art, I do not wonder how he came to fall, for I
have always known him heavy: the miracle is, how he got up again. I
have heard of a sea captain as fat as he, who, to escape arrests,
would lay himself flat upon the ground, and let the bailiffs carry him
to prison, if they could. If a messenger or two, nay, we may put in
three or four, should come, he has friendly advertisement how to
escape them. But to leave him, who is not worth any further
consideration, now I have done laughing at him,--would every man knew
his own talent, and that they, who are only born for drinking, would
let both poetry and prose alone[32]!

I am weary with tracing the absurdities and mistakes of our great
lawyer, some of which indeed are wilful; as where he calls the
_Trimmers_ the more moderate sort of tories. It seems those
politicians are odious to both sides; for neither own them to be
theirs. We know them, and so does he too in his conscience, to be
secret whigs, if they are any thing; but now the designs of whiggism
are openly discovered, they tack about to save a stake; that is, they
will not be villains to their own ruin. While the government was to be
destroyed, and there was probability of compassing it, no men were so
violent as they; but since their fortunes are in hazard by the law,
and their places at court by the king's displeasure, they pull in
their horns, and talk more peaceably; in order, I suppose, to their
vehemence on the right side, if they were to be believed. For in
laying of colours, they observe a medium; black and white are too far
distant to be placed directly by one another, without some shadowings
to soften their contrarieties. It is Mariana, I think, (but am not
certain) that makes the following relation; and let the noble family
of Trimmers read their own fortune in it. "Don Pedro, king of Castile,
surnamed the Cruel, who had been restored by the valour of our Edward
the Black Prince, was finally dispossessed by Don Henry, the bastard,
and he enjoyed the kingdom quietly, till his death; which when he felt
approaching, he called his son to him, and gave him this his last
counsel. I have (said he,) gained this kingdom, which I leave you, by
the sword; for the right of inheritance was in Don Pedro; but the
favour of the people, who hated my brother for his tyranny, was to me
instead of title. You are now to be the peaceable possessor of what I
have unjustly gotten; and your subjects are composed of these three
sort