o what he has always done? to confirm an authority which no man
attempted to impair, or pretended to dispute?

No, certainly: our intention was to invest him with new privileges, and
to empower him to do that without reason, which with reason he could do
before.

We have found, by long experience, that to lie under a necessity of
assigning reasons, is very troublesome, and that many an excellent
design has miscarried by the loss of time spent unnecessarily in
examining reasons.

Always to call for reasons, and always to reject them, shows a strange
degree of perverseness; yet, such is the daily behaviour of our
adversaries, who have never yet been satisfied with any reasons that
have been offered by us.

They have made it their practice to demand, once a year, the reasons for
which we maintain a standing army.

One year we told them that it was necessary, because all the nations
round us were involved in war; this had no effect upon them, and,
therefore, resolving to do our utmost for their satisfaction, we told
them, the next year, that it was necessary, because all the nations
round us were at peace.

This reason finding no better reception than the other, we had recourse
to our apprehensions of an invasion from the Pretender, of an
insurrection in favour of gin, and of a general disaffection among the
people.

But as they continue still impenetrable, and oblige us still to assign
our annual reasons, we shall spare no endeavour to procure such as may
be more satisfactory than any of the former.

The reason we once gave for building barracks was, for fear of the
plague; and we intend next year to propose the augmentation of our
troops, for fear of a famine.

The committee, by which the act for licensing the stage was drawn up,
had too long known the inconvenience of giving reasons, and were too
well acquainted with the characters of great men, to lay the lord
chamberlain, or his deputy, under any such tormenting obligation.

Yet, lest Mr. Brooke should imagine that a license was refused him
without just reasons, I shall condescend to treat him with more regard
than he can reasonably expect, and point out such sentiments, as not
only justly exposed him to that refusal, but would have provoked any
ministry less merciful than the present, to have inflicted some heavier
penalties upon him.

His prologue is filled with such insinuations, as no friend of our
excellent government can read without indignation an