ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 10 November 1827, p. 212. Reprinted Tave, pp. 169–78 (with attribution, pp. 178–80). This article continues the previous paragraph (reprinted above, p. 123). In addition to De Quincey’s combination of conservatism and Ricardian economics, this piece contains boxing slang, the device of question-and-answer, puns and quibbles, and telling words like ‘between’, ‘English’, and (in italics) ‘that’. The allusion to Molière is one of several in De Quincey’s work at this time, and is typical of De Quincey’s habit of withholding the author’s name, when giving a literary allusion. The use of the editorial-sounding ‘we’ seems consistent with De Quincey’s quasi-editorial status at the Post at this time.
