Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Clergy -- England -- Biography; Smith, Sydney, 1771-1845
"We can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too
fond of glory; TAXES upon every article which enters into the mouth, or
covers the back, or is placed under the foot--taxes upon every thing which
it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste--taxes upon warmth,
light, and locomotion--taxes on every thing on earth and the waters under
the earth, on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home--taxes
on the raw material--taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the
industry of man--taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the
drug that restores him to health--on the ermine which decorates the judge,
and the rope which hangs the criminal--on the poor man's salt, and the rich
man's spice--on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the
bride. At bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay--the schoolboy
whips his taxed top--the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a
taxed bridle, on a taxed road;--and the dying Englishman, pouring his
medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per
cent.--flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per
cent--and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a
hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole
property is then immediately taxed front 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the
probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his
virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then
gathered to his fathers--to be taxed no more."--_Review of Seybert's
"America" in the Collected Works_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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