of God, to wljich
he had piously sacrificed so many victims, signified any thing more
than the limited extent of the earth, and the natural impossibility of
providing for more than a limited number of human beings ; and
whether those laws could be justly put in force, to the very letter,
while the actual produce of the earth, by being better husbanded,
or more equally distributed, or given to men and not to beasts,
might maintain in comfort double the number that actually ex-
isted, and who, not daring to demand a fair proportion of the
produce of their labour, humbly crave charity, and are refused
out of regard to the interests of justice and humanity. Our phi-
losopher, at this critical juncture not being able to bring into the
compass of a few words all the history, metaphysics, morality,
and divinity, or all the intricacies, subtleties, and callous equivo-
cations contained in his quarto volume, might hesitate and be
confounded — his own feelings and prejudices might add to his
perplexity — his interrogator might persist in his question — the
mob might become impatient for an answer, and not finding one
to iheir minds, might proceed to extremities. Our unfortunate
Essayist (who by that time would have become a bishop) might
be ordered to the lamp-post, and his book committed to the
flames, — I tremble to think of what would follow : — the poor-laws
would be again renewed, and the poor no longer doomed to
starve by the laws of God and nature ! Some such, 1 apprehend,
might be the consequences of attempting to enforce the abolition
of the poor-laws, the extinction of private charity, and of in-
structing the poor in their metaphysical rights."
QUERIES RELATING TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION.
Query 1. Whether the real source of Mr. Malthus's Essay
is not to be found in a work published in the year 176I, entitled,
" Various Prospects of Mankind," by a Scotchman of the name
F f
434
of Wallace ? Or whether this writer has not both stated the
principle of the disproportion between the unlimited power of
increase in population, and the limited power of increase in the
means of subsistence, which principle is the corner-stone of the
Essay ; and whether he has not drawn the very same inference
from it that Mr. Malthus has done, viz. that vice and misery are
necessary to keep population down to the level of the means of
subsistence? 5
2. Whether the chapter in Wallace, written expressly to prove
these two points (or in other words, to shew that the principle of
population is necessarily incompatible with any great degree of
improvement in government or morals) does not completely
anticipate Mr. Malthus's work, both in its principle and its
conclusion ?
3. Whether the idea of an arithmetical and geometrical series
by which Mr. Malthus has been thought to have furnished the
precise rule or calculus of the disproportion between food and
population, is not, strictly speaking, inapplicable to the subject j
inasmuch as in new and lately occupied countries, the quantity of
food may be made to increase nearly in the same proportion as
population, and in all old and well cultivated countries must be
stationary, or nearly so ? Whether, therefore, this mode of
viewing the subject has not tended as much to embarrass as to
illustrate the question, and to divert the mind from the real source
of the only necessary distinction between food and population^
liamely, the want of sufficient room for the former to grow in 5
a grain of corn, as long as it has room to increase and multiply^
in fact propagating its species much faster even than a man ?
4. Whether the argument borrowed from Wallace, and consti-
tuting the chief scope and tenor of the first edition of the Essay,
which professed to overturn all schemes of human perfectibility
and Utopian forms of government from the sole principle of po-
pulation, does not involve a plain contradiction;— both these
authors, first of all, supposing or taking for granted a state of
society in which the most perfect order, wisdom, virtue, and hap-
435
piness shall prevail, and then endeavouring to shew that all these
advantages would only hasten their own ruin, and end in famine,
confusion, and unexampled wretchedness, in consequence of
taking away the only possible checks to population, vice and
misery? Whether this objection does not suppose mankind in a
state of the most perfect reason, to be utterly blind to the con-
sequences of the unrestrained indulgence of their appetites, and
with the most perfect wisdom and virtue regulating all their
actions, not to have the slightest command over their animal
passions ? There is nothing in any of the visionary schemes of
human perfection so idle as this objection brought against them,
which has no more to do with the reasonings of Godwin, Con-
dorcet, &c. (against which Mr. Malthus's first Essay was di-
rected) than with the prophecies of the Millennium !
5. Whether, in order to give some colour of plausibility to his
argument, and to prove that the highest conceivable degree of
wisdom and virtue could be of no avail in keeping down the prin-
ciple of population, Mr. Malthus did not at first set out with
representing this principle, to wit, the impulse to propagate the
species, as a law of the same order and cogency as that of satis-
fying the cravings of hunger ; so that reason having no power
over it, vice and misery must be the necessary consequences, and
only possible checks to population ?
6. Whether this original view of the subject did not unavoidably
lead to the most extravagant conclusions, not only by representing
the total removal of all vice and misery as the greatest evil that
could liappen to the world, but (what is of more consequence
than this speculative paradox) by throwing a suspicion and a
stigma on all subordinate improvements or plans of reform, as so
many clauses or sections of the same general principle ? Whether
the quantity of vice and misery necessary to keep population down
to the level of the means of subsistence, being left quite undeter-
mined by the author, the old barriers between vice and virtue,
good and evil, were not broken down, and a perfect latitude of
choice allowed between forms of government and modes of- so-
436
ciety, according to the temper of the times, or the taste of indi-
viduals ; only that vice and misery being always the safe side, the
presumption would naturally be in favour of the most barbarous,
ignorant, enslaved, and profligate ? Whether the stumbling-block
thus thrown in the way of those who aimed at any amendment in
social institutions, does not obviouslv account for the alarm and
opposition which Mr. Malthus's work excited on the one hand,
and for the cordiality and triumph with w hich it was hailed on tire
other ?
7. Whether this view of the question, which is all in which the
Essay differs fundamentally from the received and less startling
notions on the subject, is not palpably, and by the author's subse-
quent confession, false, sophistical, and unfounded ?
8. Whether the additional principle oi moral restraint y inserted
in the second and following editions of the Essay as one effectual,
and as the only desirable means of checking population, does
not at once overturn all the paradoxical conclusions of the author
respecting the state of man in society, and whether nearly all these
conclusions do not still stand in Mr. Malthus's work as they ori-
ginally stood, as false in fact as they are inconsistent in reasoning ?
Whether, indeed, it was likely, that Mr. Malthus would give up
the sweeping conclusions of his first Essay, the fruits of his indus-
try and the pledges of his success, without great reluctance ; or in
such a manner as not to leave the general plan of his work full of
contradictions and almost unintelligible ?
9. Whether, for example, in treating of the durability of a
perfect form of government, Mr. Malthus has not " sicklied over
the subject with the same pale and jaundiced cast of thought," by
supposing vice and misery to be the only effectual checks to po-
pulation; and in his tenacity on this his old and favourite doctrine,
whether he has not formally challenged his opponents to point
out any other, " except indeed" (he adds, recollecting himself)
" moral restraint," which however he considers as of no effect at
all?
10. Whether, consistently with this verbal acknowledgement
437
and virtual rejection of the influence of moral causes, the general
tendency of Mr. M.'s system is not to represent the actual state
of man in society as nothing better than a blind struggle between
vice, misery, and the principle of population, the effects of which
are just as mechanical as the ebbing and flov^iiig of the tide, and
to bury all other principles, all knowledge, or virtue, or liberty,
under a heap of misapplied facts ?
11. Whether, instead of accounting for the different degrees
of happiness, plenty, populousness, 8cc. in different countries,
or in the same country at different periods, from good or bad
government, from the vicissitudes of manners, civilization, and
knowledge, according to the common prejudice, Mr. Malthus
does not expressly and repeatedly declare that political institutions
are but as the dnst in the balance compared with the inevitable
consequences of the principle of population ; and whether he
does not treat with the utmost contempt all those, who not being
in the secret of " the grinding law of necessity," had before his
time superficially concluded that moral, political, religious, and
other positive causes were of considerable weight in determining
the happiness or misery of mankind ? It were to be wished that
the author, instead of tampering with his subject, and alternately
holding out concessions, and then recalling them, had made one
bold and honest effort to get rid of the bewildering effects of his
original system, by affording his readers some clue to determine,
both in what manner and to what extent other causes, independent
of the principle of population, actually combine with that prin-
ciple (no longer pretended to be absolute and uncontroulable) to
vary the face of nature and society, under the same general law,
and had not left this most important desideratum in his work,
to be apocryphally supplied by the ingenuity and zeal of his
apologists ?
12, Whether Mr. Malthus does not uniformly discourage every
plan for extending the limits of population, and consequently
the sphere of human enjoyment, either by cultivating new tracts
of soil, or improving the old ones, by repeating on ail occasions
438
the same stale, senseless objection, that, after all, the principle
of population will press as much as ever on the means of sub-
sistence ; or in other words, that though the means of subsistence
and comfort will be increased, there will be a proportionable in-
crease in the number of those who are to partake of it ? Or
whether Mr. Malthus's panic fear on this subject has not subsided
into an equally unphilosophical indifference ?
13. Whether the principle of moral restraint, formally recog-
nized -in Mr. Malthus's latter writings, and in reality turning all
his paradoxes into mere impertinence, does not remain a dead
letter, which he never calls into action, except for the single pur-
pose of torturing the poor under pretence of reforming their
morals ?
14. Whether the avowed basis of the author's system on the
poor-laws, is not the following : — that by the laws of God and
nature, the rich have a right to starve the poor whenever they
(the poor) cannot maintain themselves; and whether the delibe-
rate sophistry by which this right is attempted to be made out, is
not as gross an insult on the understanding as on the feelings of
the public ? Or whether this reasoning does not consist in a trite
truism and a wilful contradiction ; the truism being, that whenever
the earth cannot maintain all its inhabitants, that then, by the
laws of God and nature, or the physical constitution of things,
some of them must perish ; and the contradiction being, that the
right of the rich to withhold a morsel of bread from the poor,
while they themselves roll in abundance, is a law of God and
nature, founded on the same physical necessity or absolute de-
ficiency in the means of subsistence i
15. Whether the commentators on the Essay have not fallen
mto the same unwarrantable mode of reasoning, by confounding
the real funds for the maintenance of labour, i. e. the actual pro-
duce of the soil, with the scanty pittance allowed out of it for the
maintenance of the labourer (after the demands of luxury and
idleness are satisfied) by the positive, varying laws of every
country, or by the caprice of individuals/
43P
16. Whether these two things are not fundamentally distinct in
themselves, and ought not to be kept so, in a question of such
importance, as the right of the rich to starve tiie poor by system t
17. Whether Mr. Malthus has not been too much disposed to
consider the rich as a sort of Gods upon earth, \\W> were merely
employed in distributing the goods of nature and fortune amon**"
the poor, who themselves neither ate nor drank, " neither marii<^d
nor were given in marriage," and consequently were altogether
unconcerned in the limited extent of the means of subsistence,
and the unlimited increase of population ?
IS. Lastly, whether the whole of the reverend author's ma-
nagement of the principle of population and of the necessity of
moral restraint, does not seem to have been copied from the
prudent Friar's advice in Chaucer ?
" Beware therefore with lordes for to play,
Singeth Placebo: —
To a poor man men should his vices tell,
But not to a lord, though he should go to hell."
THE ENP.
J. M'Crecry, Printer,
Black-Horse-Court, London.
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