I can't help giggling quietly to myself and thinking of Pratchett when I read things like these, which do not improve my concentration:
Will their fentiments, which are debafed from the love of liberty, from zeal for the honour and profperity of their country, and from a defire of honeft fame, to an abfolute unconcernednefs for all thefe, to an abject fubmiffion, and to a rapacious eagernefs after wealth that may fate their avarice, and exceed the profufion of their luxury; will thefe, I fay again, be fo eafily, or fo foon elevated? In a word, will the Britifh fpirit, that fpirit which has preferved liberty hitherto in one corner of the world at leaft, be fo eafily or fo foon reinfufed into the Britifh nation? I think not.and
The minifter preaches corruption aloud and conftantly, like an impudent miffionary of vice: and fome there are who not only infinuate, but teach the fame occafionally. I fay fome; becaufe I am as far from thinking, that all thofe who join with him, as that any of thofe who oppofe him, wait only to be more authorized, that they may propagate it with greater fuccefs, and apply it to their own ufe, in their turn.
- From a lovely crinkled old copy of Bolingbroke's "The idea of a patriot king", 1738