Trueman. O tempora! O mores!
Humphry. He talks Greek like a Trojan.—Tempora mores;—I suppose how that's as much as to say, it was the temper of the Moors, that's the nigers, for to be call'd Cæsar and Pompey.—I guess how he can give me the exclamation of that plaguy word.—Con—let me see [Spells it in the manner he did before.]—Please your worshipful reverence, Mr. Schoolmaster, what's Latin for Constitution?
Trueman. To tell you what is Latin for Constitution, will not make you a particle the wiser; I will, therefore, explain it in the vernacular tongue.—Constitution then, in its primary, abstract, and true signification, is a concatenation or coacervation of simple, distinct parts, of various qualities or properties, united, compounded, or constituted in such a manner, as to form or compose a system or body, when viewed in its aggregate or general nature. In its common, or generally received, acceptation, it implies two things.—First, the nature, habit, disposition, organization or construction of the natural, corporeal, or animal system.—Secondly, a political system, or plan of government. This last definition, I apprehend, explains the Constitution you mean.
Humphry. Like enough, but I don't understand a single word you've been a talking about.
Trueman. No! 'Tis not my fault then:—If plainness of language, clearness of description, and a grammatical arrangement of words will not suffice, I can do no more.
Enter Old Loveyet listening.
Humphry. I mean the Constitution that you read in the newspapers about; that that your worship was a going to get at loggerheads with old Mr. What's-his-name, about.
Loveyet. I'll old you, you rascal!
Trueman. Did you never hear your friends in the country talk of the new Constitution?
Humphry. Not I, I never heard anybody talk about it, at the Pharisee's Head;—I don't believe Jeremy Stave, the clark of the meeting-house, no, nor Parson Thumpum himself ever heard of such a word—No, not even old Mr. Scourge, the Schoolmaster.