1. As to the real grounds and views on which the former coalitions were begun and carried on, see Burke’s Regicide Peace, Second Part.

2. One instance may serve as an example for all the rest:—When Mr. Fox last summer predicted 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 the case, Mr. Pitt contented himself with answering—and, as in the blindness of his infatuation he seemed to think quite satisfactorily,—‘That he could not assent to the honourable 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 possibility in human affairs, or because we were not absolutely sure of succeeding (for that any child might know), but because it was in the highest degree probable, 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. There 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 they 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.

3. I would recommend to the reader a masterly and unanswerable essay on this subject in the Morning Post, by Mr. Coleridge, in February 1800, from which, and the conversation of the author, most of the above remarks are taken. 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 his powers of mind, if others were convinced of their real excellence. The jealousy and uneasiness produced in 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 communicate 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 grudgingly acknowledged; while those of his rivals were admitted by all parties in the most unreserved manner, and carried by acclamation.

4. Mr. Burke pretends in this Jesuitical Appeal, that a nation has a right to insist upon and revert to old establishments and prescriptive 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 Revolution was stark-naught, because the people here did the same thing, passed from slavery to liberty, from an arbitrary to a constitutional government, to which they had, it seems, no prescriptive right, and therefore, according to the appellant, no right at all. Oh 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 unanswerable logician!

5. There is none of this perplexity and jarring of different objects 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 amicable division of the spoil to the powers that be; all angry disputes are hushed in the presence of the throne, and the corrosive, fretful 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 honeycomb 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.

6. The above criticism first appeared in the Courier newspaper, and was copied the next day in the Chronicle with the following remarks:—‘The treasury 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 poetical pen of the Admiralty Croaker, it is a close imitation of his style.’

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!‘

7. As he is fond of the good old times before the Revolution, the writer might go still farther back to that magnanimous undertaking, concerted and executed by the same persons of honour, the partition of Poland.

8. See remarks on Judge Eyre’s Charge to the Jury, 1794, by W. Godwin.

9. Observe that these critically destructive terms of peace are not strictly called for by Bonaparte’s persevering and atrocious outrages, but are at all times rendered necessary by the everlasting enmity of France.

10. ‘In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage.’ There is nothing so provoking as these matter-of-fact Utopia-mongers.

11. The style of Vetus bears the same relation to eloquence that gilded lead does to gold;—it glitters, and is heavy.

12. He who speaks two languages has no country. The French, when they made their language the common language of the courts of Europe, gained more than by all their other conquests put together.

13. See Mr. Canning’s speech on the Jaggernaut.—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 Jaggernaut? Or Mr. Southey, after in vain attempting its overthrow, might have ‘spun his brains’ into a Carmen Annuum to celebrate his own defeat. Or Vetus might play off his discovery of the identity of the strumpet and the goddess Reason, against any disposition to disarm its power or arrest its progress.

14. 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 dismay, ‘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.

15. We only wish to add one thing, which is, to protest against the self-importance of such expressions as the following, which occur often in Vetus’s letters:—‘The men I speak of were’ those, &c. ‘This sentiment never prevailed 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 intolerable.

16. Written originally for the Morning Chronicle.

17. The ignorant will suppose that these are two proper names.

18. ‘Carnage is her daughter.’—Mr. Wordsworth’s Thanksgiving Ode.

19. 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: the latter we have been induced to omit from our regard to two poets of our acquaintance. We must say they have spoiled sport. One of them has tropical blood in his veins, which gives a gay, cordial, vinous spirit to his whole character. The other 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 headache, who would wag his finger 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. Turnerelli can do. The busts which these gentlemen have made of a celebrated General are very bad. His head is worth nothing unless it is put on his men’s shoulders.

20. See an article on this subject in Mr. Coleridge’s Friend.

21. 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 the soul, the immortal part of the Pitt system.

22. It may be proper to notice, that this article was written before the Discourse which it professes to criticise had appeared in print, or probably existed any where, but in repeated newspaper advertisements.

23. This work is so obscure, that it has been supposed to be written in cypher, 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 exceedingly like the qualms produced by the heaving of a ship becalmed at sea; the motion is so tedious, improgressive, and sickening.

24. Does this verse come under Mr. C.’s version of Jus Divinum?

25. That is, in a sense not used and without any intelligible meaning.

26. If these are the worst passions, there is plenty of them in this Lay-Sermon.

27. A paper set up at this time by Dr. Stoddart.

28. When this work was first published, the King had copies of it bound in Morocco, and gave them away to his favourite courtiers, saying, ‘It was a book which every gentleman ought to read.’

29. 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 America.’ In this he was consistent and logical. Could he not, however, find out another example of this same principle, by going a little farther back in history, 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 the story of the two elder Blifils in Tom Jones.

30. Simon Lee, the old Huntsman, a tale by Mr. Wordsworth, of which he himself says,

In this view it is a tale indeed, not ‘of other times,’ but of these.

31. During the retreat, the king was ever seen where the danger was greatest. Foremost in the ranks, he continually charged the Austrians in person. 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 constantly 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.’

32. 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 servility, a stench of corruption 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.

33. Here the reader may, if he pleases, read over again the last note.

34. Encore un coup. This Duke is an Irishman. Pray, suppose the Allies were to declare the Protestant succession illegitimate, and the King of Sardinia, not the Prince Regent, the hereditary proprietor of the English throne and people in perpetuity and in a right line, would this annul the validity of his Grace’s grants?

35. Of the three persons that Mr. Coleridge, by a most preposterous anachronism, has selected to compose his asinine auditory, Mr. Hunt was at the time in question a boy at school, not a stripling bard of nineteen or nine and twenty, but 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 ‘the 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; and those who know this gentleman, know that on these occasions he plays the part of a whole chorus.

36. 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 turn 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 poison 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 evils of the inequality of property, &c.

37. Not the Editor of this Paper, but the writer of this Article.

38. 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.

39. Dues of Office, we suppose.

40. It is the making light of the distresses and complaints of our victims, because we have them in our power, that is the principle of all cruelty and tyranny. Our pride takes a pleasure in 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 hopelessness of redress. It was thus that Mother Brownrigg whipped her prentices 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 application, with a few ‘forsooths,’ and other such ‘comfit-makers wives’ oaths.’