Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/234

 Mr. Southey tells us, is not sufficient. We wonder that in all this contempt which our prose-poet has felt at different times for different persons and things, he has never felt any dissatisfaction with himself, or distrust of his own infallibility. Our differing from others sometimes staggers our confidence in our own conclusions: if we had been chargeable with as many contradictions as Mr. Southey, we suppose we should have had the same senseless self-sufficiency. A changeling is your only oracle. Those who have undergone a total change of sentiment on important questions, ought certainly to learn modesty in themselves, and moderation towards others; on the contrary, they are generally the most violent in their own opinions, and the most intolerant towards others; the reason of which we have shewn elsewhere, to the satisfaction of the proprietor of the Old Times. Before we have done, we shall, perhaps, do the same thing to the satisfaction of the publisher of the Quarterly Review; for the Mr. Murrays and the Mr. Walters, the patrons of the band of gentlemen-pensioners and servile authors, have "a sort of squint" in their understanding, and look less to the dirty sacrifices of their drudges, or the dirtier they are ready to make, than to their standing well with that great keeper, the public, for purity and innocence. The band of gentlemen-pensioners and servile authors do not know what to make of this, and hardly believe it: we shall in time convince them. But to proceed to our extracts:—

"Wat Tyler. Hob—I have only six groats in the world, And they must soon by law be taken from me. Hob. Curse on these taxes—one succeeds another— Our ministers—panders of a king's will— Drain all our wealth away—waste it in revels— And lure or force away our boys, who should be The props of our old age!—to fill their armies, And feed the crows of France! Year follows year, And still we madly prosecute the war;— Draining our wealth—distressing our poor peasants—"