the wild carousings of drunken revellers

One has only to recall that Coleridge and Wordsworth one day were lounging by the sea shore, while nearby sat an English police agent on snitch patrol prepared to rush to headquarters to quill a report about the conversation.

Yes, said Slartibartfast, staggeringly dull. Bewilderingly so.

I am purſuaded, that if even Bradford himſelf, that day, had ventured to check the violence of the people, in any way that was not agreeable to them ; and had betrayed the leaſt partiality for the exciſe law ; or perhaps even a remiſſion of his zeal againſt it, he would have ſunk, in an inſtant, from his power, and they would have hung him on the firſt tree.