Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/443

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't'other side the water, are now so busily preaching for their fellow-countrymen's destruction.[1] Challenging one's existence for every quarrel with one's Will; and running one's self through the Body for every affront to one's Mind; used to be thought peculiar to the proud and unbending humour of John Bull; but John did it rarely enough to make it a subject of gossipping, and news-paper squibs, for at least a week. Our merry neighbours, on the contrary, now once they have set about it, do the job with an air, and a grace, that shew us we are as drowsy in our desperation, as we are phlegmatic in our amusements. They talk of it wherever they go; write of it whenever they hold a pen; and are so piqued to think that we got the start of them, in beginning the game first, that they pop off more now in a month, than we do in a year: and I don't in the least doubt, that their intention is to go on with the same brisk-

  1. During the dominion of Robespierre.