168 
.Political Economy^ 
He saw an apothecary on a white horse 
Ride by, on his vocation ; 
And the Devil was pleased, for he thought he beheld 
His friend Death in the Revelation. 
He saw a cottage tvith a double coach house, 
, A cottage of gentility : 
And the Devil he smil’d, for his darling vide 
Is pride which apes humility. 
He went into a rich bookseller’s shop ; 
Says he ** we’re both of one college j 
** For I myself sat, like a cormorant once 
“ Hard by the tree of knowledge.” 
As he pass’d through Cold-bath fields, he saw 
A solitary cell : 
And the Devil he paus’d, for It gave him a hint 
For improving the prisons of hell. 
Down a river did glide with wind and tide 
A pig with vast celerity ; 
And the Devil he grinn’d, for he saw all the while 
How it cut its own throat, and he^thought with a smik 
071 England’s commercial prosperity ! 
He saw general Gascoigne’s burning face. 
Which fill’d him with consternation ; 
And back to hell his way he did make, 
For tlie Devil he thought (by a slight mistake) 
’Twas the general conjiagration ! 
PonsoN had imbibed the common, indiscriminate, and therefore siiiy pre- 
judice, entertained in England against law and lawyers. Luckily for that 
country, he had no opportunity of witnessing what great things might be 
done, by making every man his own lawyer, every tavern a court of justice,, 
and investing every citizen of the state, with the qualifications of a lord 
Mansfield by an act of the legislature. Porson knew nothing of arbitration 
laws, arbitration courts, arbitration decisions, and arbitration costs ; nor of 
the convenience of bringing justice home to every man’s door ; that is to the 
nearest tipling house. He did not know with what peculiar felicity, the 
lawyers of this country are denominated gentlemen of the bar ! 
He had seen something of the presumptuous and daring despotism of a 
party in power, in Engiand~but he had not witnessed the republican improve- 
ments introduced by the legislative judges here, on the paramount and con- 
venient principle of Dispatch. Those who have witnessed such things, will 
excuse many of the evils attendant on the legal system of their own country ; 
and view with patience at least, if not with respect, the calumniated forms 
of legal proceedings, which expedience and experience must have had so 
large a share in eslabiisliing. All good has its attendant evil ; and doubtless, 
time will point out gradually, the best rei^iedies for such evils as are reme- 
diable. But ignorance, is a presumptuous, impatient, headlong reformer, 
Irrnorance sees no difficulties ; takes no pains to amalgamate the future with 
the past ; or to join with the dexterity of a master-hand, tlie new to the old. 
liefoimation, ought to bear upon his front, the motto, Festina levJe- 
NOTICE. 
I have said, that six owners of furnaces in Manchester, were fined lOG 
pounds sterling each for not consuming the smoke of their fires, in the year 
1796 : the year is a mistake ; but the fact is so ; and there is a short report of 
the^case in the Moathly Magazine, Vol. XI!. page 76, It hapr^ened in August 
] 801, and instead of .six^ eleven were so fined- 
