The Services of Mr. Ricardo to the Science of Political Economy, briefly and plainly stated.1
(March, 1824.)

I do not remember that any public event of our own times has touched me so nearly, or so much with the feelings belonging to a private affliction, as the death of Mr. Ricardo. To me in some sense it was a private affliction—and no doubt to all others who knew and honoured his extraordinary talents. For great intellectual merit, wherever it has been steadily contemplated, cannot but conciliate some personal regard: and for my own part I acknowledge that, abstracting altogether from the use to which a man of splendid endowments may apply them—or even supposing the case that he should deliberately apply them to a bad one, I could no more on that account withhold my good wishes and affection from his person—than, under any consideration of their terrific attributes, I could forbear to admire the power and the beauty of the serpent or the panther. Simply on its own account, and without further question, a great intellect challenges, as of right, not merely an interest of admiration—in common with all other exhibitions of power and magnificence—but also an interest of human love, and (where that is necessary) a spirit of tenderness to its aberrations. Mr. Ricardo however stood in no need of a partial or indulgent privilege: his privilege of intellect had a comprehensive sanction from all the purposes to which he applied it in the course of his public life: in or out of parliament, as a senator—or as an author, he was known and honoured as a public benefactor. Though connected myself by private friendship with persons of the political party hostile to his, I heard amongst them all but one language of respect for his public conduct. Those, who stood neutral to all parties, remarked that Mr. Ricardo’s voice—though heard too seldom for the wishes of the enlightened part of the nation—was never raised with emphasis upon any question lying out of the province in which he reigned as the paramount authority, except upon such as seemed to affect some great interest of liberty or religious toleration. And, wherever a discussion arose which transcended the level of temporary and local politics (as that for example upon corporal punishments), the weight of authority—which mere blank ability had obtained for him in the House of Commons—was sure to be thrown into that view of the case which upheld the dignity of human nature. Participating most cordially in these feelings of reverence for Mr. Ricardo’s political character, I had besides a sorrow not unmixed with self-reproach arising out of some considerations more immediately relating to myself. In August and September 1821 I wrote The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: and in the course of this little work I took occasion to express my obligations, as a student of Political Economy, to Mr. Ricardo’s ‘Principles’ of that science. For this as for some other passages I was justly2 attacked by an able and liberal critic in the New Edinburgh Review—as for so many absurd irrelevancies: in that situation no doubt they were so; and of this, in spite of the haste in which I had written the greater part of the book, I was fully aware. However, as they said no more than was true, I was glad to take that or any occasion which I could invent for offering my public testimony of gratitude to Mr. Ricardo. The truth is—I thought that something might occur to intercept any more appropriate mode of conveying my homage to Mr. Ricardo’s ear, which should else more naturally have been expressed in a direct work on Political Economy. This fear was at length realised—not in the way I had apprehended, viz. by my own death—but by Mr. Ricardo’s. And now therefore I felt happy that, at whatever price of good taste, I had in some imperfect way made known my sense of his high pretensions—although unfortunately I had given him no means of judging whether my applause were of any value. For during the interval between Sept. 1821 and Mr. Ricardo’s death in Sept. 1823 I had found no leisure for completing my work on Political Economy: on that account I had f............