Note 36 — POLITICAL ESSAYS, WITH SKETCHES OF PUBLIC CHARACTERS (continued 6)

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.