POFAfOES 



eyes, and the trick by which it is pretended he was made to believe, 

 that he had actually fallen from the top of the cliff ! How they 

 must be delighted to see the stage filled with green boughs, like a 

 coppice, as in Macbeth, or streaming like a slaughter-house, as 

 in Titus Andronicus ! How the young girls in America must be 

 tickled with delight at the dialogues in Troilus and Cressida, and 

 more especially at the pretty observations of the Nurse, I think it 

 is, in Romeo and Juliet ! But, it is the same all through the work. 

 I know of one other, and only one other, book, so obscene as this ; 

 and, if I were to judge from the high favour in which these two 

 books seem to stand, I should conclude, that wild and improbable 

 fiction, bad principles of morality and politicks, obscurity in 

 meaning, bombastical language, forced jokes, puns, and smut, 

 were fitted to the minds of the people. But I do not thus judge. 

 It is fashion. These books are in fashion. Every one is ashamed 

 not to be in the fashion. It is the fashion to extol potatoes, and 

 to eat potatoes. Every one joins in extolling potatoes, and all 

 the world like potatoes, or pretend to like them, which is the same 

 thing in effect. 



272. In those memorable years of wisdom, 1800 and 1801, 

 you can remember, I dare say, the grave discussions in Parliament 

 about potatoes. It was proposed by some one to make a law to 

 encourage the growth of them ; and, if the Bill did not pass, it 

 was, I believe, owing to the ridicule which Mr. Home Tooke 

 threw upon that whole system of petty legislation. Will it be 

 believed, in another century, that the law-givers of a great nation 

 actually passed a law to compel people to eat pollard in their 

 bread, and that, too, not for the purpose of degrading or punishing, 

 but for the purpose of doing the said people good by adding to 

 the quantity of bread in a time of scarcity ? Will this be believed ? 

 In every bushel of wheat there is a certain proportion of flour, 

 suited to the appetite and the stomach of man ; and a certain 

 proportion of pollard and bran, suited to the appetite and stomach 

 of pigs, cows, and sheep. But the parliament of the years of 

 wisdom wished to cram the whole down the throat of man, together 

 with the flour of Qther grain. And what was to become of the 

 pigs, cows, and sheep ? Wlience were the pork, butter, and 

 mutton to come ? And were not these articles of human food as 

 well as bread ? The truth is, that pollard, bran, and the coarser 

 kinds of grain, when given to cattle, make these cattle fat ; but 

 when eaten by man make him lean and weak. And yet this bill 

 actually became a law ! 



273. That period of wisdom was also the period of the potatoe- 

 mania. Bulk was the only thing sought after ; and, it is a real 

 fact, that Pitt did suggest the making of beer out of straw. Bulk 

 was all that was looked after. If the scarcity had continued a year 

 longer, I should not have been at all surprized, if it had been 

 proposed to feed the people at rack and manger. But, the 

 Potatoe ! Oh ! What a blessing to man ! LORD GRENVILLE, 



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