[8] The following extracts from the Doctor's Dictionary are a key to his political tenets: EXCISE, a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but _wretches_ hired by those to whom excise is paid. _Gazetteer_, was lately a term of the utmost infamy, being usually applied to wretches that were _hired_ to vindicate the court. _Pension_, an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country. _Pensioner_, a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. KING, monarch, supreme governour. _Monarch_, a governour invested with _absolute_ authority, a _King_. _Whig_, 1. whey, 2. the name of a _faction_. _Tory_, one who adheres to the _antient_ constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a _whig_. _Johnson's fol. Dic._ The word _faction_ is always used in a _bad_ sense; though, in defining it, the Doctor did not, and, after what he had said of a whig, perhaps durst not say, that a faction is always a term for the supposed disturbers of public peace. 'The most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue;' _Rambler_, No. 180. That is to say, men of learning are a set of the most sneaking, pitiful, time-serving rascals. The reader will make his own applications. [9] See _Political tracts by the author of the Rambler_. His character of Hambden, the reader will find in the 1st page of Waller's life. Of Milton, he says, that 'his impudence had been at least equal to his other powers. Such was his malignity, that hell grew darker at his frown. He thought women born only for obedience, and men only for rebellion.' There is much more in the same tone; and, with what justice his epithets are applied, let Englishmen judge. [10] Taxation no tyranny. [11] Ibid, No. 89. [12] Idler, No. 85. [13] Tour, p. 59. [14] Tour, p. 84. [15] Idler, No. 82. [16] He should have said _causes_, for he mentions _two_.--What is the Doctor's distinction here between habit and custom? [17] _Quere_, Are we more accustomed to beauty than deformity? or is not the fact otherwise.--Did habit ever make a sick man fond of disease, or a poor man fond of poverty? [18] Vide Preface to folio Dict. [19] Dr Campbell of Aberdeen, on the use of new words, says, 'That nothing can be juster than Johnson's manner of arguing on this subject, in regard to what Swift a little chimerically proposeth, that though new words be introduced, none should be suffered to become obsolete.' This Gentleman ought to have consulted Swift himself. Let him peruse the 'petty treatise,' and then let him blush for having trusted an author void of fidelity.