Great cry and little wool is the English proverb; the sense of which
bears an exact proportion to this fable; by which are exposed all those
who promise something exceeding great, but come off with a production
ridiculously little. Projectors of all kinds, who endeavour by
artificial rumours to raise the expectations of mankind, and then by
their mean performances defeat and disappoint them, have, time out of
mind, been lashed with the recital of this fable. How agreeably
surprising is it to see an unpromising favourite, whom the caprice of
fortune has placed at the helm of state, serving the commonwealth with
justice and integrity, instead of smothering and embezzling the public
treasure to his own private and wicked ends! and, on the contrary, how
melancholy, how dreadful, or rather, how exasperating and provoking a
sight is it to behold one, whose constant declarations for liberty and
the public good have raised people's expectations of him to the highest
pitch, as soon as he is got into power exerting his whole art and
cunning to ruin and enslave his country! The sanguine hopes of all those
that wished well to virtue, and flattered themselves with a reformation
of every thing that opposed the well-being of the community, vanish away
in smoke, and are lost in a dark, gloomy, uncomfortable prospect.