Page:The Scourge - Volume 9.djvu/178

cause from the effect, I presumed that his present decripitude arose entirely from old age, and I began to admire his stamina, which could weather so many seasons, and still hold out; but I soon discovered my error; I soon found that John Bull was endowed by nature with the strongest constitution, one preserving youth and vigor from the scythe of time, which defied his approach, and turned aside the edge of his wrath, that time could neither wither the roses of his cheek, or exhaust the protuberance of his waistcoat, and that he owes his present debility entirely to a system of quackery, to which he has long submitted, and to the nostrums which have been prescribed for him. I found that this constitution was rendered his inheritance in the days of King John, and confirmed to him by Henry III; I also found that although it had received many deep wounds in after ages, it resisted popery and oppression during the reign of bigotry and the Stuarts, and revived with unprecedented splendor in the reign of William and Mary, when it betrayed the possession of all its ancient stamina, unbounded freedom, the liberty of conscience, and the glorious privilege of grumbling. In some old portraits of this venerable gentleman I have seen him smoaking his pipe under the tree of liberty, quaffing his jug of brown stout, and enjoying all the happiness which the air of liberty inspires, and the land of freedom fecundates. Ah! these were happy days I exclaim; monopoly was then hardly known; the porter brewer was then content to wear the apron of his trade, and never dreamt of peerages, and seats in parliament; with a jolly countenance he drove his own dray, and was happy in taking a glass of his best with his customers. Farms were then of moderate extent, and occupied by a humble and worthy tenantry; a hunting curate would have been hunted from his living; the country squire, a non-descript animal in modern days, was then the most important personage in his parish; he kept open house with hospitality for his porter, and