at least admit that Southey saw something which was hidden from Macaulay. Southey, of course, rushed to extremes. He is as vehement and one-sided as Carlyle, whose French Revolution he admired and whose Chartism would have been quite to his taste. He held (as many observers held then) that the country was oscillating between a servile war and a military despotism. His remedy was that Government should do its duty and suppress discontent by improving the condition of the poor. He rivalled the most bigoted Tories of the day in supporting despotic measures; but he also protested most vehemently against the neglect of corresponding duties. He demanded a national system of education as vigorously as he supported the attacks upon the Press. His theories had another side which struck Macaulay as specially absurd. He held with Burke that 'religion is the basis of civil society.' Southey, in his vehement way, takes for granted as a self-evident 'postulate' that religion means the Anglican religion, and comes painfully near to approving that no others should be tolerated. He admits, indeed, that the Church requires reforms. The Life of Wesley, in other ways a very charming and characteristic book, is really designed in support
