in his absence, as professional men.

Now-Phil must be included among this class of grandiloquent gentlemen,
for he entered life as a Professor of Pig-driving; and it is but justice
towards him to assert, that no corn-cutter of them all ever elevated his
profession so high as Phil did that in which he practised. In fact, he
raised it to the most exalted pitch of improvement of which it was then
susceptible; or to use the cant of the day, he soon arrived at "the head
of his profession."

In Phil's time, however, pig-driving was not so general, nor had it
made such rapid advances as in modern times. It was, then, simply,
pig-driving, unaccompanied by the improvements of poverty, sickness, and
famine. Political economy had not then taught the people how to be poor
upon the most scientific principles; free trade had not shown the nation
the most approved plan of reducing itself to the lowest possible state
of distress; nor liberalism enabled the working classes to scoff at
religion, and wisely to stop at the very line that lies between outrage
and rebellion. Many errors and inconveniences, now happily exploded,
were then in existence. The people, it is true, were somewhat attached
to their landlords, but still they were burdened with the unnecessary
appendages of good coats and stout shoes; were tolerably industrious,
and had the mortification of being able to pay their rents, and feed
in comfort. They were not, as they are now, free from new coats and
old prejudices, nor improved by the intellectual march of politics and
poverty. When either a man or a nation starves, it is a luxury to starve
in an enlightened manner; and nothing is more consolatory to a person
acquainted with public rights and constitutional privileges, than to
understand those liberal principles upon which he fasts and goes naked.