 Supplies of their own Breath.
They all please themselves with the Assurance that Liberty is not only alive, but alive like to be; and they denounce the most heavy and tremendous Consequences against any who shall suffer it to expire in their Hands. Their Mouth is first to be bridled, they must not dare to speak or even mutter their Complaints; and, after being laden with all Kinds of Grievances and Oppressions, they are to be led to the gloomy Receptacles of their insulting Proprietor, there to be further dealt with according to his Pleasure.
FOUR CORNERS AND A FOOL is a most apt and animated Representation of those personal and selfish Competitions that never fail to intrude into the freest States. Where the Meaning and Import of the several Contests amounts
to the single Question
of,
Who shall be in Place?
And where All,
who get in,
are allowed a prescriptive Right of laughing at the Expence of Those
who are kept out.
Your favourite Play of FOOT-BALL is a most perfect Image, or rather Counterpart, of those Dissentions and Oppositions that are entitled
Parties,
and which are almost peculiar to the
British
Constitution.
As soon as the
Parties
for FOOT-BALL are formed, Each enters as affectionately, as zealously, as furiously in the Interests of All, and Every of the Posse, with whom he is connected, as though they were so many Limbs of his proper Person. Though Townsmen, Friends, Brothers should be arrayed on the opposite Side, it makes no Abatement of Warmth or Hostility. All Concerns of Kindred and Country, all Memory of former Attachments are instantly cast aside, or absorbed in the Engagement and Eagerness for Conquest. They enter upon Action; they run, labour, sweat, wrestle. While the BALL, which each Party endeavours to bear away from the Other, represents the PUBLIC INTEREST or COMMON-WEAL, which is tossed and bandied to and fro, and kicked about, and almost rent to Rags in the Heat of the Contention.
It is, however, observable that, in these FOOT-BALL Conflicts, there are certain BOUNDARIES entitled GOALS, emblematical of the CONSTITUTION, within which the Parties are enjoined to limit their Contention: And when some extravagant and dissolute Spirits have, wantonly, born away the Ball beyond the said Bounds, we have seen both Parties join in Pursuit of such Vagrants, in order to recover and bring back the Ball to the regulated and appointed Sphere of its Activity.
The pacific Institution, of WATER MY CHICKENS COME CLOCK, seems an Invention of
Eastern
Policy; and calculated rather to recommend an obsequious Dependence on
Asiatic
Despotism
