In page 5, Mr. Southey calls the person who published ‘Wat Tyler’ ‘a skulking scoundrel,’ with his characteristic delicacy and moderation in the use of epithets; and says that it was published, ‘for the avowed purpose of insulting him, and with the hope of injuring him if possible.’ Perhaps one object was to prevent Mr. Southey from insulting and injuring other people. It was supposed that ‘Wat Tyler’ might prove an antidote to the ‘Quarterly Review’: that, ‘the healing might come from the same weapon that gave the wound’; and in this instance it has turned out so. He adds, ‘You knew that the transaction bore upon its face every character of baseness and malignity. You knew that it must have been effected either by robbery, or by breach of trust. _These things, Mr. William Smith, you knew!_’ [Mr. Southey at least knows no such thing, but he is here in his glory; putting a false statement into epigrammatic phraseology; bristling with horror at antithetical enormities of his own fabricating, and concluding with that formidable and significant repetition of the title, Christian and surname of _Mr. William Smith_.] The above paragraph concludes thus, with the author’s usual logical precision and personal modesty. ‘And knowing them as you did, I verily believe, that if it were possible to revoke what is irrevocable, you would _at this moment_ be far more desirous of blotting from remembrance the _disgraceful_ speech which stands upon record in your name, than I should be of cancelling the boyish composition which gave rise to it. “Wat Tyler” is full of errors ... but they are the errors of youth and ignorance; they bear no indication of an ungenerous spirit, or of a malevolent heart.’ p. 6. It seems by this passage that any attempt to fix disgrace on Mr. Southey only, recoils upon the head of his accuser. ‘Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit.’ He says that Mr. W. Smith’s _disgraceful_ speech was occasioned by ‘Wat Tyler.’ That is not true. It was occasioned by ‘Wat Tyler’ coupled with the ‘Quarterly Review.’ He says, ‘“Wat Tyler” is full of errors.’ So is the article in the ‘Quarterly Review’; but _they_ are not ‘the errors of youth and ignorance; they bear strong indications of an ungenerous spirit and a malignant heart.’ Let not Mr. Southey mistake. It is not the indiscreet and romantic extravagance of the boy which has brought the man into this predicament: it is the deliberate and rancorous servility of the man that has made those who were the marks of his slanderous and cowardly invectives, rake up the errors of his youth against him.