ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 15 September 1827, pp. 148–9. Reprinted Tave, pp. 106–16 (with attribution, pp. 117–22). The phrasing and argument of this essay closely resemble De Quincey’s writings on Robert Owen in the Westmorland Gazette (Vol. 1; see the editorials of 7 and 14 August 1819) and later in Blackwood’s (Vol. 7). Its Ricardian economics are unusual for a conservative paper of 1827. Quotations from Wordsworth’s Excursion (and other English works) establish De Quincey’s authorship beyond reasonable doubt. The appeal to ‘our English notions’ seems to be a telling slip of the pen. Also of note are the italicization of ‘that’ (which occurs three times), the words ‘contemporaries’ and ‘between’, the rhetorical questions, and the sentences beginning with ‘But’.
