o men who were
'dreadfully in earnest.' Jeffrey was a philosophical sceptic; he
interpreted Dugald Stewart as meaning that metaphysics, being all
nonsense, we must make shift with common-sense; and he wrote a
dissertation upon taste, to prove that there are no rules about taste
whatever. He was too genuine a sceptic to sacrifice peace to the
hopeless search for truth. One of the most striking passages in his
_Essays_[145] is an attack upon 'perfectibility.' He utterly
disbelieves that progress in knowledge will improve morals or diminish
war, or cure any of the evils that flesh is heir to. Such a man is not
of the material of which enthusiastic reformers are made. Throughout
the war he was more governed by his fear than by his zeal. He was in
constant dread of failure abroad and ruin at home. The _Review_
provoked the Tories, and induced them to start its rival, not by
advocacy of political principles, but by its despairing view of the
war.[146] He was still desiring at that time (1808) to avoid 'party
politics' in the narrower sense.

The political view corresponding to this is given in the articles,
some of which (though the authorship was not yet avowed) were assailed
by Mill in the _Westminster_. In an early article[147] he defends the
French philosophers against the imputation of responsibility for the
reign of terror. Their excellent and humane doctrines had been
misapplied by the 'exasperation' and precipitation of inexperienced
voters. His most characteristic article is one published in January
1810. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had confirmed his
disbelief in our military leaders; the rise of English Radicalism, led
by Burdett in the House of Commons, and Cobbett in the press, the
widely spread distress and the severity of oppressive measures, roused
his keenest alarm.[148] We are, he declared, between two violent and
pernicious factions--the courtiers of arbitrary power and the
democrats. If the Whig leaders did not first conciliate and then
restrain the people, the struggle of the extreme parties would soon
sweep away the constitution, the monarchy, and the Whig aristocracy by
which that monarchy 'is controlled, confirmed, and exalted above all
other forms of polity.' Democracy, it was plain, was increasing with
dangerous rapidity. A third of every man's income was being taken by
taxes, and after twenty years' boastful hostility we were left without
a single ally. Considering all this, it seems as