_Mr. Killthedead._ By calling the former gentlemen, and the latter mob representatives.[118] _Mr. Vamp._ Nothing can be more logical. _Mr. Fax._ Do you call that logic? _Mr. Vamp._ Excellent logic. At least it will pass for such with our readers. _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ We, and those who think with us, are the only wise and good men.[119] _Mr. Forester._ May I take the liberty to inquire what you mean by a wise and a good man? _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ A wise man is he who looks after the one thing needful; and a good man is he who has it. The acme of wisdom and goodness in conjunction consists in appropriating as much as possible of the public money; and saying to those from whose pockets it is taken, ‘I am perfectly satisfied with things as they are. Let _well_ alone!’ _Mr. Paperstamp._ We shall make out a very good case; but you must not forget to call the present public distress an awful dispensation:[120] a little pious cant goes a great way towards turning the thoughts of men from the dangerous and jacobinical propensity of looking into moral and political causes for moral and political effects. _Mr. Fax._ But the moral and political causes are now too obvious, and too universally known, to be obscured by any such means. All the arts and eloquence of corruption may be overthrown by the enumeration of these simple words: boroughs, taxes, and paper-money. _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Paper-money! What, is the ghost of bullion abroad?[121] _Mr. Forester._ Yes! and till you can make the buried substance burst the paper cerements of its sepulchre, its ghost will continue to walk like the ghost of Caesar, saying to the desolated nation: ‘I am thy evil spirit!’ _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ I must say, I am very sorry to find a gentleman like you taking the part of the swinish multitude, who are only fit for beasts of burden, to raise subsistence for their betters, pay taxes for placemen, and recruit the army and navy for the benefit of legitimacy, divine right, the Jesuits, the Pope, the Inquisition, and the Virgin Mary’s petticoat. _Mr. Paperstamp._ Hear! hear! hear! Hear the voice which the stream of Tendency is uttering for elevation of our thought! _Mr. Forester._ It was once said by a poet, whose fallen state none can more bitterly lament than I do: We shall exult if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant; not a venal band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear, And honour which they do not understand. _Mr. Feathernest._ Poets, sir, are not amenable to censure, however frequently their political opinions may exhibit marks of inconsistency.[122] The Muse, as a French author says, is a mere _étourdie_, a _folâtre_ who may play at her option on heath or on turf, and transfer her song at pleasure from Hampden to Ferdinand, and from Washington to Louis.