SOUTHEY'S ESSAYS.
DR. SOUTHEY has collected his papers, published in the Quarterly .Review and elsewhere, on subjects of political interest, into two stout little volumes duodecimo. They turn chiefly upon Reform, Disaffection, Economy, Retrenchment ; and do their best to show that the people are entirely in the wrong, and that the consequenee of attending to their wishes must necessarily be anarchy and ruin. Under the light which continual discussions of the claims. of the popular party have cast upon these questions,. we cannot avoid being struck with the extreme feebleness and blindness of Dr. SOUTHEY's reasoning. At the time they appeared, the paramount authority of Tory principles, and the industry and activity of the aristocratic defenders of their lion's share, lent essays of this kind a factitious aid : in addition to whith, the learning, ingenuity, and earnestness of SOuTHEY, were quite sufficient to establish his claims to being heard, had not the voice he spoke in been the most calculated to charm the ear of all those who were flourishing under the present system. There are, however, far worse men and worse patriots than Dr. So mum even among so-called Liberals; and though we rejoice to see that the delusion has lost its charm, we cannot help receiv- ing these Essays with a certain respect for the honesty and energy of the writer. He was an enthusiast in his youth, he is a bigot in • his age; he went then as far wrong in one direction as he does now in the contrary one. We call him not renegade, or accuse him of apostacy : the man who in early life proposed to found a new Arcadia, is precisely made of the right kind of wood for finding in after life all sorts of merit where they do not exist, and all sorts of evil where none is to be apprehended. The visionary is just as likely to be scared by a bugbear as lured by an ignis fatuus : the defect is in the soundness of the intellect in both cases, and not in the integrity of the morals. When a young man of five-and- twenty is running wild after absurd schemes and fool's paradises, . the folly: is forgiven on the score of youth : it is the enthusiasm of an ardent mind, the generous delusions of an unripe imagination. The truth is, that there is grievous deficiency in the judgment. Time, while it fails to supply the want, sobers down the excess : the effervescence subsides, and leaves a liquid poor and thin— beer, small and dead. Such an individual commonly ends in a tool.
These Essays are dedicated to Sir ROBERT INGLIS; and are probably one of the efforts of the Anti-Reform party—a last throw of the die—a convulsive writhe. The author avows that they are republished with a view to the excitement of the times.
"Never," says he, "within our memory, have the aspects appeared so threatening as the present. No foresight can avail against fatuity and the desperate counsels of demented men."
This is not meant to describe the Boroughmongers; though, in this very book, put forth as it is somewhat in the shape of a mani- festo of the Conservative system, there may be found passages which we hardly know how they would like to adopt. Dr. SournEy is too honest for them. What, for instance, would the CHANDOSES and the MAHONS say to a sentence like this ?- " The real evil of our representation lies, not in the influence of the Treasury, but in the power of a few great landholders . . . in that power which enables one of these POLITICAL BEHEMOTHS to demand for himself an office, or at least to exercise an influence in the Government, though he should have no preten- sions to it on the score of abilities or character." SOUTHEY'S Essays, Vol. II. P. 15.
In any future edition of JOHNSON, let there be inserted— BEHEMOTH, in politics, Boroughmon,ger. Southey.
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