432 
and talents by the ridicule and incre- 
dulity of the world. In attempting to 
make head against these, he was so 
often obliged to bear testimony in fa- 
vour of himself, that he at length be- 
came a sincere convert to his own 
absurdities, and’ grew to believe in 
himself, as a man comes to believe in 
a story of his own invention, by dint 
of eternal repetition. What the lau- 
reate does with his butt of sack is a 
profound secret in the republic of ‘let- 
ters. He cannot drink it certainly, or 
else Jack Falstaff was even a greater 
liar than he has credit for bemg. Tf, 
as he affirms, “‘a good: sherris sack 
hath a two-fold operation,’—if “it 
ascends me 1o the brain, and there 
dries the vapours,” the laureate had 
better set about drinking it, for ‘* by ’r 
Lady,” another birth-day poem will 
finish honest Bob Southey, unless 
he disperse the aforesaid vapours. 
He begins to reverse all the rules of 
composition of late; for it may law- 
fully be said of him, that he writes 
prose like a madman, and poétry like 
a fool. Iam sorry for him; for, not- 
withstanding his overbearing self-suf- 
ficiency, his desertion of the cause of 
freedom, his virulent invectives against 
his opponents, his rampant conceit, 
and his utter want of ‘all’ literary 
courtesy,—l am assured that his cha- 
racter in private life is amiable and 
exemplary. 
An army of authors is a much 
cheaper support of royalty than an 
army of soldiers, and has this special 
recommendation’ besides, that it can 
not only uphold the king’s authority 
while living, but give him a good name 
after deatli. But the trade of a king 
is not near so good as it used to be. 
At this time, when there seems to be 
a general rebellion of the human un- 
derstanding against the abuses and 
exactions of antiquated tyranny, it has 
become indispensable for royalty to 
turn its attentions more particularly 
tothe people. For this purpose, it is 
considered equally essential to laud 
the characters and manners of kings; 
to maintain the superiority of that sys- 
tem of government of which they are 
the heads; and to denounce, on all 
occasions, those principles of freedom, 
which are as much, and as surely, the 
product. of intellectual advancement, 
as the blossom is of the sun. 
The whole tide of corruption has 
consequently turned into these chan 
nels; and, in order to render the 
Novelties of Foreign Literature. 
[D 
means of depressing mankind m F 
effectual, it has become more than 
ever necessary, that the press should 
be either corrupted or enslaved. You 
perhaps have not remarked it, butit is 
becoming every day more and more 
evident, that republicanism and repub- 
licans must be either rendered odious 
and detestable in the eyes of nations, 
by reiterated falsehoods’ and misre- 
presentations, or there will be shortly 
little security for many thrones of 
Europe. One or other, the old or ‘the 
new world, must change its govern- 
ments. 
A plan has, therefore, been devised, 
and is now in most promising progress, 
in Europe, for controlling the freedom 
of the press ;—on one hand by fines, 
prosecutions, and censorships ;:and on 
the other, to render it subservient to 
the purposes of antiquated oppres- 
sions, ignorance, and superstition, by 
means of pensions, patronage, sine- 
cures, and paltry titles, that sink the 
man of genius into a mere courtier. 
In the progress of this deep-laid 
plot against the human understanding, 
we have seen, that only those repubti- 
can writers whose efforts were not ihe 
most dangérous, ei:her from want of 
talents, or of a popular mode’ of ad- 
dressing the multitude; are tolerated. 
The momenta popular writer becomes 
dangerous by his power of ‘addtessing 
the public feelings, himself and’ his 
writings are singled out for the lash of 
the law or the church. Under some 
pretence of blasphemy, if they ean 
find no other, the author is prosecuted, 
fined, and ruined ; and his book, if not 
entirely suppressed, becomes an object 
for all the hirelings to bark at, from 
the Quarterly Review to Blackwood’s 
Magazine. — “§ 
But in a government in which the 
whole wealth of the state can be em- 
ployed almost at willin the wages of 
corruption, the means of influencing 
and controlling the press are not con- 
fined to mere oppression and punish- 
ment. If, for instance, a writer pos+ 
sess too much courage to be frighten 
ed, or too much honesty to be bribed, 
into a sacrifice of his principles, they 
set the Quarterly Review upon him. 
That excellent, conscientious, and dis- 
interested publication, beginsby ¢harg+ 
ing him with radicalism and infidelity. 
The Literary Gazette repeats the tale 
to the’ New Monthly and‘ the John 
Bull; the New Monthly to the Beacon 
and Blackwood’s Magazine ; and bas 
the 
