is acted upon as machines are, and, to make his
wheels move properly, he is properly greased in the fist. [_ Gives
off the picture. _] Every freeholder enjoys his portion of septennial
insanity: he'll eat and drink with every body without paying for it,
because he's bold and free; then he'll knock down every body who won't
say as he says, to prove his abhorrence of arbitrary power, and preserve
the liberty of Old England for ever, huzza! [_Gives off the head._]

The first contested election happened between the three goddesses upon
Mount Ida, whose names were, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, when Paris was
the returning officer, who decreed in favour of Venus, by presenting her
with the golden apple. [_ Takes up the money._] Juno, on her approaching
Paris, told him, that though it was beneath her dignity to converse with
a mortal, yet, if he would be her friend, she would make him a nabob.
Minerva told him how that learning was better than house and land, and
if he would be her friend, she would teach him _propria quae maribus_.
But Venus, who thought it would be wasting time to make {32}use of
words, gave him such a look as put her in possession of the golden
apple. The queen of beauty, out of gratitude to Paris, who had so well
managed the election for her, made him a present of several slices of
that golden pippin, and, in commemoration of that event, such slices
have been made use of as presents at all other general elections; they
have a sympathy like that which happens to electrical wires, let a
hundred hold them in their hands, their sensations will be the same;
but they differ from electricity in one essential point, which is, that
though the touch be ever so great, it never shocks people.

It is a general remark, that novelty is the master-passion of the
English; nothing goes down without it, and nothing so gross, that it
will not make palatable; the art therefore of insuring success in this
town to every adventurer, is, to hit upon something new, as the phrase
is; no matter what it is, it will prove equally attracting, whether it
be a woman riding upon her head at Westminster-Bridge, or one without
any head at all, debating upon politics and religion at Westminster
Forum: but here, let not my fair countrywomen condemn me as an
unmannerly satirist; we respect the taste and understanding, as much as
we admire {33}the beauty and delicacy of the sex; but surely no woman of
sense would suppose we meant to offend her, if