Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/282

 showers. What bounds could imagination set to the welfare and glory of this island, if a tenth part, or even a twentieth of what the war expenditure has been, were annually applied in improving and creating harbours, in bringing our roads to the best possible state, in colonizing upon our waste lands, in reclaiming fens and conquering tracks from the sea, in encouraging the liberal arts, in erecting churches, in building and endowing schools and colleges, and making war upon physical and moral evil with the whole artillery of wisdom and righteousness, with all the resources of science, and all the ardour of enlightened and enlarged benevolence!"

Well done, Mr. Southey. No man can argue better, when he argues against himself. What! one-twentieth part of this enormous waste of money laid out in war, which has sunk the nation into the lowest state of wretchedness, would, if wisely and beneficially laid out in works of peace, have raised the country to the pinnacle of prosperity and happiness! Mr. Southey in his raptures forgets his war-whoop, and is ready to exclaim with Sancho Panza, when the exploits of knight-errantry are over, and he turns all his enthusiasm to a pastoral account, "Oh what delicate wooden spoons shall I carve! What crumbs and cream shall I devour!" Mr. Southey goes on to state, among other items, that "Government should reform its prisons." But Lord Castlereagh, soon after the war-addition to Mr. Croker's peace-salary, said that this was too expensive. In short, the author sums up all his hopes and views in the following sentences:—"Government must reform the populace, the people must reform themselves." The interpretation of which is. The Government must prevent the lower classes from reading any thing; the middle classes should read nothing but the Quarterly Review. "This is the true Reform, and compared with this, all else is flocc, nauci, nihili, pili."

The last page of this performance is "as arrogant a piece of paper" as was ever scribbled. We give it as it stands. "It will be said of him, (Mr. S.) that in an age of personality, he