In the first place, it was honestly confessed that Ireland would never
have quietly submitted to the indignity offered to her, unless poor
inoffensive Scotland had been included in the regulation. The Green
Isle, it seems, was of the mind of a celebrated lady of quality, who,
being about to have a decayed tooth drawn, refused to submit to the
operation till she had seen the dentist extract a sound and
serviceable grinder from the jaws of her waiting-woman--and her humour
was to be gratified. The lady was a termagant dame--the wench a
tame-spirited simpleton--the dentist an obliging operator--and the
teeth of both were drawn accordingly.
This gratification of his humours is gained by Pat's being up with the
pike and shillelagh on any or no occasion. God forbid Scotland should
retrograde towards such a state--much better that the Deil, as in
Burns's song, danced away with the whole excisemen in the country. We
do not want to hear her prate of her number of millions of men, and
her old military exploits. We had better remain in union with England,
even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland,
as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by
even hinting the possibility of a rupture.
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