Ladies and Gentlemen,
The "Slop Pail" being occupied by "Slop" keeping his tri-colored, cockade in it, with the hope of bleaching it white, has become more and more offensive daily, and will be kicked down.
The GREAT BOOTS having been out of order, were welted, and afterwards new vamped, and polished. Dr. Southey, the Varnisher, has them in hand at present, and is 'doing them up' as fast as possible.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you for your company. Opposite to you is a description of The Monster that my people are now hunting on the Continent. When destroyed, its skin will be stuffed and preserved among the other Antiquities and Curiosities in the European Museum.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you a good day.— Keep to the right. Walk steadily forward. The Animals may make an uproar, but don't be alarmed; I'll see you safe out. Remember they are under my control, and cannot take a step beyond the reach of MY EYE
It overlays the continent like an ugly Incubus, sucking the blood and stopping up the breath of man's life. It claims Mankind as its property, and allows human nature to exist only upon sufferance; it haunts the understanding like a frightful spectre, and oppresses the very air witha weight that is not to be borne. Hazlitt's Political Essays and Characters, p. 21.
This hideous Beast, not having at any time put forth all his members, cannot be accurately described. Every dark Century has added to his frightful bulk. More disgusting than the filthiest reptile, his strength exceeds all other brute force.
His enormous, bloated, toad-like body is ferruginous: * the under surface appears of polished steel. His cavern-like mouth is always open to devour; his teeth are as swords, and his jaw-teeth as knives'—as millions of bristling bayonets intermingled with black fangs containing mortal venom. His roar is a voice from the sepulchre. He is marked 'in form of a cross, ** with a series of chains, intersected by the triangle, *** and glittering colours, variegated with red.
His aspect is cruel and terrible. He loves the dark, but never sleeps. Wherever he makes his lair, nature sickens, and man is brutified. His presence is 'plague, pestilence, and famine, battle, and murder, and sudden death.' His bite rapidly undermines the strongest Constitution, and dissolves the whole into an entire mass of Corruption. He has no brain, but the walls of the skull emit a tinkling sound, that attracts his victims, and lulls them into passive obedience. In this state he clutches them in his coils, and screws and squeezes them to destruction—slavering them over, and sucking in their substance at leisure. It is difficult to witness the half-stifled cries of his harmless prey, or to behold its anxiety and trepidation, while the monster writhes hideously around it, without imagining what our own case would be in the same dreadful situation. *****
His rapacity is increased by indulgence. He grinds, cranches, and devours whole multitudes, without being satisfied. His blood is cold. His ravening maw does not digest: it is an ever-yawning grave that engulphs—a 'bottomless pit' continually crying 'give, give!' Sometimes he rests from his labors,' to admire his loathsome limbs, and slime them over. He has no affections: yet he appears charmed by the hum of the insects that follow him, and pleased by the tickling crawl of the meanest reptiles-permitting them to hang upon his lips, and partake of his leavings. But his real pleasure is in listening to the cries of his captives, the wail of the broken hearted, and the groans of the dying.
He lives in defiance and scorn of Providence, and in hatred to the happiness of man. When distended with human carnage, and wet with the gore of the innocent and the helpless, he lifts an impious form to heaven in solemn mockery. He was predicted of by the Seer of old, as the Beast with many heads and crowns, bearing the name of Blasphemy.
The garish colours that denote his malignity, excite only horror and detestation in the lover of nature, and of his species. They are most lively when he is engaged in the work of death, and cause him to be admired by the vulgar multitude, learned and unlearned, who hold him sacred, pay him divine honors, call him holy, and fall down before him as an object-of worship, while priests glorify him, and minister to him, and pray for his murderous successes in the temples. Hence-the good and the wise, in all ages, have devised and practised various methods for the destruction of a Fiend that creates nothing but terror and imposture, and between whom and rational man there is a natural antipathy.
He is filled with the deadliest rage by the encreasing growth of the pop'lar TreeS:—
His existence is drawing to a close. It has been ascertained that the way of putting him quietly out of the world is by a consisting of the four and twenty letters * of the alphabet, properly composed, made up in certain forms, covered with sheets of white paper. and well worked in a Columbian Press. These Papers are to be forced down his throat daily, morning and evening, and on every seventh day a double dose should be administered. The operation is accelerated by the powerful exhibition of the Wood Draughts. In a short time his teeth will fall out—he will be seized with catalepsy—in the last stage of mortification, he will sting himself to death;—and all mankind, relieved from the deadened atmosphere under which they had been gasping, will make the first use of their recovered breath, to raise an universal shout of joy at the extinction of THE LEGITIMATE VAMPIRE.
The End.
"If Caesar can hide the Sun with a blanket, or put the Moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light."—Cymbeline.
With Fifteen Cuts.
By The Author Of The Political House That Jack Built.
Dedication.
May it please your Holinesses,
When a gang of desperate ruffians disguise themselves, and take the road armed, it is a sure sign of robbery and murder; and it becomes the duty of an honest man to raise a hue and cry, and describe the villains.
With that view, I dedicate to you this little book; in the hope, that some who understand the dead lan-guage of Despotism, may be induced to translate it into the living tongues of the good people of the Continent.
I pray God to take your Royalty into his immediate keeping.
It was a maxim of the Constitution of this country that the King could do no wrong. He had high authority for stating that the King could not commit Folly, much less Crime. —Report of a Bishop's Speech.
If a King can do no wrong, why was King James II. banished? and if a King can do wrong, why the plague are we constantly affirming that he cannot? Either way we should stand self-condemned, and if we are not set down as a nation of scoundrels, we must think ourselves pretty easy under the appellation of fools.—Swift,
To condemn nonsense, especially in high places, is proper: there are ancient precedents for it.
A thousand years before Christ, Nathan, a priest in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, knew that David the Lord's anointed, had not only worked folly in Israel, by committing adultery with a beautiful woman, but had committed crime, by causing her husband to be put to death. The honest priest charged both the folly and the crime upon the king! He went up to his majesty with this Address: "Thou art the man!" He prosecuted him at the bar of his own conscience, convicted him, and passed sentence upon him—"The sword shall not depart from thine house!"
Three thousand years after this, a priest, sent into an English House of Lords by the nomination of the king, affirms there, that "he had 'high authority' for stating, that the king could not commit folly. much less crime!" right? If he does say this, I ask him, how long, after oppression should be exercised through the prerogative by virtually irresponsible ministers and be declared no wrong, he supposes that a king of England could sit on the throne, or the bishops who maintain the doctrine, sit either at its right hand in the Lords, or any where else? I tell this bishop, that though the law may not suppose it possible for a king of England to do wrong, because it intends him to do right, yet if he should do, and continue to do, oppressive wrong, not all the bishops of England, nor all the bayonets of all the mercenaries of Europe, could keep that king upon the throne of an oppressed people against their united will.
A king of England is not king in his own right, or by hereditary right. The nation is not a patrimony. He is not king by his own power; but in right of, and by the power of the law. He is not king above the law; but by, or under, the law. All the authority that he has, is given to him by law; and he can only rule according to law: for were he to rule against the law, he would be king against the law, and depose himself. The law is the Sovereign, or paramount authority; hence, a king of England is a subject; and in this respect, he and all the people are upon a level before the law—they are all his fellow-subjects ; though, as chief magistrate, he is the first subject of the law.
A king of England who regards the happiness of the people, and his own safety, would not wish to be stronger than the law founded on the public will, makes him. More strength would be unnecessary to his welfare, and hurtful to theirs. All power over others, from the watch-box to the throne, tends to injure the understanding, and corrupt the heart. A good King would not desire unlimited power; a bad one would abuse it. He would become mad; and drive the people mad. A despot is a demon. Artillery and fetters with the royal robe flung over them—a cannon ball capped with the royal crown—animated by the royal will—crushing, burning, and butchering liberty, property, and human life—personify the power of an unlimited King.
The ensuing satire shows the folly and danger of such power. It is a partial revival of the Jure Divino, written by Daniel De Foe in 1706. After the lapse of a century, nearly the same reason exists for the publication as the author adduced on its first appearance. It had never appeared, he says, "had not the world seemed to be going mad a second time with the error of passive obedience and non-resistance." It is not precisely so now: the people have not gone mad, but a bishop has, who may bite his brethren; and there is a slavish party of High Church zealots and pulpit casuists in the country who virtually support the doctrine—although if they attempt reducing it to practice, they may dig a pit beneath the throne, and engulph the dynasty. To expose this destructive doctrine, and disentangle the threads so artfully twisted into snares for the unwary by priestcraft, De Foe composed his Satire. He was the ablest politician of his day, an energetic writer, and, better than all, an honest man; but not much of a poet. The Jure Divino is defective in arrangement and versification. It is likewise disfigured by injudicious repetition; a large portion is devoted to the politics of the time, and it is otherwise unfit for republication entire ; but it abounds with energetic thoughts, forcible touches, and happy illustrations. The present is an attempt to separate the gold from the dross. The selection is carefully made; from the parts rejected the best passages are preserved, the rhyme and metre are somewhat bettered, the extracts are improved and transposed, and many additions of my own are introduced. The production scornfully rejects the slavish folly, senseless jargon, and venal hypocrisy, which pretend that power is from God and not from the People. It defies those who draw upon scripture in support of Divine Right to show that scripture lays down any rules of political government, or enjoins any political duties; or that it does not leave the people to determine by their own reason what government and what governors are best for themselves. It is a forcible and argumentative satire against the nonsense from hole-and-corner and lawn-sleeve men; and presents a series of peculiarly strong and quotable lines, to engraft on the common sense of the free-minded, honest, and open-hearted of my countrymen. If it aids them in the occasional illustration and emphatic expression of their opinions, the pains I have taken will be rewarded.
There is another reason for publishing this satire, besides the revival of Priestcraft. Its twinbrother is alive. Kingcraft rears up its terrific mass, muffled in the mantle of Legitimacy; its head cowled and crowned, aud dripping with the holy oil of Divine Right; its eyes glaring deadly hate to human happiness; its lips demanding worship for itself. Denouncing dreadful curses against the free, and yelling forth threatenings and slaughter, it stamps with its hoof, and coils together its frightful force to fall on young Liberty and squelch it. Its red right-arm is bared for the butchery of the brave who love Freedom and dare contend for it. It has prepared its chains and dug its dungeons, erected its scaffolds, aud sharpened its axes for the wise and excellent of the earth; and its bloody banners are unfurled in insolent anticipation of unholy triumph!—
So prayed the Bishop of London, (Porteus—not Howley) and so fervently prays,
The Author Of The Political House That Jack Built.
The above Rare and Extraordinary Book was privately printed in 1795, without the name of either printer or bookseller, and so effectually suppressed, that there are only two copies of it besides my own in existence.
Its real value consists in exhibiting an entire and luminous view of the causes and consequences of Despotic Power. Its enthusiastic and glowing love of Liberty is unexcelled by any work written since; and for clearness, richness, and beauty of style, it is superior to every production of the Press within the same period All that the author touches, he turns into gold. I regret to say that most probably I shall never be at liberty to disclose his name.
Naturally desirous that such a work should be perused by all England, I have reprinted it, verbatim, from my own copy; and, although containing as much in quantity as a volume of Gibbon's History of Rome, it is sold for Eighteen-pence.
Original Power—The ancient Gods—Tyrant-kings—The Apotheosis of James II. in the Chapel Royal—Charles II.—Paternal Government—God prescribed no Rules of Government—Origin of Kings—Saul.