Explore "Horne Tooke, Fox, and Pitt" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Horne Tooke's advice to the Friends of the People was profound: -- "If you / wish to be powerful, pretend to be powerful."
Fox and Pitt constantly played into each other's hands. Mr. Stuart, of the / Courier, who was very knowing in the politics of the day, soon found out / the gross lies and impostures of that club as to its numbers, and told Fox / so. Yet, instead of disclaiming them and exposing the pretence, as he ought / to have done, Fox absolutely exaggerated their numbers and sinister / intentions; and Pitt, who also knew the lie, took him at his word, and / argued against him triumphantly on his own premisses.
Fox's Gallicism, too, was a treasury of weapons to Pitt. He could never / conceive the French right without making the English wrong. Ah! I / remember --
/ -- it vex'd my soul to see / So grand a cause, so proud a realm / With Goose and Goody at the helm; / Who long ago had fall'n asunder / But for their rivals' baser blunder, / The coward whine and Frenchified / Slaver and slang of the other side!