he says with infinite naiveté:—"Mr. Cobbett had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for a libel; and during the time that he was in Newgate, it was discovered that he had been secretly in treaty with Government to avoid the sentence passed upon him; and that he had proposed to certain of the Agents of Ministers, that if they would let him off, they might make what future use they pleased of him: he would entirely betray the cause of the people: he would either write or not write, or write against them, as he had once done before, just as Ministers thought proper. To this, however, it was replied, that 'Cobbett had written on too many sides already to be worth a groat for the service of Government,' and he accordingly suffered his confinement."
This passage is at least worth a groat: it lets us into the Editor's real opinion of what it is that alone makes any writer "worth a groat for the service of Government," viz. his being able and willing entirely to betray the cause of the people; and, we should hope, may operate as an antidote to any future cant about sheep and shepherds!
The same consistent patriot and loyalist, the Sir Robert Filmer of the day, asked some time ago—"Where is the madman that believes the doctrine of Divine Right? Where is the madman that asserts that doctrine?" As no one else was found to do it, he himself, the other day, took up his own challenge, and affirmed, with a resolute air, that—"Louis XVIII. had the same right to the throne of France, independently of his merits or conduct, that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, had to his estate at Holkham." He did not say whether James II. had the same right to the throne of England, independently of his conduct or merits, that Louis XVIII. has to the throne of France: but the inference of course is that the people of France belong to Louis XVIII, just as the live stock on a farm belongs to the owner of it, or as the slaves in the West Indies belong to the owners of the plantation, and that mankind are neither more nor less than a herd of slaves, the property of kings. This is at least as good a thing as the
