Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

It is indubitably one of the great Paradoxes of national Greatneſs, that the moral and intellectual Diſtinction of the better Claſses are accompanied in the lower by a correſponding Degree of Fooliſhneſs and Depravity. No ſooner hath our noble Prime Miniſter, that erect and engorged Obelſk of ſtone-hard Deciſiveneſs, proclaimed that the Peaſants ſhould conſider it their patriotick Duty to labour and make merrie as of Olde, than thoſe ſame Peaſants haſten to infeſt the Beaches and diſport themſelves in Publick-houſes, as if no further Manifeſtation of the Divine Chaſtiſement were merited by the horrid Burden of their Sins. At the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe yeſter Eve, I was informed by the Vice-Treaſurer of the Loyal League of Facial Defiants, a Mr Blytherynge-Twyt, that the Peſtilence hath reſumed its Devaſtation of severall leſser Countries, including the American Colonies where the Wrath of Heaven waxeth mightily, owing to the Laxneſs of the Overſeers in ſuppreſsing the late Uppityneſs among the Sons of Ham. It all ſimply ſhows once again, as I have written to the Prime Miniſter on ſo many dozens of Occaſions this Week, that what we need is another Warre.