Friday, September the 3rd, 2010
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“In Queen Eliz: time, Gravitie and state was kept upp. In King James time things were pretty well. But in K. Charles time there has binn nothing but Trenchmore & the Cushion dance, Omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoyte come toyte.”
The Table-Talk Of John Selden (1689)
Apropos Brit's history of Britain 1939–2010 in seventy-seven words, clearly things have been going to pot for a long, long time. Tolly polly and hoyte come toyte indeed! What fresh hell will yet assail us?
ADDENDUM : In 1652, John Evelyn complained of “the depraved youth of England, whose prodigious disbaucheries and late unheard of extravagancies far surpasse the madnesse of all other civilized Nations whatsoever”.