Date: 1882
To these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to add a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character.  Its first constituent is obedience : a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine ; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and self-consequence : he is Uke the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and sweU and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.  — Godwin's Enquirer, Essay v. I will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my abhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again may be depictured so vividly.