politic can be restored to health, must be slow in their operation. The condition of the populace, physical, moral, and intellectual, must be improved, or a Jacquerie, a Bellum Servile, sooner or later, will be the result. It is the people at this time who stand in need of reformation, not the government."
We could not have said most of this better ourselves; and yet he adds—"The Government must better the condition of the populace; and the first thing necessary is"—to do what—to suppress the liberty of the press, and make Mr. Southey the keeper. That is, the Government must put a stop to the press, in order that they may continue, with perfect impunity, all the other evils complained of, which Mr. Southey says are too dangerous, as well as too monstrous to be borne. Put down the liberty of the press, and leave it to Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review to remove "the extremes of inequality, ignorance, wretchedness, and brutality, existing in the very centre of civilized society," and they will remain there long enough. Remove them, and what will become of Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review? This modest gentleman and mild reformer, proposes to destroy at once the freedom of discussion, to prevent its ultimate loss; to make us free by first making us slaves; to put a gag in the mouths of the people instead of bread; to increase the comforts of the poor by laying on more taxes; to spread abroad the spirit of liberty and independence, by teaching the doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance; and to encourage the love of peace by crying up the benefits of war, and deprecating the loss of a war-establishment. The borough-mongers will not object to such a helpmate in the cause of reform. In the midst of all this desultory jargon, the author somehow scrapes acquaintance with Mr. Owen, and we find them disputing about the erection of a chapel of ease on a piece of waste ground. "To build upon any other foundation than religion, is building upon sand," says Mr. Southey, with a sort of Do-me-good air, as if in giving his advice he had performed an act of charity. We did not hear Mr. Owen's answer, but we know that a nod is as good as a wink
