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. And when the clouds, long sighted
on the political horizon, began to roll up, they looked fearfully abroad
and doubted and trembled; and doubted and trembled the more because in
home affairs all patriotism, all party-spirit, all thought of things
higher than ribbon or place or pension, seemed to be dead among public
men.