ABSTRACT

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 2 February 1828, p. 308. Reprinted Tave, pp. 296–9 (with attribution, p. 299). The main evidence is the allusion to what ‘we observed’ ‘Last week’ in the article on ‘The Ministry’, with a direct quotation from that article. Supporting evidence includes the quotation from William Pitt, the italicization of ‘that’, the sentence beginning with ‘But’, and inversions like ‘this in effect it is’. The designation of the Times as ‘the official journal of the Whigs’ echoes a common theme in De Quincey’s political articles at this point.