The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his
taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman,
pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon
that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz
bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of
an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege
of putting him to death.
-- Sydney Smith (1769-1845)
-- Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820
