talks Greek like a Trojan.--Tempora mores;--I suppose how
that's as much as to say, it was the temper of the Moors, that's the
nigers, for to be call'd Caesar and Pompey.--I guess how he can give me the
exclamation of that plaguy word.--Con--let me see [_Spells it in the manner
he did before._]--Please your worshipful reverence, Mr. Schoolmaster,
what's Latin for Constitution?

TRUEMAN. To tell you what is Latin for Constitution, will not make you a
particle the wiser; I will, therefore, explain it in the vernacular
tongue.--Constitution then, in its primary, abstract, and true
signification, is a concatenation or coacervation of simple, distinct
parts, of various qualities or properties, united, compounded, or
constituted in such a manner, as to form or compose a system or body, when
viewed in its aggregate or general nature. In its common, or generally
received, acceptation, it implies two things.--First, the nature, habit,
disposition, organization or construction of the natural, corporeal, or
animal system.--Secondly, a political system, or plan of government. This
last definition, I apprehend, explains the Constitution you mean.

HUMPHRY. Like enough, but I don't understand a single word you've been a
talking about.

TRUEMAN. No! 'Tis not my fault then:--If plainness of language, clearness
of description, and a grammatical arrangement of words will not suffice, I
can do no more.

_Enter OLD LOVEYET listening._

HUMPHRY. I mean the Constitution that you read in the newspapers about;
that that your worship was a going to get at loggerheads with old Mr.
What's-his-name, about.

LOVEYET. I'll old you, you rascal!

TRUEMAN. Did you never hear your friends in the country talk of the new
Constitution?

HUMPHRY. Not I, I never heard anybody talk about it, at the Pharisee's
Head;--I don't believe Jeremy Stave, the clark of the meeting-house, no,
nor Parson Thumpum himself ever heard of such a word--No, not even old Mr.
Scourge, the Schoolmaster.

TRUEMAN. A hopeful genius, for a Schoolmaster, upon my education. Do you
send him to me,--I'll qualify him for that important station.

HUMPHRY. And I'll be qualify'd I never larnt such a word when I went to his
school.

TRUEMAN. Nor any other one, I believe, properly speaking.

HUMPHRY. Oh yes, I'll say that for him;--he us'd to take a great deal of
pains for to larn us proper speaking.

TRUEMAN. The Constitution you hear so much noise about, is a new
government,