[21]. We are somewhat in the situation of Captain Macheath in the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ ‘The road had done the Captain justice, but the gaming-table had been his ruin.’ We have been pretty successful on the high seas; but the Bank have swallowed it all up. The taxes have outlived the war, trade, and commerce. They are the soul, the immortal part of the Pitt system.
[22]. It may be proper to notice, that this article was written before the Discourse which it professes to criticise had appeared in print, or probably existed any where, but in repeated newspaper advertisements.
[23]. This work is so obscure, that it has been supposed to be written in cypher, and that it is necessary to read it upwards and downwards, or backwards and forwards, as it happens, to make head or tail of it. The effect is exceedingly like the qualms produced by the heaving of a ship becalmed at sea; the motion is so tedious, improgressive, and sickening.
[24]. Does this verse come under Mr. C.’s version of Jus Divinum?
[25]. That is, in a sense not used and without any intelligible meaning.
[26]. If these are the worst passions, there is plenty of them in this Lay-Sermon.
[27]. A paper set up at this time by Dr. Stoddart.
[28]. When this work was first published, the King had copies of it bound in Morocco, and gave them away to his favourite courtiers, saying, ‘It was a book which every gentleman ought to read.’
[29]. Our loyal Editor used to bluster a great deal some time ago about putting down James Madison, and ‘the last example of democratic rebellion in America.’ In this he was consistent and logical. Could he not, however, find out another example of this same principle, by going a little farther back in history, and coming a little nearer home? If he has forgotten this chapter in our history, others who have profited more by it have not. He may understand what we mean, by turning to the story of the two elder Blifils in Tom Jones.
[30]. Simon Lee, the old Huntsman, a tale by Mr. Wordsworth, of which he himself says,