natural springs of excellent water are seen gushing spontaneous
on every side, from the hills that surround us, the inhabitants,
in general, make use of well-water, so impregnated with nitre, or
alum, or some other villainous mineral, that it is equally
ungrateful to the taste, and mischievous to the constitution. It
must be owned, indeed, that here, in Milsham-street, we have a
precarious and scanty supply from the hill; which is collected in
an open bason in the Circus, liable to be defiled with dead dogs,
cats, rats, and every species of nastiness, which the rascally
populace may throw into it, from mere wantonness and brutality.
Well, there is no nation that drinks so hoggishly as the English.

What passes for wine among us, is not the juice of the grape. It
is an adulterous mixture, brewed up of nauseous ingredients, by
dunces, who are bunglers in the art of poison-making; and yet we,
and our forefathers, are and have been poisoned by this cursed
drench, without taste or flavour -- The only genuine and wholesome
beveridge in England, is London porter, and Dorchester table-beer;
but as for your ale and your gin, your cyder and your
perry, and all the trashy family of made wines, I detest them as
infernal compositions, contrived for the destruction of the human
species -- But what have I to do with the human species? except a
very few friends, I care not if the whole was --.

Heark ye, Lewis, my misanthropy increases every day -- The longer I
live, I find the folly and the fraud of mankind grow more and
more intolerable -- I wish I had not come from Brambletonhall;
after having lived in solitude so long, I cannot bear the hurry
and impertinence of the multitude; besides, every thing is
sophisticated in these crowded places. Snares are laid for our