‘It is of the very utmost importance, that the gentlemen of the country, and particularly the clergy, should not, from ignorance, aggravate the evils of scarcity every time that it unfortunately occurs. During the late dearths, half of the gentlemen and clergymen in the kingdom richly deserved to have been prosecuted for sedition. After inflaming the minds of the common people against the farmers and corn-dealers, by the manner in which they talked of them, or preached about them, it was but a feeble antidote to the poison which they had infused, coldly to observe, that however the poor might be oppressed or cheated, it was their duty to keep the peace. It was little better than Antony’s repeated declaration, that the conspirators were all honourable men; which did not save either their houses or their persons from the attacks of the mob. Political economy is perhaps the only science of which it might be said, that the ignorance of it is not merely a deprivation of good, but produces great positive evil.’

I shall accompany this passage with an extract from the Author’s first edition and leave it to the reader to apply the hint of Antony’s speech to whom he thinks fit.

‘It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally falls; but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in effect, a real fall in the price of labour; and during this period, the condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow worse and worse. But the farmers and the capitalists are growing rich from the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful; and the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities, either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and keeps it down some time longer; perhaps, till a year of scarcity, when the clamour is too loud, and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.

‘The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed; and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity; and when plenty returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints, that the price does not again fall; when a little reflection would shew them, that it must have risen long before, but from an unjust conspiracy of their own.’

THE END

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Published anonymously in one volume (8vo, 424 pages) in 1825, with the following title-page:—‘The Spirit of the Age: or Contemporary Portraits. “To know another well were to know one’s self.” London: Printed for Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. 1825.’ The imprint was ‘London: Printed by S. and R. Bentley, Dorset Street.’ A second edition (here reproduced), with the same title-page (except that the quotation ran: ‘“To know a man well, were to know himself.” Hamlet’) and imprint, was produced in smaller type (8vo, 408 pages) in the same year. In this edition the essays were arranged in a different order, an addition was made to the essay on Coleridge, and an essay on Cobbett from Table Talk (vol. i., 1821) was included. In the same year, 1825, an edition was published in Paris (A. and W. Galignani) which included the essay on Cobbett and an essay on Canning. The third edition, edited by the author’s son, was published in 1858 (one volume, 8vo, 396 pages, C. Templeman, Great Portland Street). In this edition the essays on Cobbett and Canning were included, and the essays were arranged in an order different from that of either the first or the second edition. The fourth edition, edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt for Bohn’s Standard Library (1886) restored the order of the second edition, but included the essay on Canning. In this edition Mr. Hazlitt made some alterations in the text based upon (1) portions of the original MSS. then in his possession, and (2) autograph notes of the author’s in a copy of the second edition belonging to Mr. C. W. Reynell. A volume of Essays selected from The Spirit of the Age, with an introduction by R. B. Johnson, was published in 1893 (the Knickerbocker Press, G. P. Putnam’s Sons). Five of the essays, viz.: those on Bentham, Irving, Horne Tooke, Scott, and Eldon were originally published in Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal (1824, vols. x. and xi.) in a series entitled ‘The Spirits of the Age.’

CONTENTS

PAGE
Jeremy Bentham[189]
William Godwin[200]
Mr. Coleridge[212]
Rev. Mr. Irving[222]
The late Mr. Horne Tooke[231]
Sir Walter Scott[241]
Lord Byron[253]
Mr. Southey[262]
Mr. Wordsworth[270]
Sir James Mackintosh[279]
Mr. Malthus[287]
Mr. Gifford[298]
Mr. Jeffrey[310]
Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett[318]
Lord Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce[325]
Mr. Cobbett[334]
Mr. Campbell—Mr. Crabbe[343]
Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt[353]
Elia—Geoffrey Crayon[362]