[7] Life of Pope.
[8] The following extracts from the Doctor's Dictionary are a key to his political tenets: Excise, a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid. Gazetteer, was lately a term of the utmost infamy, being usually applied to wretches that were hired to vindicate the court. Pension, an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country. Pensioner, a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. King, monarch, supreme governour. Monarch, a governour invested with absolute authority, a King. Whig, 1. whey, 2. the name of a faction. Tory, one who adheres to the antient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig. Johnson's fol. Dic. The word faction is always used in a bad sense; though, in defining it, the Doctor did not, and, after what he had said of a whig, perhaps durst not say, that a faction is always a term for the supposed disturbers of public peace. 'The most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue;' Rambler, No. 180. That is to say, men of learning are a set of the most sneaking, pitiful, time-serving rascals. The reader will make his own applications.
[9] See Political tracts by the author of the Rambler. His character of Hambden, the reader will find in the 1st page of Waller's life. Of Milton, he says, that 'his impudence had been at least equal to his other powers. Such was his malignity, that hell grew darker at his frown. He thought women born only for obedience, and men only for rebellion.' There is much more in the same tone; and, with what justice his epithets are applied, let Englishmen judge.
[10] Taxation no tyranny.
[11] Ibid, No. 89.
[12] Idler, No. 85.
[13] Tour, p. 59.
[14] Tour, p. 84.
[15] Idler, No. 82.
[16] He should have said causes, for he mentions two.—What is the Doctor's distinction here between habit and custom?