ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 26 January 1827, pp. 300–1. Reprinted Tave, pp. 280–92 (with attribution, pp. 292–5). The strongest evidence is the quotation from this article in a later piece in the Post, which survives in manuscript in De Quincey’s handwriting (see Vol. 6, p. 303). De Quincey had used the identical phrase from Milton about ‘faithful armies’, five months earlier in the Post (see above, p. 32). Other quotations, from Pope, Shakespeare, Lucretius, and Cicero, along with recurring words like ‘soi-disant’ ‘waive’, and ‘boutefeus’, the italicization of ‘that’, strongly suggest De Quincey, when they appear in the Post. The conceit about political changes ‘chasing each other with the passionate flight of a musical fugue’ sounds very De Quinceyan, and probably reflects his musical reviewing for the Post at this time. A possible interpolation by the editor Peterkin is discussed in the notes to the first paragraph.
