The voices of Tories and Whigs, of Johnson and Akenside, of Smollett and Fielding, contributed to swell the cry.

But none of those who railed or of those who jested took the trouble to verify the phaenomena, or to trace them to the real causes.
Sometimes the evil was imputed to the depravity of a particular minister: but, when he had been driven from power, and when those who had most loudly accused him governed in his stead, it was found that the change of men had produced no change of system.

Sometimes the evil was imputed to the degeneracy of the national character.

Luxury and cupidity, it was said, had produced in our country the same effect which they had produced of old in the Roman republic.

The modern Englishman was to the Englishman of the sixteenth century what Verres and Curio were to Dentatus and Fabricius.