CHAPTER VIII.
THE OLD BATH ROAD In the year 1757--to go back ten years from the spring with which we are dealing--the ordinary Englishman was a Balbus despairing of the State.
No phrase was then more common on English lips, or in English ears, than the statement that the days of England's greatness were numbered, and were fast running out.

Unwitting the wider sphere about to open before them, men dwelt fondly on the glories of the past.

The old babbled of Marlborough's wars, of the entrance of Prince Eugene into London, of choirs draped in flags, and steeples reeling giddily for Ramillies and Blenheim.

The young listened, and sighed to think that the day had been, and was not, when England gave the law to Europe, and John Churchill's warder set troops moving from Hamburg to the Alps.
On the top of such triumphs, and the famous reign of good Queen Anne, had ensued forty years of peace, broken only by one inglorious war.

The peace did its work: it settled the dynasty, and filled the purse; but men, considering it, whispered of effeminacy and degeneracy, and the like, as men will to the end of time.