Richmond Enquirer

Southey, who has disgraced his "muse of fire" by accepting of the mercenary post of Poet Laureat to the Royal family, and editing the Quarterly Review, has thought fit to write "a long letter to Mr. Smith M. P. to vindicate himself from a charge of inconsistency as to the political opinions of his youth and age. He says "It is the people who stand in need of reformation, not the government"—of course, not the government, which has decorated him with the Laureat wreath. But how much are his opinions changed since he penned that beautiful emblematical piece "The Oak of our fathers" that stood

In its beauty: the glory and pride of the wood,

that oak, which was so "dear to freedom"—whose fate is thus described:

The Oak has received its incurable wound.

They have loosened the roots, tho' the heart may be sound;

What the travellers at distance green-flourishing see,

Are the leaves of the Ivy that poisoned that tree.

But since Mr. S. has become one of the "leaves of the ivy," one of those placemen and pensioners that "feed on the vitals," his tune is changed—it is no longer the government, but "the people that stand in need of reformation"! of such stuff is the consistency of a Poet Laureat composed!