| Citation |
PC.768.114
12-19 Sep 1768:2703 (88)
There is nothing that turns our minds more strongly to
serious reflection, or show the instability of human affairs
in a more glaring light, than to see great and eminent
personages quickly and instantaneously falling from
distinguished stations into obscurity and nothingness. ---We
often admire virtue in distress; but when the mind sinks
with the fortune, when it becomes mean and supplicant,
admiration and pity changes to contempt. This seems to be
the case of the late great Ironicus Bombasticus--the
greatest, most powerful monarch that ever trod the stage of
--a news-paper--but now become the contemptible, though
candid, defender of the printers of certain papers--I will
undertake to say as contemptible as himself. . . [22 lines]
I cannot pursue the sequel--King Theodore in the Fleet
Prison was a sovereign to him--Lieutenant **** comes in, he
frightens the Recanter from his box--breaks the glass of the
infamous Caricatura, * -B--df--d trembles, his drummer beats
a retreat--the Centinel deserts his posts, his liberty boys
look aghast--Justice approves, Loyalty applauds, and Victory
crowns the Hero with a myrtle wreath. [signed] No Flincher.
* A low scandalous caricatura of the 17 gentlemen who voted
according to their consciences in the late Massachusetts
Assembly--a representation as void of humour as the verses
are of wit.
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