War is Such a Taxing Business

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 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent. — flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per cent. — and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble and he is then gathered to his fathers — to be taxed no more.

From a review by Sydney Smith (1771-1845) of ‘Statistical Annals of the United States of America’ (1818) by Adam Seybert, in ‘The Edinburgh Review’ Vol. 33 (January-May) 1820.
Précis
The child’s toy, the young man’s mare, even the old man’s medicine would be taxed to pay for wars: even then the State was not done, demanding a slice of the action when the stonemason carved the headstone. Only then, said Smith, was the Englishman at rest from the labour of paying for his Government’s vainglory.
Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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