Note 35 — POLITICAL ESSAYS, WITH SKETCHES OF PUBLIC CHARACTERS (continued 5)

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.