for twenty miles round; cart mares shot; sows of Lord Somerville's
breed running wild over the country; the minister of the parish
wounded sorely in his hinder parts; Mrs. Plymley in fits. All these
scenes of war an Austrian or a Russian has seen three or four times
over: but it is now three centuries since an English pig has fallen
in a fair battle upon English ground, or a farm-house been rifled,
or a clergyman's wife been subjected to any other proposals of love
than the connubial endearments of her sleek and orthodox mate. The
old edition of Plutarch's Lives, which lies in the corner of your
parlour window, has contributed to work you up to the most romantic
expectations of our Roman behaviour. You are persuaded that Lord
Amherst will defend Kew Bridge like Cocles; that some maid of honour
will break away from her captivity, and swim over the Thames; that
the Duke of York will burn his capitulating hand; and little Mr.
Sturges Bourne give forty years' purchase for Moulsham Hall, while
the French are encamped upon it. I hope we shall witness all this,
if the French do come; but in the meantime I am so enchanted with
the ordinary English behaviour of these invaluable persons, that I
earnestly pray no opportunity may be given them for Roman valour,
and for those very un-Roman pensions which they would all, of
course, take especial care to claim in consequence. But whatever
was our conduct, if every ploughman was as great a hero as he who
was called from his oxen to save Rome from her enemies, I should
still say, that at such a crisis you want the affections of all your
subjects in both islands: there is no spirit which you must
alienate, no art you must avert, every man must feel he has a
country, and that there is an urgent and pressing cause why he
should expose himself to death.

The effects of penal laws in matters of religion are never confined