cter as well as in the political
framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of
legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here,
however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the
necessity of self-help. He had ridiculed the pretensions of government
to fix the rate of wages; and had shown how the poor-laws defeated
their own objects. This was the really offensive ground to the
political Radicals. They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to
the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers; pensions, sinecures,
public debts, huge armies, profligate luxuries of all kinds, were the
fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty. Kings and
priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind, and were
ruining their happiness. Malthus, they thought, was insinuating a base
apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the
subjects instead of attributing it to the wickedness of their rulers.
He was as bad as the old Tory, Johnson,[430] exclaiming:--

'How small of all that human hearts endure
That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'

He was, they held, telling the tyrants that it was not their fault if
the poor were miserable. The essay was thus an apology for the
heartlessness of the rich. This view was set forth by Hazlitt in an
attack upon Malthus in 1807.[431] It appears again in the _Enquiry_ by
G. Ensor (1769-1843)--a vivacious though rather long-winded Irishman,
who was known both to O'Connell and to Bentham.[432] Godwin himself
was roused by the appearance of the fifth edition of Malthus's _Essay_
to write a reply, which appeared in 1820. He was helped by David Booth
(1766-1846),[433] a man of some mathematical and statistical
knowledge. Hazlitt's performance is sufficiently significant of the
general tendency. Hazlitt had been an enthusiastic admirer of Godwin,
and retained as much of the enthusiasm as his wayward prejudices would
allow. He was through life what may be called a sentimental Radical,
so far as Radicalism was compatible with an ardent worship of
Napoleon. To him Napoleon meant the enemy of Pitt and Liverpool and
Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance. Hazlitt could forgive any policy
which meant the humiliation of the men whom he most heartily hated.
His attack upon Malthus was such as might satisfy even Cobbett, whose
capacity for hatred, and especially for this particular object of
hatred, was equal to H