We do not think this conclusion is very like what Mr. Southey somewhere wishes the conclusion of his life to resemble—‘the high leaves upon the holly tree.’ Mr. Southey’s asperities do not wear off, as he grows older. We are always disposed to quarrel with ourselves for quarrelling with him, and yet we cannot help it, whenever we come in contact with his writings. We met him unexpectedly the other day in St. Giles’s, (it was odd we should meet _him_ there) were sorry we had passed him without speaking to an old friend, turned and looked after him for some time, as to a tale of other times—sighing, as we walked on, _Alas poor Southey!_ ‘We saw in him a painful hieroglyphic of humanity; a sad memento of departed independence; a striking instance of the rise and fall of patriot bards!’ In the humour we were in, we could have written a better epitaph, for him than he has done for himself. We went directly and bought his Letter to Mr. W. Smith, which appeared the same day as himself, and this at once put an end to our sentimentality. ON THE SPY-SYSTEM _Morning Chronicle_, _June 30, 1817_. Lord Castlereagh, in the debate some evenings ago, appeared in a new character, and mingled with his usual stock of political common places, some lively moral paradoxes, after a new French pattern. According to his Lordship’s comprehensive and liberal views, the liberty and independence of nations are best supported abroad by the point of the bayonet; and morality, religion, and social order, are best defended at home by spies and informers. It is a pretty system, and worthy of itself from first to last. The Noble Lord in the blue ribbon took the characters of Castles and Oliver under the protection of his blushing honours and elegant casuistry, and lamented that by the idle clamour raised against such characters, _Gentlemen_ were deterred from entering into the honourable, useful, and profitable profession of Government Spies. Perhaps this piece of intellectual gallantry on the part of the Noble Lord, was not quite so disinterested as it at first appears. There might be something of fellow-feeling in it. The obloquy which lights on the underlings in such cases, sometimes glances indirectly on their principals and patrons; nor do they wipe it off by becoming their defenders. Lord Castlereagh may say with _Lingo_ in the play, who boasts ‘that he is not a scholar, but a master of scholars,’ that he is not a spy, but a creator of spies and informers—not a receiver, but a distributor of blood-money—not a travelling companion and scurvy accomplice in the forging and uttering of sham treasons and accommodation plots, but head of the town-firm established for that purpose—not the dupe or agent of the treason hatched by others, but chief mover and instigator of the grand plot for increasing the power of the Sovereign, by hazarding the safety of his person. Lord Castlereagh