ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 27 October 1827, p. 196. Never reprinted. This article discusses ‘false political economy’, ‘the revolution of Mr. Ricardo’, and the statements of both ‘Mr. M’Culloch’ and ‘the Standard’ newspaper, all of which make it continuous with De Quincey’s economic essays in the Post. Other evidence includes the free use of italics, italicization of ‘that’, rhetorical questions, and sentences beginning with ‘But’. Two expressions that sound very De Quinceyan are ‘Most evident it is’ and ‘certain it is’. The statement about the Whigs of 1790, that ‘Whatsoever was antinational they loved’, anticipates De Quincey’s claim (in 1835) that ‘Because [the Whigs of that era] were anti-ministerial, they allowed themselves … to become anti-national’ (Vol. 9).
