Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/287

Rh law were enacted under severe penalties against drinking punch at all; for nothing is easier than to prove it a disaffected liquor: the chief ingredients, which are brandy, oranges, and lemons, are all sent us from popish countries; and nothing remains of protestant growth, but sugar and water. For as to biscuit, which formerly was held a necessary ingredient, and is truly British, we find it is entirely rejected.

But I will put the truth of my assertion past all doubt: I mean, that this liquor is by one important innovation grown of ill example, and dangerous consequence to the publick. It is well known, that by the true original institution of making punch left us by captain Ratcliff, the sharpness is only occasioned by the juice of lemons; and so continued until after the happy revolution. Oranges, alas! are a mere innovation, and in a manner but of yesterday. It was the politicks of jacobites to introduce them gradually; and to what intent? the thing speaks itself. It was cunningly to show their virulence against his sacred majesty king William of ever glorious and immortal memory. But of late (to show how fast disloyalty increases) they came from one to two, and then to three oranges; nay at present we often find punch made all with oranges, and not one single lemon. For the jacobites, before the death of that immortal prince, had by a superstition formed a private prayer, that as they squeezed the orange, so might that protestant king be squeezed to death; according to the known sorcery described by Virgil;

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