WAT TYLER; A DRAMATIC POEM. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: Article, " ON PAR

LIAMENTARY REFORM."

"So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man:

So shall it be when I grow old and die.

The child's the father of the man:

Our years flow on

Link'd each to each by natural piety."-WORDSWORTH.

March 9, 1817.

ACCORDING to this theory of personal continuity, the author of the Dramatic Poem, to be here noticed, is the father of Parliamentary Reform in the Quarterly Review. It is said to be a wise child that knows its own father; and we understand Mr. Southey (who is in this case reputed father and son) utterly disclaims the hypostatical union between the Quarterly Reviewer and the Dramatic Poet, and means to enter an injunction against the latter, as a bastard and impostor. Appearances are somewhat staggering against the legitimacy of the descent, yet we perceive a strong family-likeness remaining, in spite of the lapse of years and alteration of circumstances. We should not, indeed, be able to predict that the author of Wat Tyler would ever write the article on Parliamentary Reform; nor should we, either at first or second sight, perceive that the Quarterly Reviewer had ever written a poem like that which is before us: but if we were told that both performances were literally and bonâ fide by the same person, we should have little hesitation in saying to Mr. Southey, "Thou art the man." We know no other person in whom "fierce extremes" meet with such mutual self-complacency: whose opinions change so much without any change in the author's mind; who lives so entirely in the "present ignorant thought," without the smallest" discourse of reason looking before or after." Mr. Southey is a man incapable of reasoning connectedly on any

subject. He has not strength of mind to see the whole of any question; he has not modesty to suspend his judgment till he has examined the grounds of it. He can comprehend but one idea at a time, and that is always an extreme one; because he will neither listen to, nor tolerate any thing than can disturb or moderate the petulance of his self-opinion. The woman that deliberates is lost. So it is with the effeminate soul of Mr. Southey. Any concession is fatal to his consistency; and he can only keep out of one absurdity by the tenaciousness with which he stickles for another. He calls to the aid of his disjointed opinions a proportionate quantity of spleen; and regularly makes up for the weakness of his own reasons, by charging others with bad motives. The terms knave and fool, wise and good, have undergone a total change in the last twenty years: the former he applies to all those who agreed with him formerly-the latter to all those who agree with him now. His public spirit was then a prude and a scold; and" his poor virtue," turned into a literary prostitute, is grown more abusive than ever. Wat Tyler and the Quarterly Review are an illustration of these remarks. The author of Wat Tyler was an Ultra-jacobin; the author of Parliamentary Reform is an Ultra-royalist; the one was a frantic demagogue; the other is a servile court-tool: the one maintained second-hand paradoxes; the other repeats second-hand common-places: the one vented those opinions which gratified the vanity of youth; the other adopts those prejudices which are most conducive to the convenience of age: the one saw nothing but the abuses of power; the other sees nothing but the horrors of resistance to those abuses: the one did not stop short of general anarchy; the other goes the whole length of despotism: the one vilified kings, priests, and nobles; the other vilifies the people: the one was for universal suffrage and perfect equality; the other is for seat-selling, and the increasing influence of the Crown: the one admired the preaching of John Ball; the other recommends the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and the putting down of the Examiner by the sword, the dagger, or the thumb-screw; for the pen,

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 gentlemenpensioners 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 :

MORCEAU I.

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

Slaughtering our youths-and all to crown our Chiefs
With glory!-I detest the hell-sprung name.

Tyler. What matters me who wears the crown of France ?

Whether a Richard or a Charles possess it?

They reap the glory-they enjoy the spoil

We pay we bleed! The sun would shine as cheerly,
The rains of heaven as seasonably fall,

Tho' neither of these royal pests existed.

Hob. Nay-as for that, we poor men should fare better!

No legal robbers then should force away

The hard-earn'd wages of our honest toil.

The Parliament for ever cries more money,
The service of the State demands more money.
Just Heaven! of what service is the State?

Tyler. Oh! 'tis of vast importance! Who should pay for The luxuries and riots of the court?

Who should support the flaunting courtier's pride,
Pay for their midnight revels, their rich garments,
Did not the State enforce ?—Think ye, my friend,
That I-a humble blacksmith, here at Deptford,
Would part with these six groats-earn'd by hard toil,
All that I have! to massacre the Frenchmen;
Murder as enemies men I never saw,

Did not the State compel me!

(Tax-gatherers pass by.) There they go, Privileg❜d rs!

MORCEAU II.

Piers. Fare not the birds well, as from spray to spray Blithsome they bound-yet find their simple food. Scattered abundantly?

Tyler. No fancied boundaries of mine and thine Restrain their wanderings: Nature gives enough For all; but Man, with arrogant selfishness, Proud of his heaps, hoards up superfluous stores Robb'd from his weaker fellows, starves the poor, Or gives to pity what he owes to justice!

Piers. So I have heard our good friend John Ball preach.

Alice. My father, wherefore was John Ball imprisoned? Was he not charitable, good, and pious?

I have heard him say that all mankind are brethren,
And that like brethren they should love each other;
Was not that doctrine pious?

Tyler. Rank sedition

High treason, every syllable, my child!!
The priests cry out on him for heresy;

The nobles all detest him as a rebel;

And this good man, this minister of Christ,
This man, the friend and brother of mankind,
Lingers in the dark dungeon!

MORCEAU III.

Tyler. Piers, I have not been idle,

I never ate the bread of indolence

Could Alice be more thrifty than her mother?
Yet but with one child, and that one, how good
Thou knowest; I scarcely can provide the wants
Of nature look at these wolves of the law,
They come to drain me of my hard-earn'd wages.
I have already paid the heavy tax

Laid on the wool that clothes me-on my leather

On all the needful articles of life!

And now three groats (and I work'd hard to earn them) The Parliament demands-and I must pay them,

Forsooth, for liberty to wear my head.

Enter Tax-gatherers.

Collector. Three groats a-head for all your family.

Piers. Why is this money gathered?'tis a hard tax

On the poor labourer !-it can never be

That government should thus distress the people.
Go to the rich for money-honest labour

Ought to enjoy its fruits.

Col. The State wants money.

War is expensive-'tis a glorious war,