they refuse to be poisoned!—O antient constitution always to be questioned!—O modern improvements that never answer!—O speculations!—O companies!—O usury laws which guard against usurers, by making as many as possible!—O churches in which no one profits, save the parson, and the old women that let pews of an evening!—O superb theatres, too small for parks, too enormous for houses, which exclude comedy and comfort, and have a monopoly for performing nonsense gigantically!—O houses of plaster built in a day!—O palaces four yards high, with a dome in the middle, meant to be invisible![1]—O shops worth thousands, and O shopkeepers not worth a shilling!—O system of credit, by which beggars are princes, and princes are beggars!—O imprisonment for debt, which lets the mare be stolen, and then locks up the bridle!—O sharpers, bubbles, senators, beaux, taverns, brothels, clubs, houses private and
- ↑ We must not suppose this apostrophe to be an anachronism! Tomlinson, of course, refers to some palace of his day. One of the boxes—Christmas boxes—given to the King by his economical nation of shopkeepers. We suppose it is either pulled down or blown down long ago: it is doubtless forgotten by this time, except by antiquaries. Nothing is so ephemeral as great houses built by the people.—Your Kings play the deuce with their playthings!
