part I

speak of a vast article in trade, and that the loss of it would be a greater calamity to such a nation as ours, than it is possible to conceive any other, a raging pestilence not excepted: for the death of half a million of people could not cause a tenth part of the disturbance to the kingdom, than the same number of poor unemployed would certainly create, if at once they were to be added to those, that already, one way or other, are a burden to the society.

Some few men have a real passion for their wives, and are fond of them without reserve; others that do not care, and have little occasion for women, are yet seemingly uxorious, and love out of vanity; they take delight in a handsome wife, as a coxcomb does in a fine horse, not for the use he makes of it, but because it is his: The pleasure lies in the consciousness of an uncontrolable possession, and what follows from it, the reflection on the mighty thoughts he imagines others to have of his happiness. The men of either sort may be very lavish to their wives, and often preventing their wishes, crowd new clothes, and other finery upon them, faster than they can ask it, but the greatest part are wiser, than to indulge the extravagances of their wives so far, as to give them immediately every thing they are pleased to fancy. It is incredible what vast quantity of trinkets, as well as apparel, are purchased and used by women, which they could never have come at by any other means, than pinching their families, marketing, and other ways of cheating and pilfering from their husbands: Others, by ever teazing their spouses, tire them into compliance, and conquer even obstinate churls by perseverance, and their assiduity of asking: A third sort are outrageous at a denial, and by downright noise and scolding, bully their tame fools out of any thing they have a mind to; while thousands, by the force of wheedling, know how to overcome the best weighed reasons, and the most positive reiterated refusals; the young and beautiful, especially, laugh at all remonstrances and denials, and few of them scruple to employ the most tender minutes of wedlock to promote a sordid interest. Here, had I time, I could inveigh with warmth against those base, those wicked women, who calmly play their arts and false deluding charms against our strength and prudence, and act the harlots with their husbands! Nay, she is worse than whore, who impiously profanes and prostitutes the sacred rites of love to vile ignoble ends; that first excites to passion, and invites to joy with seeming ardour, then racks our fondness for no other purpose than to extort a gift, while full of guile in counterfeited transports, she watches for the moment when men can least deny.

I beg pardon for this start out of my way, and desire the experienced reader duly to weigh what has been said as to the main purpose, and after that call to mind the temporal blessings, which men daily hear not only toasted and wished for, when people are merry and doing of nothing; but likewise gravely and solemnly prayed for in churches, and other religious assemblies, by clergymen of all sorts and sizes: And as soon as he shall have laid these things together, and, from what he has observed in the common affairs of life, reasoned upon them consequentially without prejudice, I dare flatter myself, that he will be obliged to own, that a considerable portion of what the prosperity of London and trade in general, and consequently the honour, strength, safety, and all the worldly interest of the nation consist in, depend entirely on the deceit and vile stratagems of women; and that humility, content, meekness, obedience to reasonable husbands, frugality, and all the virtues together, if they were possessed of them in the most eminent degree, could not possibly be a thousandth part so serviceable, to make an opulent, powerful, and what we call a flourishing kingdom, than their most hateful qualities.

I do not question, but many of my readers will be startled at this assertion, when they look on the consequences that may be drawn from it; and I shall be asked, whether people may not as well be virtuous in a populous, rich, wide, extended kingdom, as in a small, indigent state or principality, that is poorly inhabited? And if that be impossible, Whether it is not the duty of all sovereigns to reduce their subjects, as to wealth and numbers, as much as they can? If I allow they may, I own myself in the wrong; and if I affirm the other, my tenets will justly be called impious, or at least dangerous to all large societies. As it is not in this place of the book only, but a great many others, that such queries might be made even by a well-meaning reader, I shall here explain myself, and endeavour to solve those difficulties, which several passages might have raised in him, in order to demonstrate the consistency of my opinion to reason, and the strictest morality.

I lay down as a first principle, that in all societies, great or small, it is the duty of every member of it to be good, that virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced, the laws obeyed, and the transgressors punished. After this I affirm, that if we consult history, both ancient and modern, and take a view of what has passed in the world, we shall find that human nature, since the fall of Adam, has always been the same, and that the strength and frailties of it have ever been conspicuous in one part of the globe or other, without any regard to ages, climates, or religion. I never said, nor imagined, that man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty kingdom, as in the most pitiful commonwealth; but I own it is my sense, that no society can be raised into such a rich and mighty kingdom, or so raised, subsist in their wealth and power for any considerable time, without the vices of man.

This, I imagine, is sufficiently proved throughout the book; and as human nature still continues the same, as it has always been for so many thousand years, we have no great reason to suspect a future change in it, while the world endures. Now, I cannot see what immorality there is in showing a man the origin and power of those passions, which so often, even unknowingly to himself, hurry him away from his reason; or that there is any impiety in putting him upon his guard against himself, and the secret stratagems of self-love, and teaching him the difference between such actions as proceed from a victory over the passions, and those that are only the result of a conquest which one passion obtains over another; that is, between real and counterfeited virtue. It is an admirable saying of a worthy divine, That though many discoveries have been made in the world of self-love, there is yet abundance of terra incognita left behind. What hurt do I do to man, if I make him more known to himself than he was before? But we are all so desperately in love with flattery, that we can never relish a truth that is mortifying, and I do not believe that the immortality of the soul, a truth broached long before Christianity, would have ever found such a general reception in human capacities as it has, had it not been a pleasing one, that extolled, and was a compliment to the whole species, the meanest and most miserable not excepted.

Every one loves to hear the thing well spoke of that he has a share in, even bailiffs, gaol-keepers, and the hangman himself would have you think well of their functions; nay, thieves and house breakers have a greater regard to those of their fraternity, than they have for honest people; and I sincerely believe, that it is chiefly self-love that has gained this little treatise (as it was before the last impression), so many enemies; every one looks upon it as an affront done to himself, because it detracts from the dignity, and lessens the fine notions he had conceived of mankind, the most worshipful company he belongs to. When I say that societies cannot be raised to wealth and power, and the top of earthly glory, without vices, I do not think that, by so saying, I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or covetous, when I affirm that the profession of the law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendor, if there was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people.

But as nothing would more clearly demonstrate the falsity of my notions, than that the generality of the people should fall in with them, so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude. I write not to many, nor seek for any well-wishers, but among the few that can think abstractly, and have their minds elevated above the vulgar. If I have shown the way to worldly greatness, I have always, without hesitation, preferred the road that leads to virtue.

Would you banish fraud and luxury, prevent profaneness and irreligion, and make the generality of the people charitable, good, and virtuous; break down the printing-presses, melt the founds, and burn all the books in the island, except those at the universities, where they remain unmolested, and suffer no volume in private hands but a Bible: knock down foreign trade, prohibit all commerce with strangers, and permit no ships to go to sea, that ever will return, beyond fisher-boats. Restore to the clergy, the king and the barons their ancient privileges, prerogatives, and professions: build new churches, and convert all the coin you can come at into sacred utensils: erect monasteries and alms-houses in abundance, and let no parish be without a charity-school. Enact sumptuary laws, and let your youth be inured to hardship: inspire them with all the nice and most refined notions of honour and shame, of friendship and of heroism, and introduce among them a great variety of imaginary rewards: then let the clergy preach abstinence and self-denial to others, and take what liberty they please for themselves; let them bear the greatest sway in the management of state-affairs, and no man be made lord-treasurer but a bishop.

But by such pious endeavours, and wholesome regulations, the scene would be soon altered; the greatest part of the covetous, the discontented, the restless and ambitious villains, would leave the land; vast swarms of cheating knaves would abandon the city, and be dispersed throughout the country: artificers would learn to hold the plough, merchants turn farmers, and the sinful overgrown Jerusalem, without famine, war, pestilence, or compulsion, be emptied in the most easy manner, and ever after cease to be dreadful to her sovereigns. The happy reformed kingdom would by this means be crowded in no part of it, and every thing necessary for the sustenance of man, be cheap and abound: on the contrary, the root of so many thousand evils, money, would be very scarce, and as little wanted, where every man should enjoy the fruits of his own labour, and our own dear manufacture unmixed, be promiscuously wore by the lord and the peasant. It is impossible, that such a change of circumstances should not influence the manners of a nation, and render them temperate, honest, and sincere; and from the next generation we might reasonably expect a more healthy and robust offspring than the present; an harmless, innocent, and well-meaning people, that would never dispute the doctrine of passive obedience, nor any other orthodox principles, but be submissive to superiors, and unanimous in religious worship.

Here I fancy myself interrupted by an Epicure, who, not to want a restorative diet in case of necessity, is never without live ortolans; and I am told that goodness and probity are to be had at a cheaper rate than the ruin of a nation, and the destruction of all the comforts of life; that liberty and property may be maintained without wickedness or fraud, and men be good subjects without being slaves, and religious though they refused to be priest-rid; that to be frugal and saving is a duty incumbent only on those, whose circumstances require it, but that a man of a good estate does his country a service by living up to the income of it; that as to himself, he is so much master of his appetites, that he can abstain from any thing upon occasion; that where true Hermitage was not to be had, he could content himself with plain Bourdeaux, if it had a good body; that many a morning, instead of St. Lawrence, he has made a shift with Fronteniac, and after dinner given Cyprus wine, and even Madeira, when he has had a large company, and thought it extravagant to treat with Tockay; but that all voluntary mortifications are superstitious, only belonging to blind zealots and enthusiasts. He will quote my Lord Shaftsbury against me, and tell me that people may be virtuous and sociable without self-denial; that it is an affront to virtue to make it inaccessible, that I make a bugbear of it to frighten men from it as a thing impracticable; but that for his part he can praise God, and at the same time enjoy his creatures with a good conscience; neither will he forget any thing to his purpose of what I have said, page 66. He will ask me at last, whether the legislature, the wisdom of the nation itself, while they endeavour as much as possible, to discourage profaneness and immorality, and promote the glory of God, do not openly profess, at the same time, to have nothing more at heart, than the ease and welfare of the subject, the wealth, strength, honour, and what else is called the true interest of the country? and, moreover, whether the most devout and most learned of our prelates, in their greatest concern for our conversion, when they beseech the Deity to turn their own as well as our hearts, from the world and all carnal desires, do not in the same prayer as loudly solicit him to pour all earthly blessings and temporal felicity, on the kingdom they belong to?

These are the apologies, the excuses, and common pleas, not only of those who are notoriously vicious, but the generality of mankind, when you touch the copy-hold of their inclinations; and trying the real value they have for spirituals, would actually strip them of what their minds are wholly bent upon. Ashamed of the many frailties they feel within, all men endeavour to hide themselves, their ugly nakedness, from each other, and wrapping up the true motives of their hearts, in the specious cloak of sociableness, and their concern for the public good, they are in hopes of concealing their filthy appetites, and the deformity of their desires; while they are conscious within of the fondness for their darling lusts, and their incapacity, bare-faced, to tread the arduous, rugged path of virtue.

As to the two last questions, I own they are very puzzling: to what the Epicure asks, I am obliged to answer in the affirmative; and unless I would (which God forbid!) arraign the sincerity of kings, bishops, and the whole legislative power, the objection stands good against me: all I can say for myself is, that in the connection of the facts, there is a mystery past human understanding; and to convince the reader, that this is no evasion, I shall illustrate the incomprehensibility of it in the following parable.

In old heathen times, there was, they say, a whimsical country, where the people talked much of religion, and the greatest part, as to outward appearance, seemed really devout: the chief moral evil among them was thirst, and to quench it a damnable sin; yet they unanimously agreed that every one was born thirsty, more or less: small beer in moderation was allowed to all, and he was counted an hypocrite, a cynic, or a madman, who pretended that one could live altogether without it; yet those, who owned they loved it, and drank it to excess, were counted wicked. All this, while the beer itself was reckoned a blessing from Heaven, and there was no harm in the use of it; all the enormity lay in the abuse, the motive of the heart, that made them drink it. He that took the least drop of it to quench his thirst, committed a heinous crime, while others drank large quantities without any guilt, so they did it indifferently, and for no other reason than to mend their complexion.

They brewed for other countries as well as their own, and for the small beer they sent abroad, they received large returns of Westphalia-hams, neats tongues, hung-beef, and Bologna sausages, red-herrings, pickled sturgeon, caviar, anchovies, and every thing that was proper to make their liquor go down with pleasure. Those who kept great stores of small beer by them without making use of it, were generally envied, and at the same time very odious to the public, and nobody was easy that had not enough of it come to his own share. The greatest calamity they thought could befal them, was to keep their hops and barley upon their hands, and the more they yearly consumed of them, the more they reckoned the country to flourish.

The government had many very wise regulations concerning the returns that were made for their exports, encouraged very much the importation of salt and pepper, and laid heavy duties on every thing that was not well seasoned, and might any ways obstruct the sale of their own hops and barley. Those at helm, when they acted in public, showed themselves on all accounts exempt and wholly divested from thirst, made several laws to prevent the growth of it, and punish the wicked who openly dared to quench it. If you examined them in their private persons, and pryed narrowly into their lives and conversations, they seemed to be more fond, or at least drank larger draughts of small beer than others, but always under pretence that the mending of complexions required greater quantities of liquor in them, than it did in those they ruled over; and that, what they had chiefly at heart, without any regard to themselves, was to procure great plenty of small beer, among the subjects in general, and a great demand for their hops and barley.

As nobody was debarred from small beer, the clergy made use of it as well as the laity, and some of them very plentifully; yet all of them desired to be thought less thirsty by their function than others, and never would own that they drank any but to mend their complexions. In their religious assemblies they were more sincere; for as soon as they came there, they all openly confessed, the clergy as well as the laity, from the highest to the lowest, that they were thirsty, that mending their complexions was what they minded the least, and that all their hearts were set upon small beer and quenching their thirst, whatever they might pretend to the contrary. What was remarkable, is, that to have laid hold of those truths to any ones prejudice, and made use of those confessions afterwards out of their temples, would be counted very impertinent, and every body thought it an heinous affront to be called thirsty, though you had seen him drink small beer by whole gallons. The chief topics of their preachers, was the great evil of thirst, and the folly there was in quenching it. They exhorted their hearers to resist the temptations of it, inveighed against small beer, and often told them it was poison, if they drank it with pleasure, or any other design than to mend their complexions.

In their acknowledgments to the gods, they thanked them for the plenty of comfortable small beer they had received from them, notwithstanding they had so little deserved it, and continually quenched their thirst with it; whereas, they were so thoroughly satisfied, that it was given them for a better use. Having begged pardon for those offences, they desired the gods to lessen their thirst, and give them strength to resist the importunities of it; yet, in the midst of their sorest repentance, and most humble supplications, they never forgot small beer, and prayed that they might continue to have it in great plenty, with a solemn promise, that how neglectful soever they might hitherto have been in this point, they would for the future not drink a drop of it, with any other design than to mend their complexions.

These were standing petitions put together to last; and having continued to be made use of without any alterations, for several hundred years together; it was thought by some, that the gods, who understood futurity, and knew that the same promise they heard in June, would be made to them the January following, did not rely much more on those vows, than we do on those waggish inscriptions by which men offer us their goods; to-day for money, and to-morrow for nothing. They often began their prayers very mystically, and spoke many things in a spiritual sense; yet, they never were so abstract from the world in them, as to end one without beseeching the gods to bless and prosper the brewing trade in all its branches, and for the good of the whole, more and more to increase the consumption of hops and barley.

Line 388. Content, the bane of industry.

I have been told by many, that the bane of industry is laziness, and not content; therefore to prove my assertion, which seems a paradox to some, I shall treat of laziness and content separately, and afterwards speak of industry, that the reader may judge which it is of the two former, that is opposite to the latter.

Laziness is an aversion to business, generally attended with an unreasonable desire of remaining unactive; and every body is lazy, who, without being hindered by any other warrantable employment, refuses or puts off any business which he ought to do for himself or others. We seldom call any body lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service. Children do not think their parents lazy, nor servants their masters; and if a gentleman indulges his ease and sloth so abominably, that he will not put on his own shoes, though he is young and slender, nobody shall call him lazy for it, if he can keep but a footman, or some body else to do it for him.

Mr. Dryden has given us a very good idea of superlative slothfulness, in the person of a luxurious king of Egypt. His majesty having bestowed some considerable gifts on several of his favourites, is attended by some of his chief ministers with a parchment, which he was to sign to confirm those grants. First, he walks a few turns to and fro, with a heavy uneasiness in his looks, then sets himself down like a man that is tired, and, at last, with abundance of reluctancy to what he was going about, he takes up the pen, and falls a complaining very seriously of the length of the word Ptolemy, and expresses a great deal of concern, that he had not some short monosyllable for his name, which he thought would save him a world of trouble.

We often reproach others with laziness, because we are guilty of it ourselves. Some days ago, as two young women sat knotting together, says one to the other, there comes a wicked cold through that door; you are the nearest to it, sister, pray shut it. The other, who was the youngest, vouchsafed, indeed, to cast an eye towards the door, but sat still, and said nothing; the eldest spoke again two or three times, and at last the other making her no answer, nor offering to stir, she got up in a pet, and shut the door herself; coming back to sit down again, she gave the younger a very hard look; and said, Lord, sister Betty, I would not be so lazy as you are for all the world; which she spoke so earnestly, that it brought a colour in her face. The youngest should have risen, I own; but if the eldest had not overvalued her labour, she would have shut the door herself, as soon as the cold was offensive to her, without making any words of it. She was not above a step farther from the door than her sister, and as to age, there was not eleven months difference between them, and they were both under twenty. I thought it a hard matter to determine which was the laziest of the two.

There are a thousand wretches that are always working the marrow out of their bones for next to nothing, because they are unthinking and ignorant of what the pains they take are worth: while others who are cunning, and understand the true value of their work, refuse to be employed at under rates, not because they are of an unactive temper, but because they will not beat down the price of their labour. A country gentleman sees at the back side of the Exchange a porter walking to and fro with his hands in his pockets. Pray, says he, friend, will you step for me with this letter as far as Bow-church, and I will give you a penny? I will go with all my heart, says the other, but I must have twopence, master; which the gentleman refusing to give, the fellow turned his back, and told him, he would rather play for nothing than work for nothing. The gentleman thought it an unaccountable piece of laziness in a porter, rather to saunter up and down for nothing, than to be earning a penny with as little trouble. Some hours after he happened to be with some friends at a tavern in Threadneedle-street, where one of them calling to mind that he had forgot to send for a bill of exchange that was to go away with the post that night, was in great perplexity, and immediately wanted some body to go for him to Hackney with all the speed imaginable. It was after ten, in the middle of winter, a very rainy night, and all the porters thereabouts were gone to bed. The gentleman grew very uneasy, and said, whatever it cost him, that somebody he must send; at last one of the drawers seeing him so very pressing, told him that he knew a porter, who would rise, if it was a job worth his while. Worth his while, said the gentleman very eagerly, do not doubt of that, good lad, if you know of any body, let him make what haste he can, and I will give him a crown if he be back by twelve o'clock. Upon this the drawer took the errand, left the room, and in less than a quarter of an hour, came back with the welcome news that the message would be dispatched with all expedition. The company in the mean time, diverted themselves as they had done before; but when it began to be towards twelve, the watches were pulled out, and the porter's return was all the discourse. Some were of opinion he might yet come before the clock had struck; others thought it impossible, and now it wanted but three minutes of twelve, when in comes the nimble messenger smoking hot, with his clothes as wet as dung with the rain, and his head all over in a bath of sweat. He had nothing dry about him but the inside of his pocket-book, out of which he took the bill he had been for, and by the drawer's direction, presented it to the gentleman it belonged to; who, being very well pleased with the dispatch he had made, gave him the crown he had promised, while another filled him a bumper, and the whole company commended his diligence. As the fellow came nearer the light, to take up the wine, the country gentleman I mentioned at first, to his great admiration, knew him to be the same porter that had refused to earn his penny, and whom he thought the laziest mortal alive.

The story teaches us, that we ought not to confound those who remain unemployed for want of an opportunity of exerting themselves to the best advantage, with such as for want of spirit, hug themselves in their sloth, and will rather starve than stir. Without this caution, we must pronounce all the world more or less lazy, according to their estimation of the reward they are to purchase with their labour, and then the most industrious may be called lazy.

Content, I call that calm serenity of the mind, which men enjoy while they think themselves happy, and rest satisfied with the station they are in: It implies a favourable construction of our present circumstances, and a peaceful tranquillity, which men are strangers to as long as they are solicitous about mending their condition. This is a virtue of which the applause is very precarious and uncertain: for, according as mens circumstances vary, they will either be blamed or commended for being possessed of it.

A single man that works hard at a laborious trade, has a hundred a year left him by a relation: this change of fortune makes him soon weary of working, and not having industry enough to put himself forward in the world, he resolves to do nothing at all, and live upon his income. As long as he lives within compass, pays for what he has, and offends nobody, he shall be called an honest quiet man. The victualler, his landlady, the tailor, and others, divide what he has between them, and the society is every year the better for his revenue; whereas, if he should follow his own or any other trade, he must hinder others, and some body would have the less for what he should get; and therefore, though he should be the idlest fellow in the world, lie a-bed fifteen hours in four and twenty, and do nothing but sauntering up and down all the rest of the time, nobody would discommend him, and his unactive spirit is honoured with the name of content.

But if the same man marries, gets three or four children, and still continues of the same easy temper, rests satisfied with what he has, and without endeavouring to get a penny, indulges his former sloth: first, his relations, afterwards, all his acquaintance, will be alarmed at his negligence: they foresee that his income will not be sufficient to bring up so many children handsomely, and are afraid, some of them may, if not a burden, become a disgrace to them. When these fears have been, for some time, whispered about from one to another, his uncle Gripe takes him to task, and accosts him in the following cant: "What, nephew, no business yet! fie upon it! I cannot imagine how you do to spend your time; if you will not work at your own trade, there are fifty ways that a man may pick up a penny by: you have a hundred a-year, it is true, but your charges increase every year, and what must you do when your children are grown up? I have a better estate than you myself, and yet you do not see me leave off my business; nay, I declare it, might I have the world I could not lead the life you do. It is no business of mine, I own, but every body cries, it is a shame for a young man, as you are, that has his limbs and his health, should not turn his hands to something or other." If these admonitions do not reform him in a little time, and he continues half-a-year longer without employment, he will become a discourse to the whole neighbourhood, and for the same qualifications that once got him the name of a quiet contented man, he shall be called the worst of husbands, and the laziest fellow upon earth: from whence it is manifest, that when we pronounce actions good or evil, we only regard the hurt or benefit the society receives from them, and not the person who commits them. (See page 17.)

Diligence and industry are often used promiscuously, to signify the same thing, but there is a great difference between them. A poor wretch may want neither diligence nor ingenuity, be a saving pains-taking man, and yet without striving to mend his circumstances, remain contented with the station he lives in; but industry implies, besides the other qualities, a thirst after gain, and an indefatigable desire of meliorating our condition. When men think either the customary profits of their calling, or else the share of business they have too small, they have two ways to deserve the name of industrious; and they must be either ingenious enough to find out uncommon, and yet warrantable methods to increase their business or their profit, or else supply that defect by a multiplicity of occupations. If a tradesman takes care to provide his shop, and gives due attendance to those that come to it, he is a diligent man in his business; but if, besides that, he takes

## particular pains to sell, to the same advantage, a better commodity

than the rest of his neighbours, or if, by his obsequiousness, or some other good quality, getting into a large acquaintance, he uses all possible endeavours of drawing customers to his house, he then may be called industrious. A cobbler, though he is not employed half of his time, if he neglects no business, and makes dispatch when he has any, is a diligent man; but if he runs of errands when he has no work, or makes but shoe-pins, and serves as a watchman a-nights, he deserves the name of industrious.

If what has been said in this remark be duly weighed, we shall find either, that laziness and content are very near a-kin, or, if there be a great difference between them, that the latter is more contrary to industry than the former.

Line 410. To make a great and honest hive.

This perhaps might be done where people are contented to be poor and hardy; but if they would likewise enjoy their ease and the comforts of the world, and be at once an opulent, potent, and flourishing, as well as a warlike nation, it is utterly impossible. I have heard people speak of the mighty figure the Spartans made above all the commonwealths of Greece, notwithstanding their uncommon frugality and other exemplary virtues. But certainly there never was a nation whose greatness was more empty than theirs: The splendor they lived in was inferior to that of a theatre, and the only thing they could be proud of, was, that they enjoyed nothing. They were, indeed, both feared and esteemed abroad: they were so famed for valour and skill in martial affairs, that their neighbours did not only court their friendship and assistance in their wars, but were satisfied, and thought themselves sure of the victory, if they could but get a Spartan general to command their armies. But then their discipline was so rigid, and their manner of living so austere and void of all comfort, that the most temperate man among us would refuse to submit to the harshness of such uncouth laws. There was a perfect equality among them: gold and silver coin were cried down; their current money was made of iron, to render it of a great bulk, and little worth: To lay up twenty or thirty pounds, required a pretty large chamber, and to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. Another remedy they had against luxury, was, that they were obliged to eat in common of the same meat, and they so little allowed any body to dine, or sup by himself at home, that Agis, one of their kings, having vanquished the Athenians, and sending for his commons at his return home (because he desired privately to eat with his queen) was refused by the Polemarchi.

In training up their youth, their chief care, says Plutarch, was to make them good subjects, to fit them to endure the fatigues of long and tedious marches, and never to return without victory from the field. When they were twelve years old, they lodged in little bands, upon beds made of the rushes, which grew by the banks of the river Eurotas; and because their points were sharp, they were to break them off with their hands without a knife: If it were a hard winter, they mingled some thistle-down with their rushes to keep them warm (see Plutarch in the life of Lycurgus.) From all these circumstances it is plain, that no nation on earth was less effeminate; but being debarred from all the comforts of life, they could have nothing for their pains, but the glory of being a warlike people, inured to toils and hardships, which was a happiness that few people would have cared for upon the same terms: and, though they had been masters of the world, as long as they enjoyed no more of it, Englishmen would hardly have envied them their greatness. What men want now-a-days has sufficiently been shewn in Remark on line 200, where I have treated of real pleasures.

Line 411. T' enjoy the world's conveniencies.

That the words, decency and conveniency, were very ambiguous, and not to be understood, unless we were acquainted with the quality and circumstances of the persons that made use of them, has been hinted already in Remark on line 177. The goldsmith, mercer, or any other of the most creditable shopkeepers, that has three or four thousand pounds to set up with, must have two dishes of meat every day, and something extraordinary for Sundays. His wife must have a damask bed against her lying-in, and two or three rooms very well furnished: the following summer she must have a house, or at least very good lodgings in the country. A man that has a being out of town, must have a horse; his footman must have another. If he has a tolerable trade, he expects in eight or ten years time to keep his coach, which, notwithstanding, he hopes, that after he has slaved (as he calls it) for two or three and twenty years, he shall be worth at least a thousand a-year for his eldest son to inherit, and two or three thousand pounds for each of his other children to begin the world with; and when men of such circumstances pray for their daily bread, and mean nothing more extravagant by it, they are counted pretty modest people. Call this pride, luxury, superfluity, or what you please, it is nothing but what ought to be in the capital of a flourishing nation: those of inferior condition must content themselves with less costly conveniencies, as others of higher rank will be sure to make theirs more expensive. Some people call it but decency to be served in plate, and reckon a coach and six among the necessary comforts of life; and if a peer has not above three or four thousand a-year, his lordship is counted poor.

Since the first edition of this book, several have attacked me with demonstrations of the certain ruin, which excessive luxury must bring upon all nations, who yet were soon answered, when I showed them the limits within which I had confined it; and therefore, that no reader for the future may misconstrue me on this head, I shall point at the cautions I have given, and the provisos I have made in the former, as well as this present impression, and which, if not overlooked, must prevent all rational censure, and obviate several objections that otherwise might be made against me. I have laid down as maxims never to be departed from, that the [3] poor should be kept strictly to work, and that it was prudence to relieve their wants, but folly to cure them; that agriculture [4] and fishery should be promoted in all their branches, in order to render provisions, and consequently labour cheap. I have named [5] ignorance as a necessary ingredient in the mixture of society: from all which it is manifest that I could never have imagined, that luxury was to be made general through every part of a kingdom. I have likewise required [6] that property should be well secured, justice impartially administered, and in every thing the interest of the nation taken care of: but what I have insisted on the most, and repeated more than once, is the great regard that is to be had to the balance of trade, and the care the legislature ought to take, that the yearly [7] imports never exceed the exports; and where this is observed, and the other things I spoke of are not neglected, I still continue to assert that no foreign luxury can undo a country: the height of it is never seen but in nations that are vastly populous, and there only in the upper part of it, and the greater, that is, the larger still in proportion must be the lowest, the basis that supports all, the multitude of working poor.

Those who would too nearly imitate others of superior fortune, must thank themselves if they are ruined. This is nothing against luxury; for whoever can subsist, and lives above his income is a fool. Some persons of quality may keep three or four coaches and six, and at the same time lay up money for their children: while a young shopkeeper is undone for keeping one sorry horse. It is impossible there should be a rich nation without prodigals, yet I never knew a city so full of spendthrifts, but there were covetous people enough to answer their number. As an old merchant breaks for having been extravagant or careless a great while, so a young beginner falling into the same business, gets an estate by being saving or more industrious before he is forty years old: besides, that the frailties of men often work by contraries: some narrow souls can never thrive because they are too stingy, while longer heads amass great wealth by spending their money freely, and seeming to despise it. But the vicissitudes of fortune are necessary, and the most lamentable are no more detrimental to society, than the death of the individual members of it. Christenings are a proper balance to burials. Those who immediately lose by the misfortunes of others, are very sorry, complain, and make a noise; but the others who get by them, as there always are such, hold their tongues, because it is odious to be thought the better for the losses and calamities of our neighbour. The various ups and downs compose a wheel, that always turning round, gives motion to the whole machine. Philosophers, that dare extend their thoughts beyond the narrow compass of what is immediately before them, look on the alternate changes in the civil society, no otherwise than they do on the risings and fallings of the lungs; the latter of which are much a part of respiration in the most perfect animals as the first; so that the fickle breath of never-stable fortune is to the body politic, the same as floating air is to a living creature.

Avarice then, and prodigality, are equally necessary to the society. That in some countries, men are most generally lavish than in others, proceeds from the difference in circumstances that dispose to either vice, and arise from the condition of the social body, as well as the temperament of the natural. I beg pardon of the attentive reader, if here, in behalf of short memories, I repeat some things, the substance of which they have already seen in Remark, line 307. More money than land, heavy taxes and scarcity of provisions, industry, laboriousness, an active and stirring spirit, ill-nature, and saturnine temper; old age, wisdom, trade, riches, acquired by our own labour, and liberty and property well secured, are all things that dispose to avarice. On the contrary, indolence, content, good-nature, a jovial temper, youth, folly, arbitrary power, money easily got, plenty of provisions and the uncertainty of possessions, are circumstances that render men prone to prodigality: where there is the most of the first, the prevailing vice will be avarice, and prodigality where the other turns the scale; but a national frugality there never was nor never will be without a national necessity.

Sumptuary laws, may be of use to an indigent country, after great calamities of war, pestilence, or famine, when work has stood still, and the labour of the poor been interrupted; but to introduce them into an opulent kingdom, is the wrong way to consult the interest of it. I shall end my remarks on the Grumbling-Hive, with assuring the champions of national frugality, that it would be impossible for the Persians and other eastern people, to purchase the vast quantities of fine English cloth they consume, should we load our women with less cargoes of Asiatic silks.

AN ESSAY ON CHARITY, AND CHARITY-SCHOOLS.

Charity, is that virtue by which part of that sincere love we have for ourselves, is transferred pure and unmixed to others, not tied to us by the bonds of friendship or consanguinity, and even mere strangers, whom we have no obligation to, nor hope or expect any thing from. If we lessen any ways the rigour of this definition, part of the virtue must be lost. What we do for our friends and kindred, we do partly for ourselves: when a man acts in behalf of nephews or nieces, and says they are my brother's children, I do it out of charity; he deceives you: for if he is capable, it is expected from him, and he does it partly for his own sake: if he values the esteem of the world, and is nice as to honour and reputation, he is obliged to have a greater regard to them than for strangers, or else he must suffer in his character.

The exercise of this virtue, relates either to opinion, or to action, and is manifested in what we think of others, or what we do for them. To be charitable, then, in the first place, we ought to put the best construction on all that others do or say, that things are capable of. If a man builds a fine house, though he has not one symptom of humility, furnishes it richly, and lays out a good estate in plate and pictures, we ought not to think that he does it out of vanity, but to encourage artists, employ hands, and set the poor to work for the good of his country: and if a man sleeps at church, so he does not snore, we ought to think he shuts his eyes to increase his attention. The reason is, because in our turn we desire that our utmost avarice should pass for frugality; and that for religion, which we know to be hypocrisy. Secondly, that virtue is conspicuous in us, when we bestow our time and labour for nothing, or employ our credit with others, in behalf of those who stand in need of it, and yet could not expect such an assistance from our friendship or nearness of blood. The last branch of charity consists in giving away (while we are alive) what we value ourselves, to such as I have already named; being contented rather to have and enjoy less, than not relieve those who want, and shall be the objects of our choice.

This virtue is often counterfeited by a passion of ours, called Pity or Compassion, which consists in a fellow-feeling and condolence for the misfortunes and calamities of others: all mankind are more or less affected with it; but the weakest minds generally the most. It is raised in us, when the sufferings and misery of other creatures make so forcible an impression upon us, as to make us uneasy. It comes in either at the eye, or ear, or both; and the nearer and more violently the object of compassion strikes those senses, the greater disturbance it causes in us, often to such a degree, as to occasion great pain and anxiety.

Should any of us be locked up in a ground-room, where in a yard joining to it, there was a thriving good humoured child at play, of two or three years old, so near us that through the grates of the window we could almost touch it with our hand; and if while we took delight in the harmless diversion, and imperfect prittle-prattle of the innocent babe, a nasty overgrown sow should come in upon the child, set it a screaming, and frighten it out of its wits; it is natural to think, that this would make us uneasy, and that with crying out, and making all the menacing noise we could, we should endeavour to drive the sow away. But if this should happen to be an half-starved creature, that, mad with hunger, went roaming about in quest of food, and we should behold the ravenous brute, in spite of our cries, and all the threatening gestures we could think of, actually lay hold of the helpless infant, destroy and devour it; to see her widely open her destructive jaws, and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste; to look on the defenceless posture of tender limbs first trampled on, then tore asunder; to see the filthy snout digging in the yet living entrails, suck up the smoking blood, and now and then to hear the crackling of the bones, and the cruel animal with savage pleasure grunt over the horrid banquet; to hear and see all this, what tortures would it give the soul beyond expression! let me see the most shining virtue the moralists have to boast of, so manifest either to the person possessed of it, or those who behold his actions: let me see courage, or the love of ones country so apparent without any mixture, cleared and distinct, the first from pride and anger, the other from the love of glory, and every shadow of self-interest, as this pity would be cleared and distinct from all other passions. There would be no need of virtue or self-denial to be moved at such a scene; and not only a man of humanity, of good morals and commiseration, but likewise an highwayman, an house-breaker, or a murderer could feel anxieties on such an occasion; how calamitous soever a man's circumstances might be, he would forget his misfortunes for the time, and the most troublesome passion would give way to pity, and not one of the species has a heart so obdurate or engaged, that it would not ache at such a sight, as no language has an epithet to fit it.

Many will wonder at what I have said of pity, that it comes in at the eye or ear, but the truth of this will be known when we consider that the nearer the object is, the more we suffer, and the more remote it is, the less we are troubled with it. To see people executed for crimes, if it is a great way off, moves us but little, in comparison to what it does when we are near enough to see the motion of the soul in their eyes, observe their fears and agonies, and are able to read the pangs in every feature of the face. When the object is quite removed from our senses, the relation of the calamities or the reading of them, can never raise in us the passion called pity. We may be concerned at bad news, the loss and misfortunes of friends and those whose cause we espouse, but this is not pity, but grief or sorrow; the same as we feel for the death of those we love, or the destruction of what we value.

When we hear that three or four thousand men, all strangers to us, are killed with the sword, or forced into some river where they are drowned, we say, and perhaps believe, that we pity them. It is humanity bids us have compassion with the sufferings of others; and reason tells us, that whether a thing be far off or done in our sight, our sentiments concerning it ought to be the same, and we should be ashamed to own, that we felt no commiseration in us when any thing requires it. He is a cruel man, he has no bowels of compassion; all these things are the effects of reason and humanity, but nature makes no compliments; when the object does not strike, the body does not feel it; and when men talk of pitying people out of sight, they are to be believed in the same manner as when they say, that they are our humble servants. In paying the usual civilities at first meeting, those who do not see one another every day, are often very glad and very sorry alternately, for five or six times together, in less than two minutes, and yet at parting carry away not a jot more of grief or joy than they met with. The same it is with pity, and it is a choice no more than fear or anger. Those who have a strong and lively imagination, and can make representations of things in their minds, as they would be if they were actually before them, may work themselves up into something that resembles compassion; but this is done by art, and often the help of a little enthusiasm, and is only an imitation of pity; the heart feels little of it, and it is as faint as what we suffer at the acting of a tragedy; where our judgment leaves part of the mind uninformed, and to indulge a lazy wantonness, suffers it to be led into an error, which is necessary to have a passion raised, the slight strokes of which are not unpleasant to us, when the soul is in an idle unactive humour.

As pity is often by ourselves and in our own cases mistaken for charity, so it assumes the shape, and borrows the very name of it; a beggar asks you to exert that virtue for Jesus Christ's sake, but all the while his great design is to raise your pity. He represents to your view the first side of his ailments and bodily infirmities; in chosen words he gives you an epitome of his calamities, real or fictitious; and while he seems to pray God that he will open your heart, he is actually at work upon your ears; the greatest profligate of them flies to religion for aid, and assists his cant with a doleful tone, and a studied dismality of gestures: but he trusts not to one passion only, he flatters your pride with titles and names of honour and distinction; your avarice he sooths with often repeating to you the smallness of the gift he sues for, and conditional promises of future returns, with an interest extravagant beyond the statute of usury, though out of the reach of it. People not used to great cities, being thus attacked on all sides, are commonly forced to yield, and cannot help giving something though they can hardly spare it themselves. How oddly are we managed by self-love! It is ever watching in our defence, and yet, to sooth a predominant passion, obliges us to act against our interest: for when pity seizes us, if we can but imagine, that we contribute to the relief of him we have compassion with, and are instrumental to the lessening of his sorrows, it eases us, and therefore pitiful people often give an alms, when they really feel that they would rather not.

When sores are very bare, or seem otherwise afflicting in an extraordinary manner, and the beggar can bear to have them exposed to the cold air, it is very shocking to some people; it is a shame, they cry, such sights should be suffered; the main reason is, it touches their pity feelingly, and at the same time they are resolved, either because they are covetous, or count it an idle expence, to give nothing, which makes them more uneasy. They turn their eyes, and where the cries are dismal, some would willingly stop their ears if they were not ashamed. What they can do is to mend their pace, and be very angry in their hearts that beggars should be about the streets. But it is with pity as it is with fear, the more we are conversant with objects that excite either passion, the less we are disturbed by them, and those to whom all these scenes and tones are by custom made familiar, they make little impression upon. The only thing the industrious beggar has left to conquer those fortified hearts, if he can walk either with or without crutches, is to follow close, and with uninterrupted noise teaze and importune them, to try if he can make them buy their peace. Thus thousands give money to beggars from the same motive as they pay their corn-cutter, to walk easy. And many a halfpenny is given to impudent and designedly persecuting rascals, whom, if it could be done handsomely, a man would cane with much greater satisfaction. Yet all this, by the courtesy of the country, is called charity.

The reverse of pity is malice: I have spoke of it where I treat of envy. Those who know what it is to examine themselves, will soon own that it is very difficult to trace the root and origin of this passion. It is one of those we are most ashamed of, and therefore the hurtful part of it is easily subdued and corrected by a judicious education. When any body near us stumbles, it is natural even before reflection, to stretch out our hands to hinder, or at least break the fall, which shows that while we are calm we are rather bent to pity. But though malice by itself is little to be feared, yet assisted with pride it is often mischievous, and becomes most terrible when egged on and heightened by anger. There is nothing that more readily or more effectually extinguishes pity than this mixture, which is called cruelty: from whence we may learn, that to perform a meritorious action, it is not sufficient barely to conquer a passion, unless it likewise be done from a laudable principle, and consequently how necessary that clause was in the definition of virtue, that our endeavours were to proceed from a rational ambition of being good.

Pity, as I have said somewhere else, is the most amiable of all our passions, and there are not many occasions, on which we ought to conquer or curb it. A surgeon may be as compassionate as he pleases, so it does not make him omit or forbear to perform what he ought to do. Judges likewise, and juries, may be influenced with pity, if they take care that plain laws and justice itself are not infringed, and do not suffer by it. No pity does more mischief in the world, than what is excited by the tenderness of parents, and hinders them from managing their children, as their rational love to them would require, and themselves could wish it. The sway likewise which this passion bears in the affections of women, is more considerable than is commonly imagined, and they daily commit faults that are altogether ascribed to lust, and yet are in a great measure owing to pity.

What I named last is not the only passion that mocks and resembles charity; pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together. Men are so tenacious of their possessions, and selfishness is so riveted in our nature, that whoever can but any ways conquer it shall have the applause of the public, and all the encouragement imaginable to conceal his frailty, and sooth any other appetite he shall have a mind to indulge. The man that supplies, with his private fortune, what the whole must otherwise have provided for, obliges every member of the society, and, therefore, all the world are ready to pay him their acknowledgment, and think themselves in duty bound to pronounce all such actions virtuous, without examining, or so much as looking into the motives from which they were performed. Nothing is more destructive to virtue or religion itself, than to make men believe, that giving money to the poor, though they should not part with it till after death, will make a full atonement in the next world, for the sins they have committed in this. A villain, who has been guilty of a barbarous murder, may, by the help of false witnesses, escape the punishment he deserved: he prospers, we will say, heaps up great wealth, and, by the advice of his father confessor, leaves all his estate to a monastery, and his children beggars. What fine amends has this good Christian made for his crime, and what an honest man was the priest who directed his conscience? He who parts with all he has in his life-time, whatever principle he acts from, only gives away what was his own; but the rich miser who refuses to assist his nearest relations while he is alive, though they never designedly disobliged him, and disposes of his money, for what we call charitable uses, after his death, may imagine of his goodness what he pleases, but he robs his posterity. I am now thinking of a late instance of charity, a prodigious gift, that has made a great noise in the world: I have a mind to set it in the light I think it deserves, and beg leave, for once, to please pedants, to treat it somewhat rhetorically.

That a man, with small skill in physic, and hardly any learning, should, by vile arts, get into practice, and lay up great wealth, is no mighty wonder; but, that he should so deeply work himself into the good opinion of the world as to gain the general esteem of a nation, and establish a reputation beyond all his contemporaries, with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of it, is something extraordinary. If a man arrived to such a height of glory should be almost distracted with pride, sometime give his attendance on a servant or any mean person for nothing, and, at the same time, neglect a nobleman that gives exorbitant fees, at other times refuse to leave his bottle for his business, without any regard to the quality of the persons that sent for him, or the danger they are in: if he should be surly and morose, affect to be an humourist, treat his patients like dogs, though people of distinction, and value no man but what would deify him, and never call in question the certainty of his oracles: if he should insult all the world, affront the first nobility, and extend his insolence even to the royal family: if, to maintain as well as to increase the fame of his sufficiency, he should scorn to consult with his betters on what emergency soever, look down with contempt on the most deserving of his profession, and never confer with any other physician but what will pay homage to his superior genius, creep to his humour, and never approach him but with all the slavish obsequiousness a court-flatterer can treat a prince with: If a man, in his lifetime, should discover, on the one hand, such manifest symptoms of superlative pride, and an insatiable greediness after wealth at the same time, and, on the other, no regard to religion or affection to his kindred, no compassion to the poor, and hardly any humanity to his fellow-creatures, if he gave no proofs that he loved his country, had a public spirit, or was a lover of arts, of books, or of literature, what must we judge of his motive, the principle he acted from, when, after his death, we find that he has left a trifle among his relations who stood in need of it, and an immense treasure to an university that did not want it.

Let a man be as charitable as it is possible for him to be without forfeiting his reason or good sense: can he think otherwise, but that this famous physician did, in the making of his will, as in every thing else, indulge his darling passion, entertaining his vanity with the happiness of the contrivance? when he thought on the monuments and inscriptions, with all the sacrifices of praise that would be made to him, and, above all, the yearly tribute of thanks, of reverence, and veneration that would be paid to his memory, with so much pomp and solemnity; when he considered, how in all these performances, wit and invention would be racked, art and eloquence ransacked to find out encomiums suitable to the public spirit, the munificence and the dignity of the benefactor, and the artful gratitude of the receivers; when he thought on, I say, and considered these things, it must have thrown his ambitious soul into vast ecstasies of pleasure, especially when he ruminated on the duration of his glory, and the perpetuity he would by this means procure to his name. Charitable opinions are often stupidly false; when men are dead and gone, we ought to judge of their

## actions, as we do of books, and neither wrong their understanding

nor our own. The British AEsculapius was undeniably a man of sense, and if he had been influenced by charity, a public spirit, or the love of learning, and had aimed at the good of mankind in general, or that of his own profession in particular, and acted from any of these principles, he could never have made such a will; because so much wealth might have been better managed, and a man of much less capacity would have found out several better ways of laying out the money. But if we consider, that he was as undeniably a man of vast pride, as he was a man of sense, and give ourselves leave only to surmise, that this extraordinary gift might have proceeded from such a motive, we shall presently discover the excellency of his parts, and his consummate knowledge of the world: for, if a man would render himself immortal, be ever praised and deified after his death, and have all the acknowledgment, the honours, and compliments paid to his memory, that vain glory herself could wish for, I do not think it in human skill to invent a more effectual method. Had he followed arms, behaved himself in five-and-twenty sieges, and as many battles, with the bravery of an Alexander, and exposed his life and limbs to all the fatigues and dangers of war for fifty campaigns together; or devoting himself to the muses, sacrificed his pleasure, his rest, and his health to literature, and spent all his days in a laborious study, and the toils of learning; or else, abandoning all worldly interest, excelled in probity, temperance, and austerity of life, and ever trod in the strictest path of virtue, he would not so effectually have provided for the eternity of his name, as after a voluptuous life, and the luxurious gratification of his passions, he has now done without any trouble or self denial, only by the choice in the disposal of his money, when he was forced to leave it.

A rich miser, who is thoroughly selfish, and would receive the interest of his money, even after his death, has nothing else to do than to defraud his relations, and leave his estate to some famous university; they are the best markets to buy immortality at with little merit: in them knowledge, wit, and penetration are the growth, I had almost said the manufacture of the place: there men are profoundly skilled in human nature, and know what it is their benefactors want; and their extraordinary bounties shall always meet with an extraordinary recompence, and the measure of the gift is ever the standard of their praises, whether the donor be a physician or a tinker, when once the living witnesses that might laugh at them are extinct. I can never think on the anniversary of the thanksgiving-day decreed to a great man, but it puts me in mind of the miraculous cures, and other surprising things that will be said of him a hundred years hence; and I dare prognosticate, that before the end of the present century, he will have stories forged in his favour (for rhetoricians are never upon oath) that shall be as fabulous, at least, as any legends of the saints.

Of all this our subtle benefactor was not ignorant; he understood universities, their genius, and their politics, and from thence foresaw and knew, that the incense to be offered to him would not cease with the present or few succeeding generations, and that it would not only for the trifling space of three or four hundred years, but that it would continue to be paid to him through all changes and revolutions of government and religion, as long as the nation subsists, and the island itself remains.

It is deplorable that the proud should have such temptations to wrong their lawful heirs: For when a man in ease and affluence, brim-full of vain glory, and humoured in his pride by the greatest of a polite nation, has such an infallible security in petto for an everlasting homage and adoration to his manes to be paid in such an extraordinary manner, he is like a hero in battle, who, in feasting of his own imagination, tastes all the felicity of enthusiasm. It buys him up in sickness, relieves him in pain, and either guards him against, or keeps from his view all the terrors of death, and the most dismal apprehensions of futurity.

Should it be said, that to be thus censorious, and look into matters, and men's consciences with that nicety, will discourage people from laying out their money this way; and that, let the money and the motive of the donor be what they will, he that receives the benefit is the gainer, I would not disown the charge, but am of opinion, that this is no injury to the public, should one prevent men from crowding too much treasure into the dead stock of the kingdom. There ought to be a vast disproportion between the active and unactive part of the society to make it happy, and where this is not regarded, the multitude of gifts and endowments may soon be excessive and detrimental to a nation. Charity, where it is too extensive, seldom fails of promoting sloth and idleness, and is good for little in the commonwealth but to breed drones, and destroy industry. The more colleges and alms-houses you build, the more you may. The first founders and benefactors may have just and good intentions, and would perhaps, for their own reputations, seem to labour for the most laudable purposes, but the executors of those wills, the governors that come after him, have quite other views, and we seldom see charities long applied as it was first intended they should be. I have no design that is cruel, nor the least aim that savours of inhumanity. To have sufficient hospitals for sick and wounded, I look upon as an indispensable duty both in peace and war: Young children without parents, old age without support, and all that are disabled from working, ought to be taken care of with tenderness and alacrity. But as, on the one hand, I would have none neglected that are helpless, and really necessitous without being wanting to themselves, so, on the other, I would not encourage beggary or laziness in the poor: All should be set to work that are anywise able, and scrutinies should be made even among the infirm: Employments might be found out for most of our lame, and many that are unfit for hard labour, as well as the blind, as long as their health and strength would allow of it. What I have now under consideration leads me naturally to that kind of distraction the nation has laboured under for some time, the enthusiastic passion for Charity-Schools.

The generality are so bewitched with the usefulness and excellency of them, that whoever dares openly oppose them is in danger of being stoned by the rabble. Children that are taught the principles of religion, and can read the word of God, have a greater opportunity to improve in virtue and good morality, and must certainly be more civilized than others, that are suffered to run at random, and have nobody to look after them. How perverse must be the judgment of those, who would not rather see children decently dressed, with clean linen at least once a-week, that, in an orderly manner, follow their master to church, than in every open place, meet with a company of blackguards without shirts or any thing whole about them, that, insensible of their misery, are continually increasing it with oaths and imprecations! Can any one doubt but these are the great nursery of thieves and pickpockets? What numbers of felons, and other criminals, have we tried and convicted every sessions! This will be prevented by charity-schools; and when the children of the poor receive a better education, the society will, in a few years, reap the benefit of it, and the nation be cleared of so many miscreants, as now this great city, and all the country about it, are filled with.

This is the general cry, and he that speaks the least word against it, an uncharitable, hard-hearted and inhuman, if not a wicked, profane, and atheistical wretch. As to the comeliness of the sight, nobody disputes it; but I would not have a nation pay too dear for so transient a pleasure; and if we might set aside the finery of the show, every thing that is material in this popular oration might soon be answered.

As to religion, the most knowing and polite part of a nation have every where the least of it; craft has a greater hand in making rogues than stupidity, and vice, in general, is nowhere more predominant than where arts and sciences flourish. Ignorance is, to a proverb, counted to be the mother of devotion; and it is certain, that we shall find innocence and honesty nowhere more general than among the most illiterate, the poor silly country people. The next to be considered, are the manners and civility that by charity-schools are to be grafted into the poor of the nation. I confess that, in my opinion, to be in any degree possessed of what I named, is a frivolous, if not a hurtful quality, at least nothing is less requisite in the laborious poor. It is not compliments we want of them, but their work and assiduity. But I give up this article with all my heart; good manners we will say are necessary to all people, but which way will they be furnished with them in a charity-school? Boys there may be taught to pull off their caps promiscuously to all they meet, unless it be a beggar: But that they should acquire in it any civility beyond that I cannot conceive.

The master is not greatly qualified, as may be guessed by his salary, and if he could teach them manners he has not time for it: while they are at school they are either learning or saying their lesson to him, or employed in writing or arithmetic; and as soon as school is done, they are as much at liberty as other poor people's children. It is precept, and the example of parents, and those they eat, drink and converse with, that have an influence upon the minds of children: reprobate parents that take ill courses, and are regardless to their children, will not have a mannerly civilized offspring though they went to a charity-school till they were married. The honest pains-taking people, be they never so poor, if they have any notion of goodness and decency themselves, will keep their children in awe, and never suffer them to rake about the streets, and lie out a-nights. Those who will work themselves, and have any command over their children, will make them do something or other that turns to profit as soon as they are able, be it never so little; and such are so ungovernable, that neither words nor blows can work upon them, no charity-school will mend; nay, experience teaches us, that among the charity-boys there are abundance of bad ones that swear and curse about, and, bar the clothes, are as much blackguard as ever Tower-hill or St. James's produced.

I am now come to the enormous crimes, and vast multitude of malefactors, that are all laid upon the want of this notable education. That abundance of thefts and robberies are daily committed in and about the city, and great numbers yearly suffer death for those crimes is undeniable: but because this is ever hooked in, when the usefulness of charity-schools is called in question, as if there was no dispute, but they would in a great measure remedy, and in time prevent those disorders; I intend to examine into the real causes of those mischiefs so justly complained of, and doubt not but to make it appear that charity-schools, and every thing else that promotes idleness, and keeps the poor from working, are more accessary to the growth of villany, than the want of reading and writing, or even the grossest ignorance and stupidity.

Here I must interrupt myself to obviate the clamours of some impatient people, who, upon reading of what I said last, will cry out, that far from encouraging idleness, they bring up their charity-children to handicrafts, as well as trades, and all manner of honest labour. I promise them that I shall take notice of that hereafter, and answer it without stifling the least thing that can be said in their behalf.

In a populous city, it is not difficult for a young rascal, that has pushed himself into a crowd, with a small hand and nimble fingers, to whip away a handkerchief or snuff-box, from a man who is thinking on business, and regardless of his pocket. Success in small crimes seldom fails of ushering in greater; and he that picks pockets with impunity at twelve, is likely to be a house-breaker at sixteen, and a thorough-paced villain long before he is twenty. Those who are cautious as well as bold, and no drunkards, may do a world of mischief before they are discovered: and this is one of the greatest inconveniencies of such vast overgrown cities, as London or Paris; that they harbour rogues and villains as granaries do vermin; they afford a perpetual shelter to the worst of people, and are places of safety to thousands of criminals, who daily commit thefts and burglaries, and yet, by often changing their places of abode, may conceal themselves for many years, and will perhaps for ever escape the hands of justice, unless by chance they are apprehended in a fact. And when they are taken, the evidences perhaps want clearness, or are otherwise insufficient; the depositions are not strong enough; juries and often judges are touched with compassion; prosecutors though vigorous at first, often relent before the time of trial comes on: few men prefer the public safety to their own ease; a man of good-nature is not easily reconciled with taking away of another man's life, though he has deserved the gallows. To be the cause of any ones death, though justice requires it, is what most people is startled at, especially men of conscience and probity, when they want judgment or resolution: as this is the reason that thousands escape that deserve to be capitally punished, so it is likewise the cause that there are so many offenders, who boldly venture, in hopes that if they are taken they shall have the same good fortune of getting off.

But if men did imagine, and were fully persuaded, that as surely as they committed a fact that deserved hanging, so surely they would be hanged; executions would be very rare, and the most desperate felon would almost as soon hang himself as he would break open a house. To be stupid and ignorant is seldom the character of a thief. Robberies on the highway, and other bold crimes, are generally perpetrated by rogues of spirit, and a genius; and villains of any fame are commonly subtle cunning fellows, that are well versed in the method of trials, and acquainted with every quirk in the law that can be of use to them; that overlook not the smallest flaw in an indictment, and know how to make an advantage of the least slip of an evidence, and every thing else, that can serve their turn to bring them off.

It is a mighty saying, that it is better that five hundred guilty people should escape, than that one innocent person should suffer: this maxim is only true as to futurity, and in relation to another world; but it is very false in regard to the temporal welfare of society. It is a terrible thing a man should be put to death for a crime he is not guilty of; yet so oddly circumstances may meet in the infinite variety of accidents, that it is possible it should come to pass, all the wisdom that judges, and consciousness that juries may be possessed of, notwithstanding. But where men endeavour to avoid this, with all the care and precaution human prudence is able to take, should such a misfortune happen perhaps once or twice in half a score years, on condition that all that time justice should be administered with all the strictness and severity, and not one guilty person suffered to escape with impunity, it would be a vast advantage to a nation, not only as to the securing of every ones property, and the peace of the society in general, but would likewise save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of necessitous wretches, that are daily hanged for trifles, and who would never have attempted any thing against the law, or at least have ventured on capital crimes, if the hopes of getting off, should they be taken, had not been one of the motives that animated their resolution. Therefore where the laws are plain and severe, all the remissness in the execution of them, lenity of juries, and frequency of pardons, are in the main a much greater cruelty to a populous state or kingdom, than the use of racks and the most exquisite torments.

Another great cause of those evils, is to be looked for in the want of precaution in those that are robbed, and the many temptations that are given. Abundance of families are very remiss in looking after the safety of their houses; some are robbed by the carelessness of servants, others for having grudged the price of bars and shutters. Brass and pewter are ready money, they are every where about the house; plate perhaps and money are better secured; but an ordinary lock is soon opened, when once a rogue is got in.

It is manifest, then, that many different causes concur, and several scarce avoidable evils contribute to the misfortune of being pestered with pilferers, thieves, and robbers, which all countries ever were, and ever will be, more or less, in and near considerable towns, more especially vast and overgrown cities. It is opportunity makes the thief; carelessness and neglect in fastening doors and windows, the excessive tenderness of juries and prosecutors, the small difficulty of getting a reprieve and frequency of pardons; but above all, the many examples of those who are known to be guilty, are destitute both of friends and money, and yet by imposing on the jury, baffling the witnesses, or other tricks and stratagems, find out means to escape the gallows. These are all strong temptations that conspire to draw in the necessitous, who want principle and education.

To these you may add as auxiliaries to mischief, an habit of sloth and idleness, and strong aversion to labour and assiduity, which all young people will contract that are not brought up to downright working, or at least kept employed most days in the week, and the greatest part of the day. All children that are idle, even the best of either sex, are bad company to one another whenever they meet.

It is not, then, the want of reading and writing, but the concurrence and complication of more substantial evils, that are the perpetual nursery of abandoned profligates in great and opulent nations; and whoever would accuse ignorance, stupidity, and dastardness, as the first, and what the physicians call the procataric cause, let him examine into the lives, and narrowly inspect the conversations and

## actions of ordinary rogues and our common felons, and he will find

the reverse to be true, and that the blame ought rather to be laid on the excessive cunning and subtlety, and too much knowledge in general, which the worst of miscreants and the scum of the nation are possessed of.

Human nature is every where the same: genius, wit, and natural parts, are always sharpened by application, and may be as much improved in the practice of the meanest villany, as they can in the exercise of industry, or the most heroic virtue. There is no station of life, where pride, emulation, and the love of glory may not be displayed. A young pick-pocket, that makes a jest of his angry prosecutor, and dextrously wheedles the old justice into an opinion of his innocence, is envied by his equals, and admired by all the fraternity. Rogues have the same passions to gratify as other men, and value themselves on their honour and faithfulness to one another, their courage, intrepidity, and other manly virtues, as well as people of better professions; and in daring enterprises, the resolution of a robber may be as much supported by his pride, as that of an honest soldier, who fights for his country.

The evils then we complain of, are owing to quite other causes than what we assign for them. Men must be very wavering in their sentiments, if not inconsistent with themselves, that at one time will uphold knowledge and learning to be the most proper means to promote religion, and defend at another, that ignorance is the mother of devotion.

But if the reasons alleged for this general education are not the true ones, whence comes it, that the whole kingdom, both great and small, are so unanimously fond of it? There is no miraculous conversion to be perceived among us, no universal bent to goodness and morality that has on a sudden overspread the island; there is as much wickedness as ever, charity is as cold, and real virtue as scarce: the year seventeen hundred and twenty, has been as prolific in deep villany, and remarkable for selfish crimes and premeditated mischief, as can be picked out of any century whatever; not committed by poor ignorant rogues, that could neither read nor write, but the better sort of people as to wealth and education, that most of them were great masters in arithmetic, and lived in reputation and splendor. To say, that when a thing is once in vogue, the multitude follows the common cry, that charity schools are in fashion in the same manner as hooped petticoats, by caprice, and that no more reason can be given for the one than the other, I am afraid will not be satisfactory to the curious, and at the same time I doubt much, whether it will be thought of great weight by many of my readers, what I can advance besides.

The real source of this present folly, is certainly very abstruse and remote from sight; but he that affords the least light in matters of great obscurity, does a kind office to the inquirers. I am willing to allow, that in the beginning, the first design of those schools, was good and charitable; but to know what increases them so extravagantly, and who are the chief promoters of them now, we must make our search another way, and address ourselves to the rigid party-men, that are zealous for their cause, either episcopacy or presbytery; but as the latter are but the poor mimicks of the first, though equally pernicious, we shall confine ourselves to the national church, and take a turn through a parish that is not blessed yet with a charity school.--But here I think myself obliged in conscience to ask pardon of my reader, for the tiresome dance I am going to lead him, if he intends to follow me, and therefore I desire, that he would either throw away the book and leave me, or else arm himself with the patience of Job, to endure all the impertinences of low life; the cant and tittle-tattle he is like to meet with before he can go half a street's length.

First we must look out among the young shop-keepers, that have not half the business they could wish for, and consequently time to spare. If such a new-beginner has but a little pride more than ordinary, and loves to be meddling, he is soon mortified in the vestry, where men of substance and long standing, or else your pert litigious or opinionated bawlers, that have obtained the title of notable men, commonly bear the sway. His stock and perhaps credit are but inconsiderable, and yet he finds within himself a strong inclination to govern. A man thus qualified, thinks it a thousand pities there is no charity-school in the parish: he communicates his thoughts to two or three of his acquaintance first; they do the same to others, and in a month's time there is nothing else talked of in the parish. Every body invents discourses and arguments to the purpose, according to his abilities.--It is an arrant shame, says one, to see so many poor that are not able to educate their children, and no provision made for them, where we have so many rich people. What do you talk of rich, answers another, they are the worst: they must have so many servants, coaches and horses: they can lay out hundreds, and some of them thousands of pounds for jewels and furniture, but not spare a shilling to a poor creature that wants it: when modes and fashions are discoursed of, they can hearken with great attention, but are wilfully deaf to the cries of the poor. Indeed, neighbour, replies the first, you are very right, I do not believe there is a worse parish in England for charity than ours: It is such as you and I that would do good if it was in our power, but of those that are able there is very few that are willing.

Others more violent, fall upon particular persons, and fasten slander on every man of substance they dislike, and a thousand idle stories in behalf of charity, are raised and handed about to defame their betters. While this is doing throughout the neighbourhood, he that first broached the pious thought, rejoices to hear so many come into it, and places no small merit in being the first cause of so much talk and bustle: but neither himself nor his intimates, being considerable enough to set such a thing on foot, some body must be found out who has greater interest: he is to be addressed to, and showed the necessity, the goodness, the usefulness, and Christianity of such a design: next he is to be flattered.--Indeed, Sir, if you would espouse it, nobody has a greater influence over the best of the parish than yourself: one word of you I am sure would engage such a one: if you once would take it to heart, Sir, I would look upon the thing as done, Sir.--If by this kind of rhetoric they can draw in some old fool, or conceited busy-body that is rich, or at least reputed to be such, the thing begins to be feasible, and is discoursed of among the better sort. The parson or his curate, and the lecturer, are every where extolling the pious project. The first promoters meanwhile are indefatigable: if they were guilty of any open vice, they either sacrifice it to the love of reputation, or at least grow more cautious and learn to play the hypocrite, well knowing that to be flagitious or noted for enormities, is inconsistent with the zeal which they pretend to, for works of supererogation and excessive piety.

The number of these diminutive patriots increasing, they form themselves into a society, and appoint stated meetings, where every one concealing his vices, has liberty to display his talents. Religion is the theme, or else the misery of the times occasioned by atheism and profaneness. Men of worth, who live in splendour, and thriving people that have a great deal of business of their own, are seldom seen among them. Men of sense and education likewise, if they have nothing to do, generally look out for better diversion. All those who have a higher aim, shall have their attendance easily excused, but contribute they must, or else lead a weary life in the parish. Two sorts of people come in voluntarily, stanch churchmen, who have good reasons for it in petto, and your sly sinners that look upon it as meritorious, and hope that it will expiate their guilt, and Satan be nonsuited by it at a small expence. Some come into it to save their credit, others to retrieve it, according as they have either lost or are afraid of losing it: others again do it prudentially, to increase their trade and get acquaintance, and many would own to you, if they dared to be sincere and speak the truth, that they would never have been concerned in it, but to be better known in the parish. Men of sense that see the folly of it, and have nobody to fear, are persuaded into it not to be thought singular, or to run counter to all the world; even those who are resolute at first in denying it, it is ten to one but at last they are teazed and importuned into a compliance. The charge being calculated for most of the inhabitants, the insignificancy of it is another argument that prevails much, and many are drawn in to be contributors, who, without that, would have stood out and strenuously opposed the whole scheme.

The governors are made of the middling people, and many inferior to that class are made use of, if the forwardness of their zeal can but over-balance the meanness of their condition. If you should ask these worthy rulers, why they take upon them so much trouble, to the detriment of their own affairs and loss of time, either singly or the whole body of them, they would all unanimously answer, that it is the regard they have for religion and the church, and the pleasure they take in contributing to the good, and eternal welfare of so many poor innocents, that in all probability would run into perdition, in these wicked times of scoffers and freethinkers. They have no thought of interest; even those who deal in and provide these children with what they want, have not the least design of getting by what they sell for their use; and though in every thing else, their avarice and greediness after lucre be glaringly conspicuous, in this affair they are wholly divested from selfishness, and have no worldly ends. One motive above all, which is none of the least with the most of them, is to be carefully concealed, I mean the satisfaction there is in ordering and directing: there is a melodious sound in the word governor, that is charming to mean people: every body admires sway and superiority; even imperium in belluas has its delights: there is a pleasure in ruling over any thing; and it is this chiefly that supports human nature in the tedious slavery of school-masters. But if there be the least satisfaction in governing the children, it must be ravishing to govern the school-master himself. What fine things are said and perhaps wrote to a governor, when a school-master is to be chosen! How the praises tickle, and how pleasant it is not to find out the fulsomeness of the flattery, the stiffness of the expressions, or the pedantry of the stile!

Those who can examine nature, will always find, that what these people most pretend to is the least, and what they utterly deny their greatest motive. No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts, and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them. If we will mind the pastimes and recreations of young children, we shall observe nothing more general in them, than that all who are suffered to do it, take delight in playing with kittens and little puppy dogs. What makes them always lugging and pulling the poor creatures about the house, proceeds from nothing else but that they can do with them what they please, and put them into what posture and shape they list; and the pleasure they receive from this, is originally owing to the love of dominion, and that usurping temper all mankind are born with.

When this great work is brought to bear, and actually accomplished, joy and serenity seem to overspread the face of every inhabitant, which likewise to account for, I must make a short digression. There are every where slovenly sorry fellows, that are used to be seen always ragged and dirty: these people we look upon as miserable creatures in general, and unless they are very remarkable, we take little notice of them, and yet among these there are handsome and well-shaped men, as well as among their betters. But if one of these turns soldier, what a vast alteration is there observed in him for the better, as soon as he is put in his red coat, and we see him look smart with his grenadier's cap and a great ammunition sword! All who knew him before are struck with other ideas of his qualities, and the judgment which both men and women form of him in their minds, is very different from what it was. There is something analogous to this in the sight of charity children; there is a natural beauty in uniformity, which most people delight in. It is diverting to the eye to see children well matched, either boys or girls, march two and two in good order; and to have them all whole and tight in the same clothes and trimming, must add to the comeliness of the sight; and what makes it still more generally entertaining, is the imaginary share which even servants, and the meanest in the parish, have in it, to whom it costs nothing: our parish church, our charity children. In all this there is a shadow of property that tickles every body, that has a right to make use of the words, but more especially those who actually contribute, and had a great hand in advancing the pious work.

It is hardly conceivable, that men should so little know their own hearts, and be so ignorant of their inward condition, as to mistake frailty, passion, and enthusiasm, for goodness, virtue and charity; yet nothing is more true than that the satisfaction, the joy and transports they feel on the accounts I named, pass with these miserable judges for principles of piety and religion. Whoever will consider of what I have said for two or three pages, and suffer his imagination to rove a little further on what he has heard and seen concerning this subject, will be furnished with sufficient reasons, abstract from the love of God and true Christianity, why charity-schools are in such uncommon vogue, and so unanimously approved of and admired among all sorts and conditions of people. It is a theme which every body can talk of, and understands thoroughly; there is not a more inexhaustible fund for tittle-tattle, and a variety of low conversation in hoy-boats and stage-coaches. If a governor that in behalf of the school or the sermon, exerted himself more than ordinary, happens to be in company, how he is commended by the women, and his zeal and charitable disposition extolled to the skies! Upon my word, sir, says an old lady, we are all very much obliged to you; I do not think any of the other governors could have made interest enough to procure us a bishop; it was on your account, I am told, that his lordship came, though he was not very well: to which the other replies very gravely, that it is his duty, but that he values no trouble nor fatigue, so he can be but serviceable to the children, poor lambs: indeed, says he, I was resolved to get a pair of lawn sleeves, though I rid all night for it, and I am very glad I was not disappointed.

Sometimes the school itself is discoursed of, and of whom in all the parish it is most expected he should build one: The old room where it is now kept is ready to drop down; such a one had a vast estate left him by his uncle, and a great deal of money besides; a thousand pounds would be nothing in his pocket.

At others, the great crowds are talked of that are seen at some churches, and the considerable sums that are gathered; from whence, by an easy transition, they go over to the abilities, the different talents and orthodoxy of clergymen. Dr. ---- is a man of great parts and learning, and I believe he is very hearty for the church, but I do not like him for a charity sermon. There is no better man in the world than ----; he forces the money out of their pockets. When he preached last for our children, I am sure there was abundance of people that gave more than they intended when they came to church. I could see it in their faces, and rejoiced at it heartily.

Another charm that renders charity-schools so bewitching to the multitude, is the general opinion established among them, that they are not only actually beneficial to society as to temporal happiness, but likewise that Christianity enjoys and requires of us, we should erect them for our future welfare. They are earnestly and fervently recommended by the whole body of the clergy, and have more labour and eloquence laid out upon them than any other Christian duty; not by young persons, or poor scholars of little credit, but the most learned of our prelates, and the most eminent for orthodoxy, even those who do not often fatigue themselves on any other occasion. As to religion, there is no doubt but they know what is chiefly required of us, and consequently the most necessary to salvation: and as to the world, who should understand the interest of the kingdom better than the wisdom of the nation, of which the lords spiritual are so considerable a branch? The consequence of this sanction is, first, that those, who, with their purses or power, are instrumental to the increase or maintenance of these schools, are tempted to place a greater merit in what they do, than otherwise they could suppose it deserved. Secondly, that all the rest, who either cannot, or will not any wise contribute towards them, have still a very good reason why they should speak well of them; for though it be difficult, in things that interfere with our passions, to act well, it is always in our power to wish well, because it is performed with little cost. There is hardly a person so wicked among the superstitious vulgar, but in the liking he has for charity schools, he imagines to see a glimmering hope that it will make an atonement for his sins, from the same principle as the most vicious comfort themselves with the love and veneration they bear to the church; and the greatest profligates find an opportunity in it to show the rectitude of their inclinations at no expence.

But if all these were not inducements sufficient to make men stand up in defence of the idol I speak of, there is another that will infallibly bribe most people to be advocates for it. We all naturally love triumph, and whoever engages in this course is sure of conquest, at least in nine companies out of ten. Let him dispute with whom he will, considering the speciousness of the pretence, and the majority he has on his side, it is a castle, an impregnable fortress he can never be beat out of; and was the most sober, virtuous man alive to produce all the arguments to prove the detriment charity-schools, at least the multiplicity of them, do to society, which I shall give hereafter, and such as are yet stronger, against the greatest scoundrel in the world, who should only make use of the common cant of charity and religion, the vogue would be against the first, and himself lose his cause in the opinion of the vulgar.

The rise, then, and original of all the bustle and clamour that is made throughout the kingdom in behalf of charity schools, is chiefly built on frailty and human passion, at least it is more than possible that a nation should have the same fondness, and feel the same zeal for them as are shown in ours, and yet not be prompted to it by any principle of virtue or religion. Encouraged by this consideration, I shall, with the greater liberty, attack this vulgar error, and endeavour to make it evident, that far from being beneficial, this forced education is pernicious to the public, the welfare whereof, as it demands of us a regard superior to all other laws and considerations, so it shall be the only apology I intend to make for differing from the present sentiments of the learned and reverend body of our divines, and venturing plainly to deny, what I have just now owned to be openly asserted by most of our bishops, as well as inferior clergy. As our church pretends to no infallibility even in spirituals, her proper province, so it cannot be an affront to her to imagine that she may err in temporals, which are not so much under her immediate care. But to my task.

The whole earth being cursed, and no bread to be had but what we eat in the sweat of our brows, vast toil must be undergone before man can provide himself with necessaries for his sustenance, and the bare support of his corrupt and defective nature, as he is a single creature; but infinitely more to make life comfortable in a civil society, where men are become taught animals, and great numbers of them have, by mutual compact, framed themselves into a body politic; and the more man's knowledge increases in this state, the greater will be the variety of labour required to make him easy. It is impossible that a society can long subsist, and suffer many of its members to live in idleness, and enjoy all the ease and pleasure they can invent, without having, at the same time, great multitudes of people that to make good this defect will condescend to be quite the reverse, and by use and patience inure their bodies to work for others and themselves besides.

The plenty and cheapness of provisions depends, in a great measure, on the price and value that is set upon this labour, and consequently the welfare of all societies, even before they are tainted with foreign luxury, requires that it should be performed by such of their members as, in the first place, are sturdy and robust, and never used to ease or idleness; and, in the second, soon contented as to the necessaries of life; such as are glad to take up with the coarsest manufacture in every thing they wear, and in their diet have no other aim than to feed their bodies when their stomachs prompt them to eat, and, with little regard to taste or relish, refuse no wholesome nourishment that can be swallowed when men are hungry, or ask any thing for their thirst but to quench it.

As the greatest part of the drudgery is to be done by daylight, so it is by this only that they actually measure the time of their labour without any thought of the hours they are employed, or the weariness they feel; and the hireling in the country must get up in the morning, not because he has rested enough, but because the sun is going to rise. This last article alone would be an intolerable hardship to grown people under thirty, who, during nonage, had been used to lie a-bed as long as they could sleep: but all three together make up such a condition of life, as a man more mildly educated would hardly choose, though it should deliver him from a gaol or a shrew.

If such people there must be, as no great nation can be happy without vast numbers of them, would not a wise legislature cultivate the breed of them with all imaginable care, and provide against their scarcity as he would prevent the scarcity of provision itself? No man would be poor, and fatigue himself for a livelihood, if he could help it: The absolute necessity all stand in for victuals and drink, and in cold climates for clothes and lodging, makes them submit to any thing that can be bore with. If nobody did want, nobody would work; but the greatest hardships are looked upon as solid pleasures, when they keep a man from starving.

From what has been said, it is manifest, that in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable. To make the society happy, and people easy under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant, as well as poor. Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied.

The welfare and felicity, therefore, of every state and kingdom, require that the knowledge of the working poor should be confined within the verge of their occupations, and never extended (as to things visible), beyond what relates to their calling. The more a shepherd, a ploughman, or any other peasant, knows of the world, and the things that are foreign to his labour or employment, the less fit he will be to go through the fatigues and hardships of it with cheerfulness and content.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic, are very necessary to those whose business require such qualifications; but where people's livelihood has no dependence on these arts, they are very pernicious to the poor, who are forced to get their daily bread by their daily labour. Few children make any progress at school, but, at the same time, they are capable of being employed in some business or other, so that every hour those of poor people spend at their book is so much time lost to the society. Going to school, in comparison to working, is idleness, and the longer boys continue in this easy sort of life, the more unfit they will be when grown up for downright labour, both as to strength and inclination. Men who are to remain and end their days in a laborious, tiresome, and painful station of life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they will submit to it for ever after. Hard labour, and the coarsest diet, are a proper punishment to several kinds of malefactors, but to impose either on those that have not been used and brought up to both, is the greatest cruelty, when there is no crime you can charge them with.

Reading and writing are not attained to without some labour of the brain and assiduity, and before people are tolerably versed in either, they esteem themselves infinitely above those who are wholly ignorant of them, often with so little justice and moderation, as if they were of another species. As all mortals have naturally an aversion to trouble and pains-taking, so we are all fond of, and apt to overvalue those qualifications we have purchased at the expence of our ease and quiet for years together. Those who spent a great part of their youth in learning to read, write, and cypher, expect, and not unjustly, to be employed where those qualifications may be of use to them; the generality of them will look upon downright labour with the utmost contempt, I mean labour performed in the service of others in the lowest station of life, and for the meanest consideration. A man, who has had some education, may follow husbandry by choice, and be diligent at the dirtiest and most laborious work; but then the concern must be his own, and avarice, the care of a family, or some other pressing motive, must put him upon it; but he will not make a good hireling, and serve a farmer for a pitiful reward; at least he is not so fit for it as a day labourer that has always been employed about the plough and dung cart, and remembers not that ever he has lived otherwise.

When obsequiousness and mean services are required, we shall always observe that they are never so cheerfully nor so heartily performed, as from inferiors to superiors; I mean inferiors not only in riches and quality, but likewise in knowledge and understanding. A servant can have no unfeigned respect for his master, as soon as he has sense enough to find out that he serves a fool. When we are to learn or to obey, we shall experience in ourselves, that the greater opinion we have of the wisdom and capacity of those that are either to teach or command us, the greater deference we pay to their laws and instructions. No creatures submit contentedly to their equals; and should a horse know as much as a man, I should not desire to be his rider.

Here I am obliged again to make a digression, though I declare I never had a less mind to it than I have at this minute; but I see a thousand rods in piss, and the whole posse of diminutive pedants against me, for assaulting the Christ-cross-row, and opposing the very elements of literature.

This is no panic fear, and the reader will not imagine my apprehensions ill grounded, if he considers what an army of petty tyrants I have to cope with, that all either actually persecute with birch, or else are soliciting for such a preferment. For if I had no other adversaries than the starving wretches of both sexes, throughout the kingdom of Great Britain, that from a natural antipathy to working, have a great dislike to their present employment, and perceiving within a much stronger inclination to command than ever they felt to obey others, think themselves qualified, and wish from their hearts to be masters and mistresses of charity schools, the number of my enemies would, by the most modest computation, amount to one hundred thousand at least.

Methinks I hear them cry out, that a more dangerous doctrine never was broached, and Popery is a fool to it, and ask what brute of a Saracen it is that draws his ugly weapon for the destruction of learning. It is ten to one but they will indict me for endeavouring, by instigation of the prince of darkness, to introduce into these realms greater ignorance and barbarity, than ever nation was plunged into by Goths and Vandals since the light of the gospel first appeared in the world. Whoever labours under the public odium, has always crimes laid to his charge he never was guilty of, and it will be suspected that I have had a hand in obliterating the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps affirmed, that it was at my request that the small Bibles, published by patent in the year 1721, and chiefly made use of in charity schools, were, through badness of print and paper, rendered illegible; which yet I protest I am as innocent of as the child unborn. But I am in a thousand fears; the more I consider my case, the worse I like it, and the greatest comfort I have is in my sincere belief, that hardly any body will mind a word of what I say; or else, if ever the people suspected that what I write would be of any weight to any considerable part of the society, I should not have the courage barely to think on all the trades I should disoblige; and I cannot but smile, when I reflect on the variety of uncouth sufferings that would be prepared for me, if the punishment they would differently inflict upon me was emblematically to point at my crime. For if I was not suddenly stuck full of useless pen knives up to the hilts, the company of stationers would certainly take me in hand, and either have me buried alive in their hall, under a great heap of primers and spelling-books, they would not be able to sell; or else send me up against tide to be bruised to death in a paper mill, that would be obliged to stand still a week upon my account. The ink-makers, at the same time, would, for the public good, offer to choke me with astringents, or drown me in the black liquor that would be left upon their hands; which, if they joined stock, might easily be performed in less than a month; and if I should escape the cruelty of these united bodies, the resentment of a private monopolist would be as fatal to me, and I should soon find myself pelted and knocked on the head with little squat Bibles clasped in brass, and ready armed for mischief, that, charitable learning ceasing, would be fit for nothing but unopened to fight with, and exercises truly polemic.

The digression I spoke of just now, is not the foolish trifle that ended with the last paragraph, and which the grave critic, to whom all mirth is unseasonable, will think very impertinent; but a serious apologetical one I am going to make out of hand, to clear myself from having any design against arts and sciences, as some heads of colleges and other careful preservers of human learning might have apprehended, upon seeing ignorance recommended as a necessary ingredient in the mixture of civil society.

In the first place, I would have near double the number of professors in every university of what there is now. Theology with us is generally well provided, but the two other faculties have very little to boast of, especially physic. Every branch of that art ought to have two or three professors, that would take pains to communicate their skill and knowledge to others. In public lectures, a vain man has great opportunities to set off his parts, but private instructions are more useful to students. Pharmacy, and the knowledge of the simples, are as necessary as anatomy or the history of diseases: it is a shame, that when men have taken their degree, and are by authority intrusted with the lives of the subject, they should be forced to come to London to be acquainted with the Materia Medica, and the composition of medicines, and receive instructions from others that never had university education themselves; it is certain, that in the city I named, there is ten times more opportunity for a man to improve himself in anatomy, botany, pharmacy, and the practice of physic, than at both universities together. What has an oil shop to do with silks; or who would look for hams and pickles at a mercers? Where things are well managed, hospitals are made as subservient to the advancement of students in the art of physic, as they are to the recovery of health in the poor.

Good sense ought to govern men in learning as well as in trade: no man ever bound his son apprentice to a goldsmith to make him a linen draper; then why should he have a divine for his tutor to become a lawyer or a physician? It is true, that the languages, logic and philosophy, should be the first studies in all the learned professions; but there is so little help for physic in our universities that are so rich, and where so many idle people are well paid for eating and drinking, and being magnificently, as well as commodiously lodged, that bar books, and what is common to all the three faculties, a man may as well qualify himself at Oxford or Cambridge to be a Turkey merchant, as he can to be a physician; which is, in my humble opinion, a great sign that some part of the great wealth they are possessed of is not so well applied as it might be.

Professors should, besides their stipends allowed them by the public, have gratifications from every student they teach, that self-interest, as well as emulation and the love of glory, might spur them on to labour and assiduity. When a man excels in any one study or part of learning, and is qualified to teach others, he ought to be procured, if money will purchase him, without regarding what party, or indeed what country or nation he is of, whether black or white. Universities should be public marts for all manner of literature, as your annual fairs, that are kept at Leipsic, Frankfort, and other places in Germany, are for different wares and merchandises, where no difference is made between natives and foreigners, and which men resort to from all parts of the world with equal freedom and equal privilege.

From paying the gratifications I spoke of, I would excuse all students designed for the ministry of the gospel. There is no faculty so immediately necessary to the government of a nation as that of theology, and as we ought to have great numbers of divines for the service of this island, I would not have the meaner people discouraged from bringing up their children to that function. For though wealthy men, if they have many sons, sometimes make one of them a clergyman, as we see even persons of quality take up holy orders, and there are likewise people of good sense, especially divines, that from a principle of prudence bring up their children to that profession, when they are morally assured that they have friends or interest enough, and shall be able, either by a good fellowship at the university, advowsons, or other means to procure them a livelihood: but these produce not the large number of divines that are yearly ordained, and for the bulk of the clergy, we are indebted to another original.

Among the middling people of all trades there are bigots who have a superstitious awe for a gown and cassock: of these there are multitudes that feel an ardent desire of having a son promoted to the ministry of the gospel, without considering what is to become of them afterwards; and many a kind mother in this kingdom, without consulting her own circumstances or her child's capacity, transported with this laudable wish, is daily feasting on this pleasing thought, and often before her son is twelve years old, mixing maternal love with devotion, throws herself into ecstasies and tears of satisfaction, by reflecting on the future enjoyment she is to receive from seeing him stand in a pulpit, and, with her own ears, hearing him preach the word of God. It is to this religious zeal, or at least the human frailties that pass for and represent it, that we owe the great plenty of poor scholars the nation enjoys. For, considering the inequality of livings, and the smallness of benefices up and down the kingdom, without this happy disposition in parents of small fortune, we could not possibly be furnished from any other quarter with proper persons for the ministry, to attend all the cures of souls, so pitifully provided for, that no mortal could live upon them that had been educated in any tolerable plenty, unless he was possessed of real virtue, which it is foolish and indeed injurious, we should more expect from the clergy than we generally find it in the laity.

The great care I would take to promote that part of learning which is more immediately useful to society, should not make me neglect the more curious and polite, but all the liberal arts, and every branch of literature should be encouraged throughout the kingdom, more than they are, if my wishing could do it. In every county, there should be one or more large schools, erected at the public charge, for Latin and Greek, that should be divided into six or more classes, with particular masters in each of them. The whole should be under the care and inspection of some men of letters in authority, who would not only be titular governors, but actually take pains at least twice a-year, in hearing every class thoroughly examined by the master of it, and not content themselves with judging of the progress the scholars had made for the themes and other exercises that had been made out of their sight.

At the same time, I would discharge and hinder the multiplicity of those petty schools, that never would have had any existence had the masters of them not been extremely indigent. It is a vulgar error, that nobody can spell or write English well without a little smatch of Latin. This is upheld by pedants for their own interest, and by none more strenuously maintained than such of them as are poor scholars in more than one sense; in the mean time it is an abominable falsehood. I have known, and I am still acquainted with several, and some of the fair sex, that never learned any Latin, and yet kept to strict orthography, and write admirable good sense; where, on the other hand, every body may meet with the scribblings of pretended scholars, at least such as went to a grammar school for several years, that have grammar faults and are ill spelled. The understanding of Latin thoroughly, is highly necessary to all that are designed for any of the learned professions, and I would have no gentleman without literature; even those who are to be brought up attorneys, surgeons, and apothecaries, should be much better versed in that language than generally they are; but to youth, who afterwards are to get a livelihood in trades and callings in which Latin is not daily wanted, it is of no use, and the learning of it an evident loss of just so much time and money as are bestowed upon it. When men come into business, what was taught them of it, in those petty schools is either soon forgot, or only fit to make them impertinent, and often very troublesome in company. Few men can forbear valuing themselves on any knowledge they had once acquired, even after they have lost it; and, unless they are very modest and discreet, the undigested scraps which such people commonly remember of Latin, seldom fail of rendering them, at one time or other, ridiculous to those who understand it.

Reading and writing I would treat as we do music and dancing, I would not hinder them nor force them upon the society: as long as there was any thing to be got by them, there would be masters enough to teach them; but nothing should be taught for nothing but at church: and here I would exclude even those who might be designed for the ministry of the gospel; for, if parents are so miserably poor that they cannot afford their children these first elements of learning, it is impudence in them to aspire any further.

It would encourage, likewise, the lower sort of people to give their children this part of education, if they could see them preferred to those of idle sots or sorry rake-hells, that never knew what it was to provide a rag for their brats but by begging. But now, when a boy or a girl are wanted for any small service, we reckon it a duty to employ our charity children before any other. The education of them looks like a reward for being vicious and unactive, a benefit commonly bestowed on parents, who deserve to be punished for shamefully neglecting their families. In one place you may hear a rascal half drunk, damning himself, call for the other pot, and as a good reason for it, add, that his boy is provided for in clothes, and has his schooling for nothing: In another you shall see a poor woman in great necessity, whose child is to be taken care of, because herself is a lazy slut, and never did any thing to remedy her wants in good earnest, but bewailing them at a gin-shop.

If every body's children are well taught, who, by their own industry, can educate them at our universities, there will be men of learning enough to supply this nation and such another; and reading, writing, or arithmetic, would never be wanting in the business that requires them, though none were to learn them but such whose parents could be at the charge of it. It is not with letters as it is with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, that they may not be purchased with money; and bought wit, if we believe the proverb, is none of the worst.

I thought it necessary to say thus much of learning, to obviate the clamours of the enemies to truth and fair dealing, who, had I not so amply explained myself on this head, would have represented me as a mortal foe to all literature and useful knowledge, and a wicked advocate for universal ignorance and stupidity. I shall now make good my promise, of answering what I know the well-wishers to charity schools would object against me, by saying that they brought up the children under their care, to warrantable and laborious trades, and not to idleness as I did insinuate.

I have sufficiently showed already, why going to school was idleness if compared to working, and exploded this sort of education in the children of the poor, because it incapacitates them ever after for downright labour, which is their proper province, and, in every civil society, a portion they ought not to repine or grumble at, if exacted from them with discretion and humanity. What remains, is, that I should speak as to their putting them out to trades, which I shall endeavour to demonstrate to be destructive to the harmony of a nation, and an impertinent intermeddling with what few of these governors know any thing of.

In order to this, let us examine into the nature of societies, and what the compound ought to consist of, if we would raise it to as high a degree of strength, beauty, and perfection, as the ground we are to do it upon will let us. The variety of services that are required to supply the luxurious and wanton desires, as well as real necessities of man, with all their subordinate callings, is in such a nation as ours prodigious; yet it is certain that though the number of those several occupations be excessively great, it is far from being infinite; if you add one more than is required, it must be superfluous. If a man had a good stock, and the best shop in Cheapside to sell turbants in, he would be ruined; and if Demetrius, or any other silversmith, made nothing but Diana's shrines, he would not get his bread, now the worship of that goddess is out of fashion. As it is folly to set up trades that are not wanted, so what is next to it is to increase in any one trade, the numbers beyond what are required. As things are managed with us, it would be preposterous to have as many brewers as there are bakers, or as many woollen-drapers as there are shoemakers. This proportion as to numbers, in every trade, finds itself, and is never better kept than when nobody meddles or interferes with it.

People that have children to educate that must get their livelihood, are always consulting and deliberating what trade or calling they are to bring them up to, until they are fixed; and thousands think on this, that hardly think at all on any thing else. First, they confine themselves to their circumstances, and he that can give but ten pounds with his son must not look out for a trade, where they ask an hundred with an apprentice; but the next they think on, is always which will be the most advantageous; if there be a calling where at that time people are more generally employed than they are in any other in the same reach, there are presently half a score fathers ready to supply it with their sons. Therefore the greatest care most companies have, is about the regulation of the number of apprentices. Now, when all trades complain, and perhaps justly, that they are overstocked, you manifestly injure that trade, to which you add one member more than would flow from the nature of society. Besides that, the governors of charity schools do not deliberate so much what trade is the best, but what tradesmen they can get that will take the boys, with such a sum; and few men of substance and experience will have any thing to do with these children; they are afraid of a hundred inconveniencies from the necessitous parents of them: so that they are bound, at least most commonly, either to sots and neglectful masters, or else such as are very needy and do not care what becomes of their apprentices, after they have received the money; by which it seems as if we studied nothing more than to have a perpetual nursery for charity schools.

When all trades and handicrafts are overstocked, it is a certain sign there is a fault in the management of the whole; for it is impossible there should be too many people if the country is able to feed them. Are provisions dear? Whose fault is that, as long as you have ground untilled and hands unemployed? But I shall be answered, that to increase plenty, must at long-run undo the farmer, or lessen the rents all over England. To which I reply, that what the husbandman complains of most, is what I would redress: the greatest grievance of farmers, gardeners, and others, where hard labour is required, and dirty work to be done, is, that they cannot get servants for the same wages they used to have them at. The day-labourer grumbles at sixteen pence to do no other drudgery, than what thirty years ago his grandfather did cheerfully for half the money. As to the rents, it is impossible they should fall while you increase your numbers; but the price of provisions, and all labour in general, must fall with them, if not before; and a man of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year, has no reason to complain that his income is reduced to one hundred, if he can buy as much for that one hundred as before he could have done for two.

There is no intrinsic worth in money, but what is alterable with the times; and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is (as I have already hinted before) the labour of the poor, and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from. It is in our power to have a much greater plenty than we enjoy, if agriculture and fishery were taken care of, as they might be; but we are so little capable of increasing our labour, that we have hardly poor enough to do what is necessary to make us subsist. The proportion of the society is spoiled, and the bulk of the nation, which should every where consist of labouring poor, that are unacquainted with every thing but their work, is too little for the other parts. In all business where downright labour is shunned or over-paid, there is plenty of people. To one merchant you have ten book keepers, or at least pretenders; and every where in the country the farmer wants hands. Ask for a footman that for some time has been in gentlemen's families, and you will get a dozen that are all butlers. You may have chamber-maids by the score, but you cannot get a cook under extravagant wages.

Nobody will do the dirty slavish work, that can help it. I do not discommend them; but all these things show, that the people of the meanest rank, know too much to be serviceable to us. Servants require more than masters and mistresses can afford; and what madness is it to encourage them in this, by industriously increasing at our cost, that knowledge, which they will be sure to make us pay for over again! And it is not only that those who are educated at our own expence, encroach upon us, but the raw ignorant country wenches and boobily fellows that can do, and are good for nothing, impose upon us likewise. The scarcity of servants occasioned by the education of the first, gives a handle to the latter of advancing their price, and demanding what ought only to be given to servants that understand their business, and have most of the good qualities that can be required in them. There is no place in the world where there are more clever fellows to look at, or to do an errand, than some of our footmen; but what are they good for in the main? The greatest part of them are rogues, and not to be trusted; and if they are honest, half of them are sots, and will get drunk three or four times a week. The surly ones are generally quarrelsome, and valuing their manhood beyond all other considerations, care not what clothes they spoil, or what disappointments they may occasion, when their prowess is in question. Those who are good-natured, are generally sad whore-masters, that are ever running after the wenches, and spoil all the maid-servants they come near. Many of them are guilty of all these vices, whoring, drinking, quarrelling, and yet shall have all their faults overlooked and bore with, because they are men of good mien and humble address, that know how to wait on gentlemen; which is an unpardonable folly in masters, and generally ends in the ruin of servants.

Some few there are, that are not addicted to any of these failings, and understand their duty besides; but as these are rarities, so there is not one in fifty but what over-rates himself; his wages must be extravagant, and you can never have done giving him; every thing in the house is his perquisite, and he will not stay with you unless his vails are sufficient to maintain a middling family; and though you had taken him from the dunghill, out of an hospital, or a prison, you shall never keep him longer than he can make of his place, what in his high estimation of himself he shall think he deserves; nay, the best and most civilized, that never were saucy and impertinent, will leave the most indulgent master, and, to get handsomely away, frame fifty excuses, and tell downright lies, as soon as they can mend themselves. A man, who keeps an half-crown or twelve-penny ordinary, looks not more for money from his customers, than a footman does from every guest that dines or sups with his master; and I question whether the one does not often think a shilling or half-a-crown, according to the quality of the person, his due as much as the other.

A housekeeper, who cannot afford to make many entertainments, and does not often invite people to his table, can have no creditable man-servant, and is forced to take up with some country booby, or other awkward fellow, who will likewise give him the slip, as soon as he imagines himself fit for any other service, and is made wiser by his rascally companions. All noted eating-houses, and places that many gentlemen resort to for diversion or business, more especially the precincts of Westminster-hall, are the great schools for servants, where the dullest fellows may have their understandings improved; and get rid at once of their stupidity and their innocence. They are the academies for footmen, where public lectures are daily read, on all sciences of low debauchery, by the experienced professors of them; and students are instructed in above seven hundred illiberal arts, how to cheat, impose upon, and find out the blind side of their masters, with so much application, that in few years they become graduates in iniquity. Young gentlemen and others, that are not thoroughly versed in the world, when they get such knowing sharpers in their service, are commonly indulging above measure; and for fear of discovering their want of experience, hardly dare to contradict or deny them any thing, which is often the reason, that by allowing them unreasonable privileges, they expose their ignorance when they are most endeavouring to conceal it.

Some perhaps will lay the things I complain of to the charge of luxury, of which I said that it could do no hurt to a rich nation, if the imports never did exceed the exports; but I do not think this imputation just, and nothing ought to be scored on the account of luxury, that is downright the effect of folly. A man may be very extravagant in indulging his ease and his pleasure, and render the enjoyment of the world as operose and expensive as they can be made, if he can afford it, and, at the same time, show his good sense in every thing about him: This he cannot be said to do, if he industriously renders his people incapable of doing him that service he expects from them. It is too much money, excessive wages, and unreasonable vails, that spoil servants in England. A man may have five and twenty horses in his stables, without being guilty of folly, if it suits with the rest of his circumstances; but if he keeps but one, and overfeeds it to show his wealth, he is a fool for his pains. Is it not madness to suffer, that servants should take three, and others five per cent. of what they pay to tradesmen for their masters, as is so well known to watchmakers, and others that sell toys, superfluous nicknacks, and other curiosities, if they deal with people of quality and fashionable gentlemen, that are above telling their own money? If they should accept of a present when offered, it might be connived at, but it is an unpardonable impudence that they should claim it as their due, and contend for it if refused. Those who have all the necessaries of life provided for, can have no occasion for money, but what does them hurt as servants, unless they were to hoard it up for age or sickness, which, among our skip-kennels, is not very common, and even then it makes them saucy and insupportable.

I am credibly informed, that a parcel of footmen are arrived to that height of insolence, as to have entered into a society together, and made laws, by which they oblige themselves not to serve for less than such a sum, nor carry burdens, or any bundle or parcel above a certain weight, not exceeding two or three pounds, with other regulations directly opposite to the interest of those they serve, and altogether destructive to the use they were designed for. If any of them be turned away for strictly adhering to the orders of this honourable corporation, he is taken care of till another service is provided for him; and there is no money wanting at any time to commence and maintain a law-suit against any master that shall pretend to strike, or offer any other injury to his gentleman footman, contrary to the statutes of their society. If this be true, as I have reason to believe it is, and they are suffered to go on in consulting and providing for their own ease and conveniency any further, we may expect quickly to see the French comedy, Le Maitre le Valet acted in good earnest in most families, which, if not redressed in a little time, and those footmen increase their company to the number it is possible they may, as well as assemble when they please with impunity, it will be in their power to make a tragedy of it whenever they have a mind to it.

But suppose those apprehensions frivolous and groundless, it is undeniable that servants, in general, are daily encroaching upon masters and mistresses, and endeavouring to be more upon the level with them. They not only seem solicitous to abolish the low dignity of their condition, but have already considerably raised it in the common estimation from the original meanness which the public welfare requires it should always remain in. I do not say that these things are altogether owing to charity schools, there are other evils they may be

## partly ascribed to. London is too big for the country, and, in several

respects, we are wanting to ourselves. But if a thousand faults were to concur before the inconveniences could be produced we labour under, can any man doubt, who will consider what I have said, that charity schools are accessary, or, at least, that they are more likely to create and increase than to lessen or redress those complaints?

The only thing of weight, then, that can be said in their behalf is, that so many thousand children are educated by them in the Christian faith, and the principles of the church of England. To demonstrate that this is not a sufficient plea for them, I must desire the reader, as I hate repetitions, to look back on what I have said before, to which I shall add, that whatever is necessary to salvation, and requisite for poor labouring people to know concerning religion, that children learn at school, may fully as well either by preaching or catechizing be taught at church, from which, or some other place of worship, I would not have the meanest of a parish that is able to walk to it be absent on Sundays. It is the Sabbath, the most useful day in seven, that is set apart for divine service and religious exercise, as well as resting from bodily labour; and it is a duty incumbent on all magistrates, to take particular care of that day. The poor more especially and their children, should be made to go to church on it, both in the fore and afternoon, because they have no time on any other. By precept and example they ought to be encouraged and used to it from their very infancy; the wilful neglect of it ought to be counted scandalous, and if downright compulsion to what I urge might seem too harsh, and perhaps impracticable, all diversions at least ought strictly to be prohibited, and the poor hindered from every amusement abroad that might allure or draw them from it.

Where this care is taken by the magistrates, as far as it lies in their power, ministers of the gospel may instil into the smallest capacities, more piety and devotion, and better principles of virtue and religion, than charity schools ever did or ever will produce; and those who complain, when they have such opportunities, that they cannot imbue their parishioners with sufficient knowledge, of what they stand in need of as Christians, without the assistance of reading and writing, are either very lazy or very ignorant and undeserving themselves.

That the most knowing are not the most religious, will be evident if we make a trial between people of different abilities, even in this juncture, where going to church is not made such an obligation on the poor and illiterate, as it might be. Let us pitch upon a hundred poor men, the first we can light on, that are above forty, and were brought up to hard labour from their infancy, such as never went to school at all, and always lived remote from knowledge and great towns: Let us compare to these an equal number of very good scholars, that shall all have had university education, and be, if you will, half of them divines, well versed in philology and polemic learning; then let us impartially examine into the lives and conversations of both, and I dare engage that among the first, who can neither read nor write, we shall meet with more union and neighbourly love, less wickedness and attachment to the world, more content of mind, more innocence, sincerity, and other good qualities that conduce to the public peace and real felicity, than we shall find among the latter, where, on the contrary, we may be assured of the height of pride and insolence, eternal quarrels and dissensions, irreconcileable hatreds, strife, envy, calumny, and other vices, destructive to mutual concord, which the illiterate labouring poor are hardly ever tainted with, to any considerable degree.

I am very well persuaded, that what I have said in the last paragraph, will be no news to most of my readers; but if it be truth, why should it be stifled, and why must our concern for religion be eternally made a cloak to hide our real drifts and worldly intentions? Would both parties agree to pull off the mask, we should soon discover that whatever they pretend to, they aim at nothing so much in charity schools, as to strengthen their party; and that the great sticklers for the church, by educating children in the principles of religion, mean inspiring them with a superlative veneration for the clergy of the church of England, and a strong aversion and immortal animosity against all that dissent from it. To be assured of this, we are but to mind on the one hand, what divines are most admired for their charity sermons, and most fond to preach them; and on the other, whether of late years we have had any riots or party scuffles among the mob, in which the youth of a famous hospital in this city, were not always the most forward ringleaders.

The grand asserters of liberty, who are ever guarding themselves, and skirmishing against arbitrary power, often when they are in no danger of it, are generally speaking, not very superstitious, nor seem to lay great stress on any modern apostleship: yet some of these likewise speak up loudly for charity schools; but what they expect from them has no relation to religion or morality: they only look upon them as the proper means to destroy, and disappoint the power of the priests over the laity. Reading and writing increase knowledge; and the more men know, the better they can judge for themselves, and they imagine that, if knowledge could be rendered universal, people could not be priest-rid, which is the thing they fear the most.

The first, I confess, it is very possible will get their aim. But sure wise men that are not red-hot for a party, or bigots to the priests, will not think it worth while to suffer so many inconveniencies, as charity schools may be the occasion of, only to promote the ambition and power of the clergy. To the other I would answer, that if all those who are educated at the charge of their parents or relations, will but think for themselves, and refuse to have their reason imposed upon by the priests, we need not be concerned for what the clergy will work upon the ignorant that have no education at all. Let them make the most of them: considering the schools we have for those who can and do pay for learning, it is ridiculous to imagine that the abolishing of charity schools would be a step towards any ignorance that could be prejudicial to the nation.

I would not be thought cruel, and am well assured if I know any thing of myself, that I abhor inhumanity; but to be compassionate to excess, where reason forbids it, and the general interest of the society requires steadiness of thought and resolution, is an unpardonable weakness. I know it will be ever urged against me, that it is barbarous the children of the poor should have no opportunity of exerting themselves, as long as God has not debarred them from natural parts and genius, more than the rich. But I cannot think this is harder, than it is that they should not have money, as long as they have the same inclinations to spend as others. That great and useful men have sprung from hospitals, I do not deny; but it is likewise very probable, that when they were first employed, many as capable as themselves not brought up in hospitals were neglected, that with the same good fortune would have done as well as they, if they had been made use of instead of them.

There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring them all up to Latin and Greek, or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifery. But there is no scarcity of sprightliness or natural parts among us, and no soil and climate has human creatures to boast of better formed, either inside or outside, than this island generally produces. But it is not wit, genius, or docility we want, but diligence, application, and assiduity.

Abundance of hard and dirty labour is to be done, and coarse living is to be complied with: where shall we find a better nursery for these necessities than the children of the poor? none, certainly, are nearer to it or fitter for it: Besides that the things I called hardships, neither seem nor are such to those who have been brought up to them, and know no better. There is not a more contented people among us, than those who work the hardest, and are the least acquainted with the pomp and delicacies of the world.

These are truths that are undeniable; yet I know few people will be pleased to have them divulged; what makes them odious, is an unreasonable vein of petty reverence for the poor, that runs through most multitudes, and more particularly in this nation, and arises from a mixture of pity, folly, and superstition. It is from a lively sense of this compound, that men cannot endure to hear or see any thing said or acted against the poor; without considering how just the one, or insolent the other. So a beggar must not be beat, though he strikes you first. Journeymen tailors go to law with their masters, and are obstinate in a wrong cause, yet they must be pitied; and murmuring weavers must be relieved, and have fifty silly things done to humour them, though in the midst of their poverty they insult their betters, and, on all occasions, appear to be more prone to make holidays and riots than they are to working or sobriety.

This puts me in mind of our wool, which, considering the posture of our affairs, and the behaviour of the poor, I sincerely believe, ought not, upon any account, to be carried abroad: but if we look into the reason, why suffering it to be fetched away is so pernicious, our heavy complaint and lamentations that it is exported can be no great credit to us. Considering the mighty and manifold hazards that must be run before it can be got off the coast, and safely landed beyond sea, it is manifest that the foreigners, before they can work our wool, must pay more for it very considerably, than what we can have it for at home. Yet, notwithstanding this great difference in the prime cost, they can afford to sell the manufactures made of it cheaper at foreign markets than ourselves. This is the disaster we groan under, the intolerable mischief, without which the exportation of that commodity could be no greater prejudice to us than that of tin or lead, as long as our hands were fully employed, and we had still wool to spare.

There is no people yet come to higher perfection in the woollen manufacture, either as to dispatch or goodness of work, at least in the most considerable branches, than ourselves; and therefore what we complain of can only depend on the difference in the management of the poor, between other nations and ours. If the labouring people in one country will work twelve hours in a day, and six days in a week, and in another they are employed but eight hours in a day, and not above four days in a week the one is obliged to have nine hands for what the other does with four. But if, moreover, the living, the food, and raiment, and what is consumed by the workmen of the industrious, costs but half the money of what is expended among an equal number of the other, the consequence must be, that the first will have the work of eighteen men for the same price as the other gives for the work of four. I would not insinuate, neither do I think, that the difference, either in diligence or necessaries of life between us and any neighbouring nation, is near so great as what I speak of, yet I would have it considered, that half of that difference, and much less, is sufficient to over-balance the disadvantage they labour under as to the price of wool.

Nothing to me is more evident, than that no nation in any manufacture whatever can undersell their neighbours with whom they are at best but equals as to skill and dispatch, and the conveniency for working, more especially when the prime cost of the thing to be manufactured is not in their favour, unless they have provisions, and whatever is relating to their sustenance, cheaper, or else workmen that are either more assiduous, and will remain longer at their work, or be content with a meaner and coarser way of living than those of their neighbours. This is certain, that where numbers are equal, the more laborious people are, and the fewer hands the same quantity of work is performed by, the greater plenty there is in a country of the necessaries for life, the more considerable and the cheaper that country may render its exports.

It being granted, then, that abundance of work is to be done, the next thing which I think to be likewise undeniable, is, that the more cheerfully it is done the better, as well for those that perform it, as for the rest of the society. To be happy is to be pleased, and the less notion a man has of a better way of living, the more content he will be with his own; and, on the other hand, the greater a man's knowledge and experience is in the world, the more exquisite the delicacy of his taste, and the more consummate judge he is of things in general, certainly the more difficult it will be to please him. I would not advance any thing that is barbarous or inhuman: but when a man enjoys himself, laughs and sings, and in his gesture and behaviour shows me all the tokens of content and satisfaction, I pronounce him happy, and have nothing to do with his wit or capacity. I never enter into the reasonableness of his mirth, at least I ought not to judge of it by my own standard, and argue from the effect which the thing that makes him merry would have upon me. At that rate, a man that hates cheese must call me fool for loving blue mold. De gustibus non est disputandum is as true in a metaphorical, as it is in the literal sense; and the greater the distance is between people as to their condition, their circumstances and manner of living, the less capable they are of judging of one another's troubles or pleasures.

Had the meanest and most uncivilized peasant leave incognito to observe the greatest king for a fortnight; though he might pick out several things he would like for himself, yet he would find a great many more, which, if the monarch and he were to exchange conditions, he would wish for his part to have immediately altered or redressed, and which with amazement he sees the king submit to. And again, if the sovereign was to examine the peasant in the same manner, his labour would be unsufferable; the dirt and squalor, his diet and amours, his pastimes and recreations would be all abominable; but then what charms would he find in the other's peace of mind, the calmness and tranquillity of his soul? No necessity for dissimulation with any of his family, or feigned affection to his mortal enemies; no wife in a foreign interest, no danger to apprehend from his children; no plots to unravel, no poison to fear; no popular statesman at home, or cunning courts abroad to manage; no seeming patriots to bribe; no unsatiable favourite to gratify; no selfish ministry to obey; no divided nation to please, or fickle mob to humour, that would direct and interfere with his pleasures.

Was impartial reason to be judge between real good and real evil, and a catalogue made accordingly, of the several delights and vexations differently to be met with in both stations; I question whether the condition of kings would be at all preferable to that of peasants, even as ignorant and laborious as I seem to require the latter to be. The reason why the generality of people would rather be kings than peasants, is first owing to pride and ambition, that is deeply riveted in human nature, and which to gratify, we daily see men undergo and despise the greatest hazards and difficulties. Secondly, to the difference there is in the force with which our affection is wrought upon, as the objects are either material or spiritual. Things that immediately strike our outward senses, act more violently upon our passions than what is the result of thought, and the dictates of the most demonstrative reason; and there is a much stronger bias to gain our liking or aversion in the first, than there is in the latter.

Having thus demonstrated that what I urge could be no injury, or the least diminution of happiness to the poor, I leave it to the judicious reader, whether it is not more probable we should increase our exports by the methods I hint at, than by sitting still and damning and sinking our neighbours, for beating us at our own weapons; some of them out-selling us in manufactures made of our own product, which they dearly purchased, others growing rich in spite of distance and trouble, by the same fish which we neglect, though it is ready to jump into our mouths.

As by discouraging idleness with art and steadiness, you may compel the poor to labour without force; so, by bringing them up in ignorance, you may inure them to real hardships, without being ever sensible themselves that they are such. By bringing them up in ignorance, I mean no more, as I have hinted long ago, than that, as to worldly affairs, their knowledge should be confined within the verge of their own occupations, at least that we should not take pains to extend it beyond those limits. When by these two engines we shall have made provisions, and consequently labour cheap, we must infallibly outsell our neighbours; and at the same time increase our numbers. This is the noble and manly way of encountering the rivals of our trade, and by dint of merit outdoing them at foreign markets.

To allure the poor, we make use of policy in some cases with success. Why should we be neglectful of it in the most important point, when they make their boast that they will not live as the poor of other nations? If we cannot alter their resolution, why should we applaud the justness of their sentiments against the common interest? I have often wondered formerly how an Englishman that pretended to have the honour and glory, as well as the welfare of his country at heart, could take delight in the evening to hear an idle tenant that owed him above a year's rent, ridicule the French for wearing wooden shoes, when in the morning he had had the mortification of hearing the great King William, that ambitious monarch, as well as able statesman, openly own to the world, and with grief and anger in his looks, complain of the exorbitant power of France. Yet I do not recommend wooden shoes, nor do the maxims I would introduce require arbitrary power in one person. Liberty and property I hope may remain secured, and yet the poor be better employed than they are, though their children should wear out their clothes by useful labour, and blacken them with country dirt for something, instead of tearing them off their backs at play, and daubing them with ink for nothing.

There is above three or four hundred years work, for a hundred thousand poor more than we have in this island. To make every part of it useful, and the whole thoroughly inhabited, many rivers are to be made navigable; canals to be cut in hundreds of places. Some lands are to be drained and secured from inundations for the future: abundance of barren soil is to be made fertile, and thousands of acres rendered more beneficial, by being made more accessible. Dii laboribus omnia vendunt. There is no difficulty of this nature, that labour and patience cannot surmount. The highest mountains may be thrown into their valleys that stand ready to receive them; and bridges might be laid where now we would not dare to think of it. Let us look back on the stupendous works of the Romans, more especially their highways and aqueducts. Let us consider in one view the vast extent of several of their roads, how substantial they made them, and what duration they have been of; and in another a poor traveller that at every ten miles end is stopped by a turnpike, and dunned for a penny for mending the roads in the summer, with what every body knows will be dirt before the winter that succeeds is expired.

The conveniency of the public ought ever to be the public care, and no private interest of a town, or a whole country, should ever hinder the execution of a project or contrivance that would manifestly tend to the improvement of the whole; and every member of the legislature, who knows his duty. and would choose rather to act like a wise man, than curry favour with his neighbours, will prefer the least benefit accruing to the whole kingdom, to the most visible advantage of the place he serves for.

We have materials of our own, and want neither stone nor timber to do any thing; and was the money that people give uncompelled to beggars, who do not deserve it, and what every housekeeper is obliged to pay to the poor of his parish, that is other wise employed or ill-applied, to be put together every year, it would make a sufficient fund to keep a great many thousands at work. I do not say this because I think it practicable, but only to show that we have money enough to spare, to employ vast multitudes of labourers; neither should we want so much for it as we perhaps might imagine. When it is taken for granted, that a soldier, whose strength and vigour is to be kept up at least as much as any body's, can live upon sixpence a-day, I cannot conceive the necessity of giving the greatest part of the year, sixteen and eighteen pence to a day-labourer.

The fearful and cautious people, that are ever jealous of their liberty, I know will cry out, that where the multitudes I speak of should be kept in constant pay, property and privileges would be precarious. But they might be answered, that sure means might be found out, and such regulations made, as to the hands in which to trust the management and direction of these labourers, that it would be impossible for the prince, or any body else, to make an ill use of their numbers.

What I have said in the four or five last paragraphs, I foresee, will, with abundance of scorn, be laughed at by many of my readers, and at best be called building castles in the air; but whether that is my fault or theirs is a question. When the public spirit has left a nation, they not only lose their patience with it, and all thoughts of perseverance, but become likewise so narrow-souled, that it is a pain for them even to think of things that are of uncommon extent, or require great length of time; and whatever is noble or sublime in such conjectures, is counted chimerical. Where deep ignorance is entirely routed and expelled, and low learning promiscuously scattered on all the people, self-love turns knowledge into cunning; and the more this last qualification prevails in any country, the more the people will fix all their cares, concern, and application, on the time present, without regard of what is to come after them, or hardly ever thinking beyond the next generation.

But as cunning, according to my Lord Verulam, is but left-handed wisdom; so a prudent legislator ought to provide against this disorder of the society, as soon as the symptoms of it appear, among which the following are the most obvious. Imaginary rewards are generally despised; every body is for turning the penny, and short bargains; he that is diffident of every thing and believes nothing but what he sees with his own eyes, is counted the most prudent; and in all their dealings, men seem to act from no other principle than that of the devil take the hindmost. Instead of planting oaks, that will require a hundred and fifty years before they are fit to be cut down, they build houses with a design that they shall not stand above twelve or fourteen years. All heads run upon the uncertainty of things, and the vicissitudes of human affairs. The mathematics become the only valuable study, and are made use of in every thing, even where it is ridiculous, and men seem to repose no greater trust in Providence than they would in a broken merchant.

It is the business of the public to supply the defects of the society, and take that in hand first which is most neglected by private persons. Contraries are best cured by contraries, and therefore, as example is of greater efficacy than precept, in the amendment of national failings, the legislature ought to resolve upon some great undertakings, that must be the work of ages as well as vast labour, and convince the world that they did nothing without an anxious regard to their latest posterity. This will fix, or at least help to settle, the volatile genius and fickle spirit of the kingdom; put us in mind that we are not born for ourselves only, and be a means of rendering men less distrustful, and inspiring them with a true love for their country, and a tender affection for the ground itself, than which nothing is more necessary to aggrandize a nation. Forms of government may alter; religions and even languages may change, but Great Britain, or at least (if that likewise might lose its name) the island itself will remain, and in all human probability, last as long as any part of the globe. All ages have ever paid their kind acknowledgments to their ancestors, for the benefits derived from them; and a Christian who enjoys the multitude of fountains, and vast plenty of water to be met with in the city of St. Peter, is an ungrateful wretch if he never casts a thankful remembrance on old Pagan Rome, that took such prodigious pains to procure it.

When this island shall be cultivated, and every inch of it made habitable and useful, and the whole the most convenient and agreeable spot upon earth, all the cost and labour laid out upon it, will be gloriously repaid by the incense of them that shall come after us; and those who burn with the noble zeal and desire after immortality, and took such care to improve their country, may rest satisfied, that a thousand and two thousand years hence, they shall live in the memory and everlasting praises of the future ages that shall then enjoy it.

Here I should have concluded this rhapsody of thoughts; but something comes in my head concerning the main scope and design of this essay, which is to prove the necessity there is for a certain portion of ignorance, in a well-ordered society, that I must not omit, because, by mentioning it, I shall make an argument on my side, of what, if I had not spoke of it, might easily have appeared as a strong objection against me. It is the opinion of most people, and mine among the rest, that the most commendable quality of the present Czar of Muscovy, is his unwearied application, in raising his subjects from their native stupidity, and civilizing his nation: but then we must consider it is what they stood in need of, and that not long ago the greatest part of them were next to brute beasts. In proportion to the extent of his dominions, and the multitudes he commands, he had not that number or variety of tradesmen and artificers, which the true improvement of the country required, and therefore was in the right, in leaving no stone unturned to procure them. But what is that to us who labour under a contrary disease? Sound politics are to the social body, what the art of medicine is to the natural, and no physician would treat a man in a lethargy as if he was sick for want of rest, or prescribe in a dropsy what should be administered in a diabetes. In short, Russia has too few knowing men, and Great Britain too many.

A SEARCH INTO THE NATURE OF SOCIETY.

The generality of moralists and philosophers have hitherto agreed that there could be no virtue without self-denial; but a late author, who is now much read by men of sense, is of a contrary opinion, and imagines that men, without any trouble, or violence upon themselves, may be naturally virtuous. He seems to require and expect goodness in his species, as we do a sweet taste in grapes and China oranges, of which, if any of them are sour, we boldly pronounce that they are not come to that perfection their nature is capable of. This noble writer (for it is the Lord Shaftesbury I mean in his Characteristics) fancies, that as a man is made for society, so he ought to be born with a kind affection to the whole, of which he is a part, and a propensity to seek the welfare of it. In pursuance of this supposition, he calls every action performed with regard to the public good, Virtuous; and all selfishness, wholly excluding such a regard, Vice. In respect to our species, he looks upon virtue and vice as permanent realities, that must ever be the same in all countries and all ages, and imagines that a man of sound understanding, by following the rules of good sense, may not only find out that pulchrum et honestum both in morality and the works of art and nature, but likewise govern himself, by his reason, with as much ease and readiness as a good rider manages a well-taught horse by the bridle.

The attentive reader, who perused the foregoing part of this book, will soon perceive that two systems cannot be more opposite than his Lordship's and mine. His notions I confess, are generous and refined: they are a high compliment to human-kind, and capable, by a little enthusiasm, of inspiring us with the most noble sentiments concerning the dignity of our exalted nature. What pity it is that they are not true. I would not advance thus much if I had not already demonstrated, in almost ever page of this treatise, that the solidity of them is inconsistent with our daily experience. But, to leave not the least shadow of an objection that might be made unanswered, I design to expatiate on some things which hitherto I have but slightly touched upon, in order to convince the reader, not only that the good and amiable qualities of men are not those that make him beyond other animals a sociable creature; but, moreover, that it would be utterly impossible, either to raise any multitudes into a populous, rich, and flourishing nation, or, when so raised, to keep and maintain them in that condition, without the assistance of what we call Evil, both natural and moral.

The better to perform what I have undertaken, I shall previously examine into the reality of the pulchrum et honestum, the to kalon that the ancients have talked of so much: the meaning of this is to discuss, whether there be a real worth and excellency in things, a pre-eminence of one above another; which every body will always agree to that well understands them; or, that there are few things, if any, that have the same esteem paid them, and which the same judgment is passed upon in all countries and all ages. When we first set out in quest of this intrinsic worth, and find one thing better than another, and a third better than that, and so on, we begin to entertain great hopes of success; but when we meet with several things that are all very good or all very bad, we are puzzled, and agree not always with ourselves, much less with others. There are different faults as well as beauties, that as modes and fashions alter and men vary in their tastes and humours, will be differently admired or disapproved of.

Judges of painting will never disagree in opinion, when a fine picture is compared to the daubing of a novice; but how strangely have they differed as to the works of eminent masters! There are parties among connoisseurs; and few of them agree in their esteem as to ages and countries; and the best pictures bear not always the best prices: a noted original will be ever worth more than any copy that can be made of it by an unknown hand, though it should be better. The value that is set on paintings depends not only on the name of the master, and the time of his age he drew them in, but likewise in a great measure on the scarcity of his works; but, what is still more unreasonable, the quality of the persons in whose possession they are, as well as the length of time they have been in great families; and if the Cartons, now at Hampton-Court, were done by a less famous hand than that of Raphael, and had a private person for their owner, who would be forced to sell them, they would never yield the tenth part of the money which, with all their gross faults, they are now esteemed to be worth.

Notwithstanding all this, I will readily own, that the judgment to be made of painting might become of universal certainty, or at least less alterable and precarious than almost any thing else. The reason is plain; there is a standard to go by that always remains the same. Painting is an imitation of nature, a copying of things which men have every where before them. My good humoured reader I hope will forgive me, if, thinking on this glorious invention, I make a reflection a little out of season, though very much conducive to my main design; which is, that valuable as the art is I speak of, we are beholden to an imperfection in the chief of our senses for all the pleasures and ravishing delight we receive from this happy deceit. I shall explain myself. Air and space are no objects of sight, but as soon as we can see with the least attention, we observe that the bulk of the things we see is lessened by degrees, as they are further remote from us, and nothing but experience, gained from these observations, can teach us to make any tolerable guesses at the distance of things. If one born blind should remain so till twenty, and then be suddenly blessed with sight, he would be strangely puzzled as to the difference of distances, and hardly able, immediately, by his eyes alone, to determine which was nearest to him, a post almost within the reach of his stick, or a steeple that should be half a mile off. Let us look as narrowly as we can upon a hole in a wall that has nothing but the open air behind it, and we shall not be able to see otherwise, but that the sky fills up the vacuity, and is as near us as the back part of the stones that circumscribe the space where they are wanting. This circumstance, not to call it a defect, in our sense of seeing, makes us liable to be imposed upon, and every thing, but motion, may, by art, be represented to us on a flat, in the same manner as we see them in life and nature. If a man had never seen this art put into practice, a looking-glass might soon convince him that such a thing was possible, and I cannot help thinking, but that the reflections from very smooth and well-polished bodies made upon our eyes, must have given the first handle to the inventions of drawings and painting.

In the works of nature, worth, and excellency, are as uncertain: and even in human creatures, what is beautiful in one country, is not so in another. How whimsical is the florist in his choice! Sometimes the tulip, sometimes the auricula, and at other times the carnation shall engross his esteem, and every year a new flower, in his judgment, beats all the old ones, though it is much inferior to them both in colour and shape. Three hundred years ago men were shaved as closely as they are now: Since that they have wore beards, and cut them in vast variety of forms, that were all as becoming, when fashionable, as now they would be ridiculous. How mean and comically a man looks, that is otherwise well dressed, in a narrow brimmed hat, when every body wears broad ones; and again, how monstrous is a very great hat, when the other extreme has been in fashion for a considerable time? experience has taught us, that these modes seldom last above ten or twelve years, and a man of threescore must have observed five or six revolutions of them at least! yet the beginnings of these changes, though we have seen several, seem always uncouth, and are offensive a-fresh whenever they return. What mortal can decide which is the handsomest, abstract from the mode in being, to wear great buttons or small ones? the many ways of laying out a garden judiciously are almost innumerable; and what is called beautiful in them, varies according to the different tastes of nations and ages. In grass plats, knots and parterres, a great diversity of forms is generally agreeable; but a round may be as pleasing to the eye as a square: an oval cannot be more suitable to one place, than it is possible for a triangle to be to another; and the pre-eminence an octogon has over an hexagon is no greater in figures, than at hazard eight has above six among the chances.

Churches, ever since Christians have been able to build them, resemble the form of a cross, with the upper end pointing toward the east; and an architect, where there is room, and it can be conveniently done, who should neglect it, would be thought to have committed an unpardonable fault; but it would be foolish to expect this of a Turkish mosque or a Pagan temple. Among the many beneficial laws that have been made these hundred years, it is not easy to name one of greater utility, and, at the same time, more exempt from all inconveniences, than that which regulated the dresses of the dead. Those who were old enough to take notice of things when that act was made, and are yet alive, must remember the general clamour that was made against it. At first, nothing could be more shocking to thousands of people than that they were to be buried in woollen, and the only thing that made that law supportable was, that there was room left for people of some fashion to indulge their weakness without extravagancy; considering the other expences of funerals where mourning is given to several, and rings to a great many. The benefit that accrues to the nation from it is so visible, that nothing ever could be said in reason to condemn it, which, in few years, made the horror conceived against it lessen every day. I observed then that young people, who had seen but few in their coffins, did the soonest strike in with the innovation; but that those who, when the act was made, had buried many friends and relations, remained averse to it the longest, and I remember many that never could be reconciled to it to their dying day. By this time, burying in linen being almost forgot, it is the general opinion that nothing could be more decent than woollen, and the present manner of dressing a corps; which shows that our liking or disliking of things chiefly depends on mode and custom, and the precept and example of our betters, and such whom one way or other we think to be superior to us.

In morals there is no greater certainty. Plurality of wives is odious among Christians, and all the wit and learning of a great genius in defence of it, has been rejected with contempt: But polygamy is not shocking to a Mahometan. What men have learned from their infancy enslaves them, and the force of custom warps nature, and, at the same time, imitates her in such a manner, that it is often difficult to know which of the two we are influenced by. In the east, formerly sisters married brothers, and it was meritorious for a man to marry his mother. Such alliances are abominable; but it is certain that, whatever horror we conceive at the thoughts of them, there is nothing in nature repugnant against them, but what is built upon mode and custom. A religious Mahometan that has never tasted any spirituous liquor, and has often seen people drunk, may receive as great an aversion against wine, as another with us of the least morality and education may have against lying with his sister, and both imagine that their antipathy proceeds from nature. Which is the best religion? is a question that has caused more mischief than all other questions together. Ask it at Pekin, at Constantinople, and at Rome, and you will receive three distinct answers extremely different from one another, yet all of them equally positive and peremptory. Christians are well assured of the falsity of the Pagan and Mahometan superstitions: as to this point, there is a perfect union and concord among them; but inquire of the several sects they are divided into, Which is the true church of Christ? and all of them will tell you it is theirs, and to convince you, go together by the ears.

It is manifest, then, that the hunting after this pulchrum & honestum, is not much better than a wild-goose-chase that is but little to be depended on: But this is not the greatest fault I find with it. The imaginary notions that men may be virtuous without self-denial, are a vast inlet to hypocrisy; which being once made habitual, we must not only deceive others, but likewise become altogether unknown to ourselves; and in an instance I am going to give, it will appear, how, for want of duly examining himself, this might happen to a person of quality, of parts, and erudition, one every way resembling the author of the Characteristics himself.

A man that has been brought up in ease and affluence, if he is of a quiet indolent nature, learns to shun every thing that is troublesome, and chooses to curb his passions, more because of the inconveniences that arise from the eager pursuit after pleasure, and the yielding to all the demands of our inclinations, than any dislike he has to sensual enjoyments; and it is possible, that a person educated under a great philosopher, who was a mild and good-natured, as well as able tutor, may, in such happy circumstances, have a better opinion of his inward state than it really deserves, and believe himself virtuous, because his passions lie dormant. He may form fine notions of the social virtues, and the contempt of death, write well of them in his closet, and talk eloquently of them in company, but you shall never catch him fighting for his country, or labouring to retrieve any national losses. A man that deals in metaphysics may easily throw himself into an enthusiasm, and really believe that he does not fear death while it remains out of sight. But should he be asked, why, having this intrepidity either from nature, or acquired by philosophy, he did not follow arms when his country was involved in war; or when he saw the nation daily robbed by those at the helm, and the affairs of the exchequer perplexed, why he did not go to court, and make use of all his friends and interest to be a lord treasurer, that by his integrity and wise management, he might restore the public credit: It is probable he would answer that he loved retirement, had no other ambition than to be a good man, and never aspired to have any share in the government; or that he hated all flattery and slavish attendance, the insincerity of courts and bustle of the world. I am willing to believe him: but may not a man of an indolent temper and unactive spirit, say, and be sincere in all this, and, at the same time, indulge his appetites without being able to subdue them, though his duty summons him to it. Virtue consists in action, and whoever is possessed of this social love and kind affection to his species, and by his birth or quality can claim any post in the public management, ought not to sit still when he can be serviceable, but exert himself to the utmost for the good of his fellow subjects. Had this noble person been of a warlike genius, or a boisterous temper, he would have chose another part in the drama of life, and preached a quite contrary doctrine: For we are ever pushing our reason which way soever we feel passion to draw it, and self-love pleads to all human creatures for their different views, still furnishing every individual with arguments to justify their inclinations.

That boasted middle way, and the calm virtues recommended in the Characteristics, are good for nothing but to breed drones, and might qualify a man for the stupid enjoyments of a monastic life, or at best a country justice of peace, but they would never fit him for labour and assiduity, or stir him up to great achievements and perilous undertakings. Man's natural love of ease and idleness, and proneness to indulge his sensual pleasures, are not to be cured by precept: His strong habits and inclinations can only be subdued by passions of greater violence. Preach and demonstrate to a coward the unreasonableness of his fears, and you will not make him valiant, more than you can make him taller, by bidding him to be ten foot high, whereas the secret to raise courage, as I have made it public in Remark on l. 321, is almost infallible.

The fear of death is the strongest when we are in our greatest vigour, and our appetite is keen; when we are sharp-sighted, quick of hearing, and every part performs its office. The reason is plain, because then life is most delicious, and ourselves most capable of enjoying it. How comes it, then, that a man of honour should so easily accept of a challenge, though at thirty and in perfect health? It is his pride that conquers his fear: For, when his pride is not concerned, this fear will appear most glaringly. If he is not used to the sea, let him but be in a storm, or, if he never was ill before, have but a sore throat, or a slight fever, and he will show a thousand anxieties, and in them the inestimable value he sets on life. Had man been naturally humble and proof against flattery, the politician could never have had his ends, or known what to have made of him. Without vices, the excellency of the species would have ever remained undiscovered, and every worthy that has made himself famous in the world, is a strong evidence against this amiable system.

If the courage of the great Macedonian came up to distraction, when he fought alone against a whole garrison, his madness was not less when he fancied himself to be a god, or at least doubted whether he was or not; and as soon as we make this reflection, we discover both the passion and the extravagancy of it, that buoyed up his spirits in the most imminent dangers, and carried him through all the difficulties and fatigues he underwent.

There never was in the world a brighter example of an able and complete magistrate than Cicero: When I think on his care and vigilance, the real hazards he slighted, and the pains he took for the safety of Rome; his wisdom and sagacity in detecting and disappointing the stratagems of the boldest and most subtle conspirators, and, at the same time, on his love to literature, arts, and sciences, his capacity in metaphysics, the justness of his reasonings, the force of his eloquence, the politeness of his style, and the genteel spirit that runs through his writings; when I think, I say, on all these things together, I am struck with amazement, and the least I can say of him is, that he was a prodigious man. But when I have set the many good qualities he had in the best light, it is as evident to me on the other side, that had his vanity been inferior to his greatest excellency, the good sense and knowledge of the world he was so eminently possessed of, could never have let him be such a fulsome as well as noisy trumpeter as he was of his own praises, or suffered him rather than not proclaim his own merit, to make a verse that a school boy would have been laughed at for. O! Fortunatam, &c.

How strict and severe was the morality of rigid Cato, how steady and unaffected the virtue of that grand asserter of Roman liberty! but though the equivalent this stoic enjoyed, for all the self-denial and austerity he practised, remained long concealed, and his peculiar modesty hid from the world, and perhaps himself a vast while, the frailty of his heart, that forced him into heroism, yet it was brought to light in the last scene of his life, and by his suicide it plainly appeared that he was governed by a tyrannical power, superior to the love of his country, and that the implacable hatred and superlative envy he bore to the glory, the real greatness and personal merit of Caesar, had for a long time swayed all his actions under the most noble pretences. Had not this violent motive over-ruled his consummate prudence, he might not only have saved himself, but likewise most of his friends that were ruined by the loss of him, and would in all probability, if he could have stooped to it, been the second man in Rome. But he knew the boundless mind and unlimited generosity of the victor: it was his clemency he feared, and therefore chose death because it was less terrible to his pride, than the thoughts of giving his mortal foe so tempting an opportunity of showing the magnanimity of his soul, as Caesar would have found in forgiving such an inveterate enemy as Cato, and offering him his friendship; and which, it is thought by the judicious, that penetrating as well as ambitious conqueror would not have slipped, if the other had dared to live.

Another argument to prove the kind disposition, and real affection we naturally have for our species, is our love of company, and the aversion men that are in their senses generally have to solitude, beyond other creatures. This bears a fine gloss in the Characteristics, and is set off in very good language to the best advantage: the next day after I read it first, I heard abundance of people cry fresh herrings, which, with the reflexion on the vast shoals of that and other fish that are caught together, made me very merry, though I was alone; but as I was entertaining myself with this contemplation, came an impertinent idle fellow, whom I had the misfortune to be known by, and asked me how I did, though I was, and dare say, looked as healthy and as well as ever I was or did in my life. What I answered him I forgot, but remember that I could not get rid of him in a good while, and felt all the uneasiness my friend Horace complains of, from a persecution of the like nature.

I would have no sagacious critic pronounce me a man-hater from this short story; whoever does is very much mistaken. I am a great lover of company, and if the reader is not quite tired with mine, before I show the weakness and ridicule of that piece of flattery made to our species, and which I was just now speaking of, I will give him a description of the man I would choose for conversation, with a promise that before he has finished, what at first he might only take for a digression foreign to my purpose, he shall find the use of it.

By early and artful instruction, he should be thoroughly imbued with the notions of honour and shame, and have contracted an habitual aversion to every thing that has the least tendency to impudence, rudeness, or inhumanity. He should be well versed in the Latin tongue, and not ignorant of the Greek, and moreover understand one or two of the modern languages besides his own. He should be acquainted with the fashions and customs of the ancients, but thoroughly skilled in the history of his own country, and the manners of the age he lives in. He should besides literature, have studied some useful science or other, seen some foreign courts and universities, and made the true use of travelling. He should at times take delight in dancing, fencing, riding the great horse, and knowing something of hunting and other country sports, without being attached to any, and he should treat them all as either exercises for health, or diversions that should never interfere with business, or the attaining to more valuable qualifications. He should have a smatch of geometry and astronomy, as well as anatomy, and the economy of human bodies; to understand music so as to perform, is an accomplishment: but there is abundance to be said against it; and instead of it, I would have him know so much of drawing as is required to take a landskip, or explain ones meaning of any form or model we would describe, but never to touch a pencil. He should be very early used to the company of modest women, and never be a fortnight without conversing with the ladies.

Gross vices, as irreligion, whoring, gaming, drinking and quarrelling, I will not mention: even the meanest education guards us against them; I would always recommend to him the practice of virtue, but I am for no voluntary ignorance, in a gentleman, of any thing that is done in court or city. It is impossible a man should be perfect, and therefore there are faults I would connive at, if I could not prevent them; and if between the years of nineteen and three-and-twenty, youthful heat should sometimes get the better of his chastity, so it was done with caution; should he on some extraordinary occasion, overcome by the pressing solicitations of jovial friends, drink more than was consistent with strict sobriety, so he did it very seldom and found it not to interfere with his health or temper; or if by the height of his mettle, and great provocation in a just cause, he had been drawn into a quarrel, which true wisdom and a less strict adherence to the rules of honour, might have declined or prevented, so it never befel him above once: if I say he should have happened to be guilty of these things, and he would never speak, much less brag of them himself, they might be pardoned, or at least overlooked at the age I named, if he left off then and continued discreet forever after. The very disasters of youth, have sometimes frightened gentlemen into a more steady prudence, than in all probability they would ever have been masters of without them. To keep him from turpitude and things that are openly scandalous, there is nothing better than to procure him free access in one or two noble families, where his frequent attendance is counted a duty: and while by that means you preserve his pride, he is kept in a continual dread of shame.

A man of a tolerable fortune, pretty near accomplished as I have required him to be, that still improves himself and sees the world till he is thirty, cannot be disagreeable to converse with, at least while he continues in health and prosperity, and has nothing to spoil his temper. When such a one, either by chance or appointment, meets with three or four of our equals, and all agree to pass away a few hours together, the whole is what I call good company. There is nothing said in it that is not either instructive or diverting to a man of sense. It is possible they may not always be of the same opinion, but there can be no contest between any, but who shall yield first to the other he differs from. One only speaks at a time, and no louder than to be plainly understood by him who sits the farthest off. The greatest pleasure aimed at by every one of them, is to have the satisfaction of pleasing others, which they all practically know may as effectually be done, by hearkening with attention and an approving countenance, as we said very good things ourselves.

Most people of any taste would like such a conversation, and justly prefer it to being alone, when they knew not how to spend their time; but if they could employ themselves in something from which they expected, either a more solid or a more lasting satisfaction, they would deny themselves this pleasure, and follow what was of greater consequence to them. But would not a man, though he had seen no mortal in a fortnight, remain alone as much longer, rather than get into company of noisy fellows, that take delight in contradiction, and place a glory in picking a quarrel? Would not one that has books read for ever, or set himself to write upon some subject or other, rather than be every night with party-men who count the island to be good for nothing, while their adversaries are suffered to live upon it? Would not a man be by himself a month, and go to bed before seven a clock, rather than mix with fox-hunters, who having all day long tried in vain to break their necks, join at night in a second attempt upon their lives by drinking, and to express their mirth, are louder in senseless sounds within doors, than their barking and less troublesome companions are only without? I have no great value for a man who would not rather tire himself with walking; or if he was shut up scatter pins about the room in order to pick them up again, than keep company for six hours with half a score common sailors the day their ship was paid off.

I will grant, nevertheless, that the greatest part of mankind, rather than be alone any considerable time, would submit to the things I named: but I cannot see, why this love of company, this strong desire after society, should be construed so much in our favour, and alleged as a mark of some intrinsic worth in man, not to be found in other animals. For to prove from it the goodness of our nature, and a generous love in man, extended beyond himself on the rest of his species, by virtue of which he was a sociable creature, this eagerness after company and aversion of being alone, ought to have been most conspicuous, and most violent in the best of their kind; the men of the greatest genius, parts and accomplishments, and those who are the least subject to vice; the contrary of which is true. The weakest minds, who can the least govern their passions, guilty consciences that abhor reflexion, and the worthless, who are incapable of producing any thing of their own that is useful, are the greatest enemies to solitude, and will take up with any company rather than be without; whereas, the men of sense and of knowledge, that can think and contemplate on things, and such as are but little disturbed by their passions, can bear to be by themselves the longest without reluctancy; and, to avoid noise, folly, and impertinence, will run away from twenty companies; and, rather than meet with any thing disagreeable to their good taste, will prefer their closet or a garden, nay, a common or a desert to the society of some men.

But let us suppose the love of company so inseparable from our species, that no man could endure to be alone one moment, what conclusions could be drawn from this? Does not man love company, as he does every thing else, for his own sake? No friendships or civilities are lasting that are not reciprocal. In all your weekly and daily meetings for diversion, as well as annual feasts, and the most solemn carousels, every member that assists at them has his own ends, and some frequent a club which they would never go to unless they were the top of it. I have known a man who was the oracle of the company, be very constant, and as uneasy at any thing that hindered him from coming at the hour, leave his society altogether, as soon as another was added that could match, and disputed superiority with him. There are people who are incapable of holding an argument, and yet malicious enough to take delight in hearing others wrangle; and though they never concern themselves in the controversy, would think a company insipid where they could not have that diversion. A good house, rich furniture, a fine garden, horses, dogs, ancestors, relations, beauty, strength, excellency in any thing whatever; vices as well as virtue, may all be accessary to make men long for society, in hopes that what they value themselves upon will at one time or other become the theme of the discourse, and give an inward satisfaction to them. Even the most polite people in the world, and such as I spoke of at first, give no pleasure to others that is not repaid to their self-love, and does not at last centre in themselves, let them wind it and turn it as they will. But the plainest demonstration that in all clubs and societies of conversable people, every body has the greatest consideration for himself, is, that the disinterested, who rather over-pays than wrangles; the good humoured, that is never waspish nor soon offended; the easy and indolent, that hates disputes and never talks for triumph, is every where the darling of the company: whereas, the man of sense and knowledge, that will not be imposed upon or talked out of his reason; the man of genius and spirit, that can say sharp and witty things, though he never lashes but what deserves it; the man of honour, who neither gives nor takes an affront, may be esteemed, but is seldom so well beloved as a weaker man less accomplished.

As in these instances, the friendly qualities arise from our contriving perpetually our own satisfaction, so, on other occasions, they proceed from the natural timidity of man, and the solicitous care he takes of himself. Two Londoners, whose business oblige them not to have any commerce together, may know, see, and pass by one another every day upon the Exchange, with not much greater civility than bulls would: let them meet at Bristol they will pull off their hats, and on the least opportunity enter into conversation, and be glad of one another's company. When French, English, and Dutch, meet in China, or any other Pagan country, being all Europeans, they look upon one another as countrymen, and if no passion interferes, will feel a natural propensity to love one another. Nay, two men that are at enmity, if they are forced to travel together, will often lay by their animosities, be affable, and converse in a friendly manner, especially if the road be unsafe, and they are both strangers in the place they are to go to. These things by superficial judges, are attributed to mans sociableness, his natural propensity to friendship and love of company; but whoever will duly examine things, and look into man more narrowly, will find, that on all these occasions we only endeavour to strengthen our interest, and are moved by the causes already alleged.

What I have endeavoured hitherto, has been to prove, that the pulchrum et honestum, excellency and real worth of things are most commonly precarious and alterable as modes and customs vary; that consequently the inferences drawn from their certainty are insignificant, and that the generous notions concerning the natural goodness of man are hurtful, as they tend to mislead, and are merely chimerical: the truth of this latter I have illustrated by the most obvious examples in history. I have spoke of our love of company and aversion to solitude, examined thoroughly the various motives of them, and made it appear that they all centre in self-love. I intend now to investigate into the nature of society, and diving into the very rise of it, make it evident, that not the good and amiable, but the bad and hateful qualities of man, his imperfections and the want of excellencies, which other creatures are endued with, are the first causes that made man sociable beyond other animals, the moment after he lost Paradise; and that if he had remained in his primitive innocence, and continued to enjoy the blessings that attended it, there is no shadow of probability that he ever would have become that sociable creature he is now.

How necessary our appetites and passions are for the welfare of all trades and handicrafts, has been sufficiently proved throughout the book, and that they are our bad qualities, or at least produce them, nobody denies. It remains then, that I should set forth the variety of obstacles that hinder and perplex man in the labour he is constantly employed in, the procuring of what he wants; and which in other words is called the business of self-preservation: while, at the same time, I demonstrate that the sociableness of man arises only from these two things, viz. the multiplicity of his desires, and the continual opposition he meets with in his endeavours to gratify them.

The obstacles I speak of, relate either to our own frame, or the globe we inhabit, I mean the condition of it, since it has been cursed. I have often endeavoured to contemplate separately on the two things I named last, but could never keep them asunder; they always interfere and mix with one another; and at last make up together a frightful chaos of evil. All the elements are our enemies, water drowns and fire consumes those who unskilfully approach them. The earth in a thousand places produces plants, and other vegetables that are hurtful to man, while she feeds and cherishes a variety of creatures that are noxious to him; and suffers a legion of poisons to dwell within her: but the most unkind of all the elements is that which we cannot live one moment without: it is impossible to repeat all the injuries we receive from the wind and weather; and though the greatest part of mankind, have ever been employed in defending their species from the inclemency of the air, yet no art or labour have hitherto been able to find a security against the wild rage of some meteors.

Hurricanes, it is true, happen but seldom, and few men are swallowed up by earthquakes, or devoured by lions; but while we escape those gigantic mischiefs, we are persecuted by trifles. What a vast variety of insects are tormenting to us; what multitudes of them insult and make game of us with impunity! The most despicable scruple not to trample and graze upon us as cattle do upon a field: which yet is often born with, if moderately they use their fortune; but here again our clemency becomes a vice, and so encroaching are their cruelty and contempt of us on our pity, that they make laystalls of our hands, and devour our young ones if we are not daily vigilant in pursuing and destroying them.

There is nothing good in all the universe to the best-designing man, if either through mistake or ignorance he commits the least failing in the use of it; there is no innocence or integrity, that can protect a man from a thousand mischiefs that surround him: on the contrary, every thing is evil, which art and experience have not taught us to turn into a blessing. Therefore how diligent in harvest time is the husbandman, in getting in his crop and sheltering it from rain, without which he could never have enjoyed it! As seasons differ with the climates, experience has taught us differently to make use of them, and in one part of the globe we may see the farmer sow while he is reaping in the other; from all which we may learn how vastly this earth must have been altered since the fall of our first parents. For should we trace man from his beautiful, his divine original, not proud of wisdom acquired by haughty precept or tedious experience, but endued with consummate knowledge the moment he was formed; I mean the state of innocence, in which no animal nor vegetable upon earth, nor mineral under ground was noxious to him, and himself secured from the injuries of the air as well as all other harms, was contented with the necessaries of life, which the globe he inhabited furnished him with, without his assistance. When yet not conscious of guilt, he found himself in every place to be the well obeyed unrivalled lord of all, and unaffected with his greatness, was wholly wrapped up in sublime meditations on the infinity of his Creator, who daily did vouchsafe intelligibly to speak to him, and visit without mischief.

In such a golden age, no reason or probability can be alleged, why mankind ever should have raised themselves into such large societies as there have been in the world, as long as we can give any tolerable account of it. Where a man has every thing he desires, and nothing to vex or disturb him, there is nothing can be added to his happiness; and it is impossible to name a trade, art, science, dignity, or employment, that would not be superfluous in such a blessed state. If we pursue this thought, we shall easily perceive that no societies could have sprung from the amiable virtues and loving qualities of man; but, on the contrary, that all of them must have had the origin from his wants, his imperfections, and the variety of his appetites: we shall find likewise, that the more their pride and vanity are displayed, and all their desires enlarged, the more capable they must be of being raised into large and vastly numerous societies.

Was the air always as inoffensive to our naked bodies, and as pleasant as to our thinking it is to the generality of birds in fair weather, and man had not been affected with pride, luxury and hypocrisy, as well as lust, I cannot see what could have put us upon the invention of clothes and houses. I shall say nothing of jewels, of plate, painting, sculpture, fine furniture, and all that rigid moralists have called unnecessary and superfluous: but if we were not soon tired with walking a-foot, and were as nimble as some other animals; if men were naturally laborious, and none unreasonable in seeking and indulging their ease, and likewise free from other vices, and the ground was every where even, solid and clean, who would have thought of coaches or ventured on a horse's back? What occasion has the dolphin for a ship, or what carriage would an eagle ask to travel in?

I hope the reader knows, that by society I understand a body politic, in which man either subdued by superior force, or by persuasion drawn from his savage state, is become a disciplined creature, that can find his own ends in labouring for others, and where under one head or other form of government, each member is rendered subservient to the whole, and all of them by cunning management are made to act as one. For if by society we only mean a number of people, that without rule or government, should keep together, out of a natural affection to their species, or love of company, as a herd of cows or a flock of sheep, then there is not in the world a more unfit creature for society than man; an hundred of them that should be all equals, under no subjection, or fear of any superior upon earth, could never live together awake two hours without quarrelling, and the more knowledge, strength, wit, courage and resolution there was among them, the worse it would be.

It is probable, that in the wild state of nature, parents would keep a superiority over their children, at least while they were in strength, and that even afterwards, the remembrance of what the others had experienced, might produce in them something between love and fear, which we call reverence: it is probable, likewise, that the second generation following the example of the first; a man with a little cunning would always be able, as long as he lived and had his senses, to maintain a superior sway over all his own offspring and descendants, how numerous soever they might grow. But the old stock once dead, the sons would quarrel, and there could be no peace long before there had been war. Eldership in brothers is of no great force, and the pre-eminence that is given to it, only invented as a shift to live in peace. Man, as he is a fearful animal, naturally not rapacious, loves peace and quiet, and he would never fight, if nobody offended him, and he could have what he fights for without it. To this fearful disposition, and the aversion he has to his being disturbed, are owing all the various projects and forms of government. Monarchy, without doubt, was the first. Aristocracy and democracy were two different methods of mending the inconveniencies of the first, and a mixture of these three an improvement on all the rest.

But be we savages or politicians, it is impossible that man, mere fallen man, should act with any other view but to please himself while he has the use of his organs, and the greatest extravagancy either of love or despair can have no other centre. There is no difference between will and pleasure in one sense, and every motion made in spite of them must be unnatural and convulsive. Since, then, action is so confined, and we are always forced to do what we please, and at the same time our thoughts are free and uncontrouled, it is impossible we could be sociable creatures without hypocrisy. The proof of this is plain, since we cannot prevent the ideas that are continually arising within us, all civil commerce would be lost, if, by art and prudent dissimulation we had not learned to hide and stifle them; and if all we think was to be laid open to others, in the same manner as it is to ourselves, it is impossible that, endued with speech, we could be sufferable to one another. I am persuaded that every reader feels the truth of what I say; and I tell my antagonist that his conscience flies in his face, while his tongue is preparing to refute me. In all civil societies men are taught insensibly to be hypocrites from their cradle; nobody dares to own that he gets by public calamities, or even by the loss of private persons. The sexton would be stoned should he wish openly for the death of the parishioners, though every body knew that he had nothing else to live upon.

To me it is a great pleasure, when I look on the affairs of human life, to behold into what various, and often strangely opposite forms, the hope of gain and thoughts of lucre shape men, according to the different employments they are of, and stations they are in. How gay and merry does every face appear at a well ordered ball, and what a solemn sadness is observed at the masquerade of a funeral! but the undertaker is as much pleased with his gains as the dancing-master: both are equally tired in their occupations, and the mirth of the one is as much forced as the gravity of the other is affected. Those who have never minded the conversation of a spruce mercer, and a young lady his customer that comes to his shop, have neglected a scene of life that is very entertaining. I beg of my serious reader, that he would, for a while, abate a little of his gravity, and suffer me to examine these people separately, as to their inside, and the different motives they act from.

His business is to sell as much silk as he can at a price by which he shall get what he proposes to be reasonable, according to the customary profits of the trade. As to the lady, what she would be at is to please her fancy, and buy cheaper by a groat or sixpence per yard than the things she wants are commonly sold at. From the impression the gallantry of our sex has made upon her, she imagines (if she be not very deformed) that she has a fine mien and easy behaviour, and a peculiar sweetness of voice; that she is handsome, and if not beautiful, at least more agreeable than most young women she knows. As she has no pretensions to purchase the same things with less money than other people, but what are built on her good qualities, so she sets herself off to the best advantage her wit and discretion will let her. The thoughts of love are here out of the case; so on the one hand, she has no room for playing the tyrant, and giving herself angry and peevish airs, and, on the other, more liberty of speaking kindly, and being affable than she can have almost on any other occasion. She knows that abundance of well-bred people come to his shop, and endeavours to render herself as amiable as virtue and the rules of decency allow of. Coming with such a resolution of behaviour, she cannot meet with any thing to ruffle her temper.

Before her coach is yet quite stopped, she is approached by a gentleman-like man, that has every thing clean and fashionable about him, who in low obeisance pays her homage, and as soon as her pleasure is known that she has a mind to come in, hands her into the shop, where immediately he slips from her, and through a by-way that remains visible only for half a moment, with great address entrenches himself behind the counter: here facing her, with a profound reverence and modish phrase, he begs the favour of knowing her commands. Let her say and dislike what she pleases, she can never be directly contradicted: she deals with a man in whom consummate patience is one of the mysteries of his trade, and whatever trouble she creates she is sure to hear nothing but the most obliging language, and has always before her a cheerful countenance, where joy and respect seem to be blended with good humour, and altogether make up an artificial serenity more engaging than untaught nature is able to produce.

When two persons are so well met, the conversation must be very agreeable, as well as extremely mannerly, though they talk about trifles. While she remains irresolute what to take, he seems to be the same in advising her; and is very cautious how to direct her choice; but when once she has made it and is fixed, he immediately becomes positive, that it is the best of the sort, extols her fancy, and the more he looks upon it, the more he wonders he should not before have discovered the pre-eminence of it over any thing he has in his shop. By precept, example, and great application, he has learned unobserved to slide into the inmost recesses of the soul, sound the capacity of his customers, and find out their blind side unknown to them: by all which he is instructed in fifty other stratagems to make her over-value her own judgment as well as the commodity she would purchase. The greatest advantage he has over her, lies in the most material part of the commerce between them, the debate about the price, which he knows to a farthing, and she is wholly ignorant of: therefore he no where more egregiously imposes on her understanding; and though here he has the liberty of telling what lies he pleases, as to the prime cost, and the money he has refused, yet he trusts not to them only; but, attacking her vanity, makes her believe the most incredible things in the world, concerning his own weakness and her superior abilities; he had taken a resolution, he says, never to part with that piece under such a price, but she has the power of talking him out of his goods beyond any body he ever sold to: he protests that he loses by his silk, but seeing that she has a fancy for it, and is resolved to give no more, rather than disoblige a lady he has such an uncommon value for, he will let her have it, and only begs that another time she will not stand so hard with him. In the mean time, the buyer, who knows that she is no fool, and has a voluble tongue, is easily persuaded that she has a very winning way of talking, and thinking it sufficient, for the sake of good-breeding, to disown her merit, and in some witty repartee retort the compliment, he makes her swallow very contentedly, the substance of every thing he tells her. The upshot is, that, with the satisfaction of having saved ninepence per yard, she has bought her silk exactly at the same price as any body else might have done, and often gives sixpence more than, rather than not have sold it, he would have taken.

It is possible that this lady, for want of being sufficiently flattered, for a fault she is pleased to find in his behaviour, or perhaps the tying of his neckcloth, or some other dislike as substantial, may be lost, and her custom bestowed on some other of the fraternity. But where many of them live in a cluster, it is not always easily determined which shop to go to, and the reasons some of the fair sex have for their choice, are often very whimsical, and kept as great a secret. We never follow our inclinations with more freedom, than where they cannot be traced, and it is unreasonable for others to suspect them. A virtuous woman has preferred one house to all the rest, because she had seen a handsome fellow in it, and another of no bad character for having received greater civility before it, than had been paid her any where else, when she had no thoughts of buying, and was going to Paul's church: for among the fashionable mercers, the fair dealer must keep before his own door, and to draw in random customers, make use of no other freedom or importunities than an obsequious air, with a submissive posture, and perhaps a bow to every well dressed female that offers to look towards his shop.

What I have said last, makes me think on another way of inviting customers, the most distant in the world from what I have been speaking of, I mean that which is practised by the watermen, especially on those whom, by their mien and garb, they know to be peasants. It is not unpleasant to see half a dozen people surround a man they never saw in their lives before, and two of them that can get the nearest, clapping each an arm over his neck, hug him in as loving and familiar a manner, as if he was their brother newly come home from an East India voyage; a third lays hold of his hand, another of his sleeve, his coat, the buttons of it, or any thing he can come at, while a fifth or a sixth, who has scampered twice round him already, without being able to get at him, plants himself directly before the man in hold, and within three inches of his nose, contradicting his rivals with an open mouthed cry, shows him a dreadful set of large teeth, and a small remainder of chewed bread and cheese, which the countryman's arrival had hindered from being swallowed.

At all this no offence is taken, and the peasant justly thinks they are making much of him; therefore, far from opposing them, he patiently suffers himself to be pushed or pulled which way the strength that surrounds him shall direct. He has not the delicacy to find fault with a man's breath, who has just blown out his pipe, or a greasy head of hair that is rubbing against his chops: Dirt and sweat he has been used to from his cradle, and it is no disturbance to him to hear half a score people, some of them at his ear, and the furthest not five foot from him, bawl out as if he was hundred yards off: He is conscious that he makes no less noise when he is merry himself, and is secretly pleased with their boisterous usages. The hawling and pulling him about he construes the way it is intended; it is a courtship he can feel and understand: He cannot help wishing them well for the esteem they seem to have for him: He loves to be taken notice of, and admires the Londoners for being so pressing in the offers of their service to him, for the value of threepence or less; whereas, in the country at the shop he uses, he can have nothing but he must first tell them what he wants, and, though he lays out three or four shillings at a time, has hardly a word spoke to him unless it be in answer to a question himself is forced to ask first. This alacrity in his behalf moves his gratitude, and, unwilling to disoblige any, from his heart he knows not whom to choose. I have seen a man think all this, or something like it, as plainly as I could see the nose in his face; and, at the same time, move along very contentedly under a load of watermen, and with a smiling countenance carry seven or eight stone more than his own weight to the water side.

If the little mirth I have shown, in the drawing of these two images from low life, misbecomes me, I am sorry for it, but I promise not to be guilty of that fault any more, and will now, without loss of time, proceed with my argument in artless dull simplicity, and demonstrate the gross error of those, who imagine that the social virtues, and the amiable qualities that are praise-worthy in us, are equally beneficial to the public as they are to the individual persons that are possessed of them, and that the means of thriving, and whatever conduces to the welfare and real happiness of private families, must have the same effect upon the whole society. This, I confess, I have laboured for all along, and I flatter myself not unsuccessfully: But I hope nobody will like a problem the worse for seeing the truth of it proved more ways than one.

It is certain, that the fewer desires a man has, and the less he covets, the more easy he is to himself; the more active he is to supply his own wants, and the less he requires to be waited upon, the more he will be beloved, and the less trouble he is in a family; the more he loves peace and concord, the more charity he has for his neighbour, and the more he shines in real virtue, there is no doubt but that in proportion he is acceptable to God and man. But let us be just, what benefit can these things be of, or what earthly good can they do, to promote the wealth, the glory, and worldly greatness of nations? It is the sensual courtier that sets no limits to his luxury; the fickle strumpet that invents new fashions every week; the haughty duchess that in equipage, entertainments, and all her behaviour, would imitate a princess; the profuse rake and lavish heir, that scatter about their money without wit or judgment, buy every thing they see, and either destroy or give it away the next day; the covetous and perjured villain that squeezed an immense treasure from the tears of widows and orphans, and left the prodigals the money to spend: It is these that are the prey and proper food of a full grown Leviathan; or, in other words, such is the calamitous condition of human affairs, that we stand in need of the plagues and monsters I named, to have all the variety of labour performed, which the skill of men is capable of inventing in order to procure an honest livelihood to the vast multitudes of working poor, that are required to make a large society: And it is folly to imagine, that great and wealthy nations can subsist, and be at once powerful and polite without.

I protest against Popery as much as ever Luther and Calvin did, or Queen Elizabeth herself; but I believe from my heart, that the Reformation has scarce been more instrumental in rendering the kingdoms and states that have embraced it, flourishing beyond other nations, than the silly and capricious invention of hooped and quilted petticoats. But if this should be denied me by the enemies of priestly power, at least I am sure that, bar the great men who have fought for and against that layman's blessing, it has, from its beginning to this day, not employed so many hands, honest, industrious, labouring hands, as the abominable improvement on female luxury, I named, has done in few years. Religion is one thing, and trade is another. He that gives most trouble to thousands of his neighbours, and invents the most operose manufactures, is, right or wrong, the greatest friend to the society.

What a bustle is there to be made in several parts of the world, before a fine scarlet or crimson cloth can be produced; what multiplicity of trades and artificers must be employed! Not only such as are obvious, as woolcombers, spinners, the weaver, the cloth worker, the scourer, the dyer, the setter, the drawer, and the packer; but others that are more remote, and might seem foreign to it; as the mill-wright, the pewterer, and the chemist, which yet are all necessary, as well as a great number of other handicrafts, to have the tools, utensils, and other implements belonging to the trades already named: But all these things are done at home, and may be performed without extraordinary fatigue or danger; the most frightful prospect is left behind, when we reflect on the toil and hazard that are to be undergone abroad, the vast seas we are to go over, the different climates we are to endure, and the several nations we must be obliged to for their assistance. Spain alone, it is true, might furnish us with wool to make the finest cloth; but what skill and pains, what experience and ingenuity, are required to dye it of those beautiful colours! How widely are the drugs, and other ingredients, dispersed through the universe that are to meet in one kettle! Allum, indeed, we have of our own; argol we might have from the Rhine, and vitriol from Hungary; all this is in Europe; but then for saltpetre in quantity, we are forced to go as far as the East Indies. Cocheneal, unknown to the ancients, is not much nearer to us, though in a quite different part of the earth: we buy it, it is true, from the Spaniards; but not being their product, they are forced to fetch it for us from the remotest corner of the new world in the East Indies. While so many sailors are broiling in the sun, and sweltered with heat in the east and west of us, another set of them are freezing in the north, to fetch potashes from Russia.

When we are thoroughly acquainted with all the variety of toil and labour, the hardships and calamities that must be undergone to compass the end I speak of, and we consider the vast risks and perils that are run in those voyages, and that few of them are ever made but at the expence, not only of the health and welfare, but even the lives of many: When we are acquainted with, I say, and duly consider the things I named, it is scarce possible to conceive a tyrant so inhuman, and void of shame, that, beholding things in the same view, he should exact such terrible services from his innocent slaves; and, at the same time, dare to own, that he did it for no other reason, than the satisfaction a man receives from having a garment made of scarlet or crimson cloth. But to what height of luxury must a nation be arrived, where not only the king's officers, but likewise the guards, even the private soldiers, should have such impudent desires!

But if we turn the prospect, and look on all those labours as so many voluntary actions, belonging to different callings and occupations, that men are brought up to for a livelihood, and in which every one works for himself, how much soever he may seem to labour for others: If we consider, that even the sailors who undergo the greatest hardships, as soon as one voyage is ended, even after shipwreck, are looking out, and soliciting for employment in another: If we consider, I say, and look on these things in another view, we shall find, that the labour of the poor is so far from being a burden and an imposition upon them, that to have employment is a blessing, which, in their addresses to Heaven, they pray for, and to procure it for the generality of them, is the greatest care of every legislature.

As children, and even infants, are the apes of others, so all youth have an ardent desire of being men and women, and become often ridiculous by their impatient endeavours to appear what every body sees they are not; all large societies are not a little indebted to this folly for the perpetuity, or at least long continuance, of trades once established. What pains will young people take, and what violence will they not commit upon themselves, to attain to insignificant, and often blameable qualifications, which, for want of judgment and experience, they admire in others, that are superior to them in age! This fondness of imitation makes them accustom themselves, by degrees, to the use of things that were irksome, if not intolerable to them at first, till they know not how to leave them, and are often very sorry for having inconsiderately increased the necessaries of life without any necessity. What estates have been got by tea and coffee! What a vast traffic is drove, what a variety of labour is performed in the world, to the maintenance of thousands of families that altogether depend on two silly, if not odious customs; the taking of snuff, and smoking of tobacco; both which, it is certain, do infinitely more hurt than good to those that are addicted to them! I shall go further, and demonstrate the usefulness of private losses and misfortunes to the public, and the folly of our wishes, when we pretend to be most wise and serious. The fire of London was a great calamity; but if the carpenters, bricklayers, smiths, and all, not only that are employed in building, but likewise those that made and dealt in the same manufactures, and other merchandises that were burnt, and other trades again that got by them when they were in full employ, were to vote against those who lost by the fire, the rejoicings would equal, if not exceed the complaints. In recruiting what is lost and destroyed by fire, storms, sea-fights, sieges, battles, a considerable part of trade consists; the truth of which, and whatever I have said of the nature of society, will plainly appear from what follows.

It would be a difficult task to enumerate all the advantages and different benefits, that accrue to a nation, on account of shipping and navigation; but if we only take into consideration the ships themselves, and every vessel great and small that is made use of for water-carriage, from the least wherry to a first rate man of war; the timber and hands that are employed in the building of them; and consider the pitch, tar, rosin, grease; the masts, yards, sails and riggings; the variety of smiths work; the cables, oars, and every thing else belonging to them; we shall find, that to furnish only such a nation as ours with all the necessaries, make up a considerable part of the traffic of Europe, without speaking of the stores and ammunition of all sorts, that are consumed in them, or the mariners, waterman and others, with their families, that are maintained by them.

But should we, on the other hand, take a view of the manifold mischiefs and variety of evils, moral as well as natural, that befal nations on the score of seafaring, and their commerce with strangers, the prospect would be very frightful; and could we suppose a large populous island, that should be wholly unacquainted with ships and sea affairs, but otherwise a wise and well-governed people; and that some angel, or their genius, should lay before them a scheme or draught, where they might see on the one side, all the riches and real advantages that would be acquired by navigation in a thousand years; and on the other, the wealth and lives that would be lost, and all the other calamities, that would be unavoidably sustained on account of it during the same time, I am confident, they would look upon ships with horror and detestation, and that their prudent rulers would severely forbid the making and inventing all buildings or machines to go to sea with, of what shape or denomination soever, and prohibit all such abominable contrivances on great penalties, if not the pain of death.

But to let alone the necessary consequence of foreign trade, the corruption of manners, as well as plagues, poxes, and other diseases, that are brought to us by shipping, should we only cast our eyes on what is either to be imputed to the wind and weather, the treachery of the seas, the ice of the north, the vermin of the south, the darkness of nights, and unwholesomeness of climates, or else occasioned by the want of good provisions, and the faults of mariners, and unskilfulness of some, and the neglect and drunkenness of others; and should we consider the losses of men and treasure swallowed up in the deep, the tears and necessities of widows and orphans made by the sea, the ruin of merchants and the consequences, the continual anxieties that parents and wives are in for the safety of their children and husbands, and not forget the many pangs and heart-aches that are felt throughout a trading nation, by owners and insurers, at every blast of wind; should we cast our eyes, I say, on these things, consider with due attention and give them the weight they deserve, would it not be amazing, how a nation of thinking people should talk of their ships and navigation as a peculiar blessing to them, and placing an uncommon felicity in having an infinity of vessels dispersed through the wide world, and always some going to and others coming from every part of the universe?

But let us once, in our consideration on these things, confine ourselves to what the ships suffer only, the vessels themselves, with their rigging and appurtenances, without thinking on the freight they carry, or the hands that work them, and we shall find that the damage sustained that way only, is very considerable, and must one year with another amount to vast sums; the ships that are foundered at sea, split against rocks and swallowed up by sands, some by the fierceness of tempests altogether, others by that and the want of pilots, experience, and knowledge of the coasts: the masts that are blown down, or forced to be cut and thrown overboard, the yards, sails, and cordage of different sizes that are destroyed by storms, and the anchors that are lost: add to these the necessary repairs of leaks sprung, and other hurts received from the rage of winds, and the violence of the waves: many ships are set on fire by carelessness, and the effects of strong liquors, which none are more addicted to than sailors: sometimes unhealthy climates, at others the badness of provision breed fatal distempers, that sweep away the greatest part of the crew, and not a few ships are lost for want of hands.

These are all calamities inseparable from navigation, and seem to be great impediments that clog the wheels of foreign commerce. How happy would a merchant think himself, if his ships should always have fine weather, and the wind he wished for, and every mariner he employed, from the highest to the lowest, be a knowing experienced sailor, and a careful, sober, good man! Was such a felicity to be had for prayers, what owner of ships is there, or dealer in Europe, nay, the whole world, who would not be all day long teazing Heaven to obtain such a blessing for himself, without regard to what detriment it would do to others? Such a petition would certainly be a very unconscionable one; yet where is the man who imagines not that he has a right to make it? And therefore, as every one pretends to an equal claim to those favours, let us, without reflecting on the impossibility of its being true, suppose all their prayers effectual and their wishes answered, and afterwards examine into the result of such a happiness.

Ships would last as long as timber houses to the full, because they are as strongly built, and the latter are liable to suffer by high winds and other storms, which the first, by our supposition, are not to be: so that, before there would be any real occasion for new ships, the master builders now in being, and every body under them, that is set to work about them, would all die a natural death, if they were not starved or come to some untimely end: for, in the first place, all ships having prosperous gales, and never waiting for the wind, they would make very quick voyages both out and home: secondly, no merchandises would be damaged by the sea, or by stress of weather thrown overboard, but the entire lading would always come safe ashore; and hence it would follow, that three parts in four of the merchantmen already made, would be superfluous for the present, and the stock of ships that are now in the world, serve a vast many years. Masts and yards would last as long as the vessels themselves, and we should not need to trouble Norway on that score a great while yet. The sails and rigging, indeed, of the few ships made use of would wear out, but not a quarter part so fast as now they do, for they often suffer more in one hour's storm, than in ten days fair weather.

Anchors and cables there would be seldom any occasion for, and one of each would last a ship time out of mind: this article alone, would yield many a tedious holiday to the anchor-smiths and the rope-yards. This general want of consumption would have such an influence on the timber-merchants, and all that import iron, sail-cloth, hemp, pitch, tar, &c. that four parts in five of what, in the beginning of this reflection on sea-affairs, I said, made a considerable branch of the traffic of Europe, would be entirely lost.

I have only touched hitherto on the consequences of this blessing in relation to shipping, but it would be detrimental to all other branches of trade besides, and destructive to the poor of every country, that exports any thing of their own growth or manufacture. The goods and merchandises that every year go to the deep, that are spoiled at sea by salt water, by heat, by vermine, destroyed by fire, or lost to the merchant by other accidents, all owing to storms or tedious voyages, or else the neglect or rapacity of sailors; such goods, I say, and merchandises are a considerable part of what every year is sent abroad throughout the world, and must have employed great multitudes of poor, before they could come on board. A hundred bales of cloth that are burnt or sunk in the Mediterranean, are as beneficial to the poor in England, as if they had safely arrived at Smyrna or Aleppo, and every yard of them had been retailed on the grand Signior's dominions.

The merchant may break, and by him the clothier, the dyer, the packer, and other tradesmen, the middling people, may suffer; but the poor that were set to work about them can never lose. Day-labourers commonly receive their earnings once a-week, and all the working people that were employed, either in any of the various branches of the manufacture itself, or the several land and water carriages it requires to be brought to perfection, from the sheep's back, to the vessel it was entered in, were paid, at least much the greatest part of them, before the parcel came on board. Should any of my readers draw conclusions in infinitum, from my assertions, that goods sunk or burnt are as beneficial to the poor, as if they had been well sold and put to their proper uses, I would count him a caviller and not worth answering: should it always rain and the sun never shine, the fruits of the earth would soon be rotten and destroyed; and yet it is no paradox to affirm, that, to have grass or corn, rain is as necessary as the sunshine.

In what manner this blessing of fair winds and fine weather, would affect the mariners themselves, and the breed of sailors, may be easily conjectured from what has been said already. As there would hardly one ship in four be made use of, so the vessels themselves being always exempt from storms, fewer hands would be required to work them, and consequently five in six of the seamen we have might be spared, which in this nation, most employments of the poor being overstocked, would be but an untoward article. As soon as those superfluous seamen should be extinct, it would be impossible to man such large fleets as we could at present: but I do not look upon this as a detriment, or the least inconveniency: for the reduction of mariners, as to numbers being general throughout the world, all the consequence would be, that in case of war, the maritime powers would be obliged to fight with fewer ships, which would be an happiness instead of an evil: and would you carry this felicity to the highest pitch of perfection, it is but to add one desirable blessing more, and no nation shall ever fight at all: the blessing I hint at is, what all good Christians are bound to pray for, viz. that all princes and states would be true to their oaths and promises, and just to one another, as well as their own subjects; that they might have a greater regard for the dictates of conscience and religion, than those of state politics and worldly wisdom, and prefer the spiritual welfare of others to their own carnal desires, and the honesty, the safety, the peace and tranquillity of the nations they govern, to their own love of glory, spirit of revenge, avarice, and ambition.

The last paragraph will to many seem a digression, that makes little for my purpose; but what I mean by it, is to demonstrate that goodness, integrity, and a peaceful disposition in rulers and governors of nations, are not the proper qualifications to aggrandize them, and increase their numbers; any more than the uninterrupted series of success that every private person would be blest with, if he could, and which I have shown would be injurious and destructive to a large society, that should place a felicity in worldly greatness, and being envied by their neighbours, and value themselves upon their honour and their strength.

No man needs to guard himself against blessings, but calamities require hands to avert them. The amiable qualities of man put none of the species upon stirring: his honesty, his love of company, his goodness, content and frugality, are so many comforts to an indolent society, and the more real and unaffected they are, the more they keep every thing at rest and peace, and the more they will every where prevent trouble and motion itself. The same almost may be said of the gifts and munificence of Heaven, and all the bounties and benefits of nature: this is certain, that the more extensive they are, and the greater plenty we have of them, the more we save our labour. But the necessities, the vices, and imperfections of man, together with the various inclemencies of the air and other elements, contain in them the seeds of all arts, industry and labours: it is the extremities of heat and cold, the inconstancy and badness of seasons, the violence and uncertainty of winds, the vast power and treachery of water, the rage and untractableness of fire, and the stubbornness and sterility of the earth, that rack our invention, how we shall either avoid the mischiefs they may produce, or correct the malignity of them, and turn their several forces to our own advantage a thousand different ways; while we are employed in supplying the infinite variety of our wants, which will ever be multiplied as our knowledge is enlarged, and our desires increase. Hunger, thirst, and nakedness, are the first tyrants that force us to stir: afterwards, our pride, sloth, sensuality, and fickleness, are the great patrons that promote all arts and sciences, trades, handicrafts and callings; while the great task-masters, necessity, avarice, envy, and ambition, each in the class that belongs to him, keep the members of the society to their labour, and make them all submit, most of them cheerfully, to the drudgery of their station; kings and princes not excepted.

The greater the variety of trades and manufactures the more operose they are, and the more they are divided in many branches, the greater numbers may be contained in a society without being in one another's way, and the more easily they may be rendered a rich, potent, and flourishing people. Few virtues employ any hands, and therefore they may render a small nation good, but they can never make a great one. To be strong and laborious, patient in difficulties, and assiduous in all business, are commendable qualities; but as they do their own work, so they are their own reward, and neither art nor industry have ever paid their compliments to them; whereas the excellency of human thought and contrivance, has been, and is yet no where more conspicuous than in the variety of tools and instruments of workmen and artificers, and the multiplicity of engines, that were all invented either to assist the weakness of man, to correct his many imperfections, to gratify his laziness, or obviate his impatience.

It is in morality as it is in nature, there is nothing so perfectly good in creatures, that it cannot be hurtful to any one of the society, nor any thing so entirely evil, but it may prove beneficial to some part or other of the creation: so that things are only good and evil in reference to something else, and according to the light and position they are placed in. What pleases us is good in that regard, and by this rule every man wishes well for himself to the best of his capacity, with little respect to his neighbour. There never was any rain yet, though in a very dry season when public prayers had been made for it, but somebody or other who wanted to go abroad, wished it might be fair weather only for that day. When the corn stands thick in the spring, and the generality of the country rejoice at the pleasing object, the rich farmer who kept his last year's crop for a better market, pines at the sight, and inwardly grieves at the prospect of a plentiful harvest. Nay, we shall often hear your idle people openly wish for the possessions of others, and not to be injurious forsooth add this wise proviso, that it should be without detriment to the owners: but I am afraid they often do it without any such restriction in their hearts.

It is a happiness that the prayers as well as wishes of most people, are insignificant and good for nothing; or else the only thing that could keep mankind fit for society, and the world from falling into confusion, would be the impossibility that all the petitions made to Heaven should be granted. A dutiful pretty young gentleman newly come from his travels, lies at the Briel waiting with impatience for an easterly wind, to waft him over to England, where a dying father, who wants to embrace and give him his blessing before he yields his breath, lies hoaning after him, melted with grief and tenderness: in the mean while a British minister, who is to take care of the Protestant interest in Germany, is riding post to Harwich, and in violent haste to be at Ratisbone before the diet breaks up. At the same time a rich fleet lies ready for the Mediterranean, and a fine squadron is bound for the Baltic. All these things may probably happen at once, at least there is no difficulty in supposing they should. If these people are not atheists, or very great reprobates, they will all have some good thoughts before they go to sleep, and consequently about bed-time, they must all differently pray for a fair wind and a prosperous voyage. I do not say but it is their duty, and it is possible they may be all heard, but I am sure they cannot be all served at the same time.

After this, I flatter myself to have demonstrated that, neither the friendly qualities and kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation of society; but that what we call evil in this world, moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures, the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments without exception: that there we must look for the true origin of all arts and sciences, and that the moment evil ceases, the society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved.

I could add a thousand things to enforce, and further illustrate this truth, with abundance of pleasure; but for fear of being troublesome, I shall make an end, though I confess that I have not been half so solicitous to gain the approbation of others, as I have studied to please myself in this amusement: yet if ever I hear, that by following this diversion I have given any to the intelligent reader, it will always add to the satisfaction I have received in the performance. In the hope my vanity forms of this, I leave him with regret, and conclude with repeating the seeming paradox, the substance of which is advanced in the title page; that private vices, by the dexterous management of a skilful politician, may be turned into public benefits.

A VINDICATION OF THE Book, from the Aspersions contained in a Presentment of the Grand Jury of Middlesex,

And an Abusive Letter to Lord C----

That the reader may be fully instructed in the merits of the cause between my adversaries and myself, it is requisite that, before he sees my defence, he should know the whole charge, and have before him all the accusations against me at large.

The Presentment of the Grand Jury is worded thus:

We the Grand Jury for the county of Middlesex, have, with the greatest sorrow and concern, observed the many books and pamphlets that are almost every week published against the sacred articles of our holy religion, and all discipline and order in the church, and the manner in which this is carried on, seems to us to have a direct tendency to propagate infidelity, and consequently corruption of all morals.

We are justly sensible of the goodness of the Almighty, that has preserved us from the plague, which has visited our neighbouring nation, and for which great mercy, his Majesty was graciously pleased to command, by his proclamation, that thanks should be returned to Heaven; but how provoking must it be to the Almighty, that his mercies and deliverances extended to this nation, and our thanksgiving that was publicly commanded for it, should be attended with such flagrant impieties.

We know of nothing that can be of greater service to his Majesty, and the Protestant succession (which is happily established among us for the defence of the Christian Religion), than the suppression of blasphemy and profaneness, which has a direct tendency to subvert the very foundation on which his Majesty's government is fixed.

So restless have these zealots for infidelity been in their diabolical attempts against religion, that they have,

First, Openly blasphemed and denied the doctrine of the ever Blessed Trinity, endeavouring, by species pretences, to revive the Arian heresy, which was never introduced into any nation, but the vengeance of Heaven pursued it.

Secondly, They affirm an absolute fate, and deny the Providence and government of the Almighty in the world.

Thirdly, They have endeavoured to subvert all order and discipline of the church, and by vile and unjust reflections on the clergy, they strive to bring contempt on all religion; that by the libertinism of their opinions they may encourage and draw others into the immoralities of their practice.

Fourthly, That a general libertinism may the more effectually be established, the universities are decried, and all instructions of youth in the principles of the Christian religion are exploded with the greatest malice and falsity.

Fifthly, The more effectually to carry on these works of darkness, studied artifices, and invented colours, have been made use of to run down religion and virtue as prejudicial to society, and detrimental to the state; and to recommend luxury, avarice, pride, and all kind of vices, as being necessary to public welfare, and not tending to the destruction of the constitution: nay, the very stews themselves have had strained apologies and forced encomiums made in their favour, and produced in print, with design, we conceive, to debauch the nation.

These principles having a direct tendency to the subversion of all religion and civil government, our duty to the Almighty, our love to our country, and regard to our oaths, oblige us to present

as the publisher of a book, intituled the Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices Public Benefits. 2d. Edit. 1723.

And also

as the publisher of a weekly paper, called the British Journal, Numb. 26, 35, 36, and 39.

The Letter I complain of is this:

My Lord,

It is welcome news to all the king's loyal subjects and true friends to the established government and succession in the illustrious house of Hanover, that your Lordship is said to be contriving some effectual means of securing us from the dangers, wherewith his Majesty's happy government seems to be threatened by Catiline, under the name of Cato; by the writer of a book, intituled, The Fable of the Bees, &c. and by others of their fraternity, who are undoubtedly useful friends to the Pretender, and diligent, for his sake, in labouring to subvert and ruin our constitution, under a specious pretence of defending it. Your Lordship's wise resolution, totally to suppress such impious writings, and the direction already given for having them presented, immediately, by some of the grand juries, will effectually convince the nation, that no attempts against Christianity will be suffered or endured here. And this conviction will at once rid men's minds of the uneasiness which this flagitious race of writers has endeavoured to raise in them; will therefore be a firm bulwark to the Protestant religion; will effectually defeat the projects and hopes of the Pretender; and best secure us against any change in the ministry. And no faithful Briton could be unconcerned, if the people should imagine any the least neglect in any single person bearing a

## part in the ministry, or begin to grow jealous, that any thing could

be done, which is not done, in defending their religion from every the least appearance of danger approaching towards it. And, my Lord, this jealousy might have been apt to rise, if no measures had been taken to discourage and crush the open advocates of irreligion. It is no easy matter to get jealousy out of one's brains, when it is once got into them. Jealousy, my Lord! it is as furious a fiend as any of them all. I have seen a little thin weak woman so invigorated by a fit of jealousy, that five grenadiers could not hold her. My Lord, go on with your just methods of keeping the people clear of this cursed jealousy: for amongst the various kinds and occasions of it, that which concerns their religion, is the most violent, flagrant, frantic sort of all; and accordingly has, in former reigns, produced those various mischiefs, which your Lordship has faithfully determined to prevent, dutifully regarding the royal authority, and conforming to the example of his Majesty, who has graciously given directions (which are well known to your Lordship) for the preserving of unity in the church; and the purity of the Christian faith. It is in vain to think that the people of England will ever give up their religion, or be very fond of any ministry that will not support it, as the wisdom of this ministry has done, against such audacious attacks as are made upon it by the scribblers; for scribbler, your Lordship knows, is the just appellation of every author, who, under whatever plausible appearance of good sense, attempts to undermine the religion, and therefore the content and quiet, the peace and happiness of his fellow-subjects, by subtle and artful, and fallacious arguments and insinuations. May Heaven avert those insufferable miseries, which the Church of Rome would bring upon us! tyranny is the bane of human society, and there is no tyranny heavier than that of the triple crown. And, therefore, this free and happy people has justly conceived an utter abhorrence and dread of Popery, and of every thing that looks like encouragement or tendency to it; but they do also abhor and dread the violence offered to Christianity itself, by our British Catilines, who shelter their treacherous designs against it, under the false colours of regard and good will to our blessed Protestant religion, while they demonstrate, too plainly demonstrate, that the title of Protestants does not belong to them, unless it can belong to those who are in effect protestors against all religion.

And really the people cannot be much blamed for being a little unwilling to part with their religion: for they tell ye that there is a God; and that God governs the world; and that he is wont to bless or blast a kingdom, in proportion to the degrees of religion or irreligion prevailing in it. Your Lordship has a fine collection of books; and, which is a finer thing still, you do certainly understand them, and can turn to an account of any important affair in a trice. I would therefore fain know, whether your Lordship can show, from any writer, let him be as profane as the scribblers would have him, that any one empire, kingdom, country, or province, great or small, did not dwindle and sink, and was confounded, when it once failed of providing studiously for the support of religion.

The scribblers talk much of the Roman government, and liberty, and the spirit of the old Romans. But it is undeniable, that their most plausible talk of these things is all pretence, and grimace, and an artifice to serve the purposes of irreligion; and by consequence to render the people uneasy, and ruin the kingdom. For if they did in reality esteem, and would faithfully recommend to their countrymen, the sentiments and principles, the main purposes and practices of the wise and prosperous Romans, they would, in the first place, put us in mind, that old Rome was as remarkable for observing and promoting natural religion, as new Rome has been for corrupting that which is revealed. And as the old Romans did signally recommend themselves to the favour of heaven, by their faithful care of religion; so were they abundantly convinced, and did accordingly acknowledge, with universal consent, that their care of religion was the great means [8] of God's preserving the empire, and crowning it with conquest and success, prosperity and glory. Hence it was, that when their orators were bent upon exerting their utmost in moving and persuading the people, upon any occasion, they ever put them in mind of their religion, if that could be any way affected by the point in debate; not doubting that the people would determine in their favour, if they could but demonstrate, that the safety of religion depended upon the success of their cause. And, indeed, neither the Romans, nor any other nation upon earth, did ever suffer their established religion to be openly ridiculed, exploded, or opposed: and I am sure, your Lordship would not, for all the world, that this thing would be done with impunity amongst us, which was never endured in the world before. Did ever any man, since the blessed revelation of the gospel, run riot upon Christianity, as some men, nay, and some few women too, have lately done? must the devil grow rampant at this rate, and not to be called coram nobis? Why should not he content himself to carry off people in the common way, the way of cursing and swearing, Sabbath breaking and cheating, bribery, and hypocrisy, drunkenness and whoring, and such kind of things as he used to do? never let him domineer in mens mouths and writings, as he does now, with loud, tremendous infidelity, blasphemy and profaneness, enough to frighten the King's subjects out of their wits. We are now come to a short question: God or the devil? that is the word; and time will show, who and who goes together. Thus much may be said at present, that those have abundantly shown their spirit of opposition to sacred things, who have not only inveighed against the national profession and exercise of religion; and endeavoured, with bitterness and dexterity, to render it odious and contemptible, but are solicitous to hinder multitudes of the natives of this island from having the very seeds of religion sown among them with advantage.

Arguments are urged, with the utmost vehemence, against the education of poor children in the charity schools, though there hath not one just reason been offered against the provision made for that education. The things that have been objected against it are not, in fact, true; and nothing ought to be regarded, by serious and wise men, as a weighty or just argument, if it is not a true one. How hath Catiline the confidence left to look any man in the face, after he hath spent more confidence than most mens whole stock amounts to, in saying, that this pretended charity has, in effect, destroyed all other charities, which were before given to the aged, sick, and impotent.

It seems pretty clear, that if those, who do not contribute to any charity school, are become more uncharitable to any other object than formerly they were, their want of charity to the one, is not owing to their contribution to the other. And as to those who do contribute to these schools; they are so far from being more sparing in their relief of other objects, than they were before, that the poor widows, the aged and the impotent do plainly receive more relief from them, in proportion to their numbers and abilities, than from any the same numbers of men under the same circumstances of fortune, who do not concern themselves with charity schools, in any respect, but in condemning and decrying them. I will meet Catiline at the Grecian coffee-house any day in the week, and by an enumeration of particular persons, in as great a number as he pleaseth, demonstrate the truth of what I say. But I do not much depend upon his giving me the meeting, because it is his business, not to encourage demonstrations of the truth, but to throw disguises upon it; otherwise, he never could have allowed himself, after representing the charity schools as intended to breed up children to reading and writing, and a sober behaviour, that they may be qualified to be servants, immediately to add these words, a sort of idle and rioting vermin, by which the kingdom is already almost devoured, and are become every where a public nuisance, &c. What? Is it owing to the charity schools, that servants are become so idle, such rioting vermin, such a public nuisance; that women-servants turn whores, and the men-servants robbers, house-breakers, and sharpers? (as he says they commonly do). Is this owing to the charity schools? or, if it is not, how comes he to allow himself the liberty of representing these schools as a means of increasing this load of mischief, which is indeed too plainly fallen upon the public? The imbibing principles of virtue hath not, usually, been thought the chief occasion of running into vice. If the early knowledge of truth, and of our obligations to it, were the surest means of departing from it, nobody would doubt, that the knowledge of truth was instilled into Catiline very early, and with the utmost care. It is a good pretty thing in him to spread a report, and to lay so much stress upon it as he does, that there is more collected at the church doors in a day, to make these poor boys and girls appear in caps and livery-coats, than for all the poor in a year. O rare Catiline! This point you will carry most swimmingly; for you have no witnesses against you, nor any living soul to contradict you, except the collectors and overseers of the poor, and all other principal inhabitants of most of the parishes, where any charity schools are in England.

The jest of it is, my Lord, that these scribblers would still be thought good moral men. But, when men make it their business to mislead and deceive their neighbours, and that in matters of moment, by distorting and disguising the truth, by misrepresentations and false insinuations; if such men are not guilty of usurpation, while they take upon them the character of good moral men, then it is not immoral, in any man, to be false and deceitful, in cases where the law cannot touch him for being so, and morality bears no relation to truth and fair dealing. However, I shall not be very willing to meet one of these moral men upon Hounslow-heath, if I should happen to ride that way without pistols. For I have a notion, that they who have no conscience in one point, do not much abound with it in another. Your Lordship, who judges accurately of men, as well as books, will easily imagine, if you had no other knowledge of the charity schools, that there must be something very excellent in them because such kind of men as these are so warm in opposing them.

They tell you, that these schools are hindrances to husbandry and to manufacture. As to husbandry; the children are not kept in the schools longer than till they are of age and strength to perform the principal parts of it, or to bear constant labour in it; and even while they are under this course of education, your Lordship may depend upon it, that they shall never be hindered from working in the fields, or being employed in such labour as they are capable of, in any parts of the year, when they can get such employment for the support of their parents and themselves. In this case, the parents, in the several counties, are proper judges of their several situations and circumstances, and at the same time, not so very fond of their children getting a little knowledge, rather than a little money, but that they will find other employment for them than going to school, whenever they can get a penny by so doing. And the case is the same as to the manufactures; the trustees of the charity schools, and the parents of the children bred in them, would be thankful to those gentlemen who make the objection, if they would assist in removing it, by subscribing to a fund for joining the employment of manufacture, to the business of learning to read and write in the charity schools. This would be a noble work: it is already effected by the supporters of some charity schools, and is aimed at, and earnestly desired by all the rest: but Rome was not built in a day. Till this great thing can be brought about, let the masters and managers of the manufactures in the several places of the kingdom, be so charitable as to employ the poor children for a certain number of hours in every day, in the respective manufactures, while the trustees are taking care to fill up their other hours of the day, in the usual duties of the charity schools. It is an easy matter for party-men, for designing and perverted minds, to invent colourable, fallacious arguments, and to offer railing, under the appearance of reasoning, against the best things in the world. But undoubtedly, no impartial man, who is affected with a serious sense of goodness, and a real love of his country, can think this proper and just view of the charity schools, liable to any just weighty objection, or refuse to contribute his endeavours to improve and raise them to that perfection which is proposed in them. In the mean time, let no man be so weak or so wicked as to deny, that when poor children cannot meet with employment in any other honest way, rather than suffer their tender age to be spent in idleness, or in learning the arts of lying, and swearing, and stealing, it is true charity to them, and good service done to our country, to employ them in learning the principles of religion and virtue, till their age and strength will enable them to become servants in families, or to be engaged in husbandry, or manufacture, or any kind of mechanic trade or laborious employment; for to these laborious employments are the charity children generally, if not always turned, as soon as they become capable of them: and therefore Catiline may be pleased to retract his objection concerning shop-keepers, or retailers of commodities, wherein he has affirmed, that their employments, which he says ought to fall to the share of children of their own degree, are mostly anticipated and engrossed by the managers of the charity schools. He must excuse my acquainting your Lordship, that this affirmation is in fact directly false, which is an inconvenience very apt to fall upon his affirmations, as it has

## particularly done upon one of them more, which I would mention. For he

is not ashamed roundly to assert, That the principles of our common people are debauched in our charity schools, who are taught, as soon as they can speak, to blabber out High-church and Ormond, and so are bred up to be traitors before they know what treason signifies. Your Lordship, and other persons of integrity, whose words are the faithful representatives of their meaning, would now think, if I had not given you a key to Catiline's talk, that he has been fully convinced, that the children in the charity schools are bred up to be traitors.

My Lord, if any one master be suffered by the trustees to continue in any charity school, against whom proof can be brought, that he is disaffected to the government, or that he does not as faithfully teach the children obedience and loyalty to the King, as any other duty in the catechism, then I will gratify Catiline with a licence to pull down the schools, and hang up the masters, according to his heart's desire.

These, and such things as these, are urged with the like bitterness, and as little truth, in the book mentioned above, viz. The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices, Public Benefits, &c. Catiline explodes the fundamental articles of faith, impiously comparing the doctrine of the blessed Trinity to fee-fa-fum: this profligate author of the Fable is not only an auxiliary to Catiline in opposition to faith, but has taken upon him to tear up the very foundations of moral virtue, and establish vice in its room. The best physician in the world did never labour more, to purge the natural body of bad qualities, than this bumble-bee has done to purge the body-politic of good ones. He himself bears testimony to the truth of this charge against him: for when he comes to the conclusion of his book, he makes this observation upon himself and his performance: "After this, I flatter myself to have demonstrated, that neither the friendly qualities and kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation of society; but that what we call evil in this world, moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures, the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments without exception: that there we must look for the true origin of all arts and sciences, and that the moment evil ceases, the society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved."

Now, my Lord, you see the grand design, the main drift of Catiline and his confederates; now the scene opens, and the secret springs appear; now the fraternity adventure to speak out, and surely no band of men ever dared to speak at this rate before; now you see the true cause of all their enmity to the poor charity schools; it is levelled against religion: religion, my Lord, which the schools are instituted to promote, and which this confederacy is resolved to destroy; for the schools are certainly one of the greatest instruments of religion and virtue, one of the firmest bulwarks against Popery, one of the best recommendations of this people to the Divine favour, and therefore one of the greatest blessings to our country of any thing that has been set on foot since our happy Reformation and deliverance from the idolatry and tyranny of Rome. If any trivial inconvenience did arise from so excellent a work, as some little inconvenience attends all human institutions and affairs, the excellency of the work would still be matter of joy, and find encouragement with all the wise and the good, who despise such insignificant objections against it, as other men are not ashamed to raise and defend.

Now your Lordship also sees the true cause of the satire, which is continually formed against the clergy, by Catiline and his confederates. Why should Mr. Hall's conviction and execution be any more an objection against the clergy, than Mr. Layer's against the gentlemen of the long robe? Why, because the profession of the law does not immediately relate to religion: and therefore Catiline will allow, that if any persons of that profession should be traitors, or otherwise vicious, all the rest may, notwithstanding the iniquity of a brother, be as loyal and virtuous as any other subjects in the King's dominions: but because matters of religion are the professed concern, and the employment of the clergy; therefore Catiline's logic makes it out, as clear as the day, that if any of them be disaffected to the government, all the rest are so too; or if any of them be chargeable with vice, this consequence from it is plain, that all or most of the rest are as vicious as the devil can make them. I shall not trouble your Lordship with a particular vindication of the clergy, nor is there any reason that I should, for they are already secure of your Lordship's good affection to them, and they are able to vindicate themselves wheresoever such a vindication is wanted, being as faithful, and virtuous, and learned, a body of men as any in Europe; and yet they suspend the publication of arguments in a solemn defence of themselves, because they neither expect nor desire approbation and esteem from impious and abandoned men; and, at the same time, they cannot doubt that all persons, not only of great penetration, but of common sense, do now clearly see, that the arrows shot against the clergy are intended to wound and destroy the divine institution of the ministerial offices, and to extirpate the religion which the sacred offices were appointed to preserve and promote. This was always supposed and suspected by every honest and impartial man; but it is now demonstrated by those who before had given occasion to such suspicions, for they have now openly declared, that faith, in the principal articles of it, is not only needless, but ridiculous, that the welfare of human society must sink and perish under the encouragement of virtue, and that immorality is the only firm foundation whereon the happiness of mankind can be built and subsist. The publication of such tenets as these, an open avowed proposal to extirpate the Christian faith and all virtue, and to fix moral evil for the basis of the government, is so stunning, so shocking, so frightful, so flagrant an enormity, that if it should be imputed to us as a national guilt, the Divine vengeance must inevitably fall upon us. And how far this enormity would become a national guilt, if it should pass disregarded and unpunished, a casuist less skilful and discerning than your Lordship may easily guess. And, no doubt, your Lordship's good judgment, in so plain and important a case, has made you, like a wise and faithful patriot, resolve to use your utmost endeavours in your high station, to defend religion from the bold attacks made upon it.

As soon as I have seen a copy of the bill, for the better security of his Majesty and his happy government, by the better security of religion in Great Britain, your Lordship's just scheme of politics, your love of your country, and your great services done to it, shall again be acknowledged by,

My Lord,

Your most faithful humble Servant;

Theophilus Philo-Britannus.

These violent accusations, and the great clamour every where raised against the book, by governors, masters, and other champions of charity schools, together with the advice of friends, and the reflection on what I owed to myself, drew from me the following answer. The candid reader, in the perusal of it, will not be offended at the repetition of some passages, one of which he may have met with twice already, when he shall consider that, to make my defence by itself to the public, I was obliged to repeat what had been quoted in the Letter, since the paper would unavoidably fall into the hands of many who had never seen either the Fable of the Bees, or the Defamatory Letter wrote against it. The Answer was published in the London Journal of August 10, 1723, in these words:

Whereas, in the Evening Post of Thursday July 11, a presentment was inserted of the Grand Jury of Middlesex, against the publisher of a book, intituled, The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices, Public Benefits; and since that, a passionate and abusive Letter has been published against the same book, and the author of it, in the London Journal of Saturday, July 27; I think myself indispensably obliged to vindicate the above said book against the black aspersions that undeservedly have been cast upon it, being conscious that I have not had the least ill design in composing it. The accusations against it having been made openly in the public papers, it is not equitable the defence of it should appear in a more private manner. What I have to say in my behalf, I shall address to all men of sense and sincerity, asking no other favour of them, than their patience and attention. Setting aside what in that Letter relates to others, and every thing that is foreign and immaterial, I shall begin with the passage that is quoted from the book, viz. "After this, I flatter myself to have demonstrated, that neither the friendly qualities and kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation of society; but that what we call evil in this world, moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures; the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments without exception: That there we must look for the true origin of all arts and sciences; and that the moment evil ceases, the society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved." These words, I own, are in the book, and, being both innocent and true, like to remain there in all future impressions. But I will likewise own very freely, that, if I had wrote with a design to be understood by the meanest capacities, I would not have chose the subject there treated of; or if I had, I would have amplified and explained every period, talked and distinguished magisterially, and never appeared without the fescue in my hand. As for example; to make the passage pointed at intelligible, I would have bestowed a page or two on the meaning of the word Evil; after that I would have taught them, that every defect, every want, was an evil; that on the multiplicity of those wants depended all those mutual services which the individual members of a society pay to each other; and that consequently, the greater variety there was of wants, the larger number of individuals might find their private interest in labouring for the good of others, and, united together, compose one body. Is there a trade or handicraft but what supplies us with something we wanted? This want certainly, before it was supplied, was an evil, which that trade or handicraft was to remedy, and without which it could never have been thought of. Is there an art or science that was not invented to mend some defect! Had this latter not existed, there could have been no occasion for the former to move it. I say, p. 236. "The excellency of human thought and contrivance has been, and is yet nowhere more conspicuous, than in the variety of tools and instruments of workmen and artificers, and the multiplicity of engines, that were all invented, either to assist the weakness of man, to correct his many imperfections, to gratify his laziness, or obviate his impatience." Several foregoing pages run in the same strain. But what relation has all this to religion or infidelity, more than it has to navigation or the peace in the north?

The many hands that are employed to supply our natural wants, that are really such, as hunger, thirst, and nakedness, are inconsiderable to the vast numbers that are all innocently gratifying the depravity of our corrupt nature, I mean the industrious, who get a livelihood by their honest labour, to which the vain and voluptuous must be beholden for all their tools and implements of ease and luxury. "The short-sighted vulgar, in the chain of causes, seldom can see farther than one link; but those who can enlarge their view, and will give themselves leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated events, may, in a hundred places, see good spring up, and pullulate from evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs."

The words are to be found p. 46. in the Remark made on the seeming paradox; that in the grumbling hive,

The worst of all the multitude Did something for the common good.

Where, in many instances, may be amply discovered, how unsearchable Providence daily orders the comforts of the laborious, and even the deliverances of the oppressed, secretly to come forth, not only from the vices of the luxurious, but likewise the crimes of the flagitious and most abandoned.

Men of candour and capacity perceive, at first sight, that in the passage censured, there is no meaning hid or expressed that is not altogether contained in the following words: "Man is a necessitous creature on innumerable accounts, and yet from those very necessities, and nothing else, arise all trades and employments." But it is ridiculous for men to meddle with books above their sphere.

The Fable of the Bees was designed for the entertainment of people of knowledge and education, when they have an idle hour which they know not how to spend better: it is a book of severe and exalted morality, that contains a strict test of virtue, an infallible touchstone to distinguish the real from the counterfeited, and shows many

## actions to be faulty that are palmed upon the world for good ones:

it describes the nature and symptoms of human passions, detects their force and disguises; and traces self-love in its darkest recesses; I might safely add, beyond any other system of ethics: the whole is a rhapsody void of order or method, but no part of it has any thing in it that is sour or pedantic; the style, I confess, is very unequal, sometimes very high and rhetorical, and sometimes very low, and even very trivial; such as it is, I am satisfied that it has diverted persons of great probity and virtue, and unquestionable good sense; and I am in no fear that it will ever cease to do so while it is read by such. Whoever has seen the violent charge against this book, will pardon me for saying more in commendation of it, than a man, not labouring under the same necessity, would do of his own work on any other occasion.

The encomiums upon stews complained of in the presentment are no where in the book. What might give a handle to this charge, must be a political dissertation concerning the best method to guard and preserve women of honour and virtue from the insults of dissolute men, whose passions are often ungovernable: As in this there is a dilemma between two evils, which it is impracticable to shun both, so I have treated it with the utmost caution, and begin thus: "I am far from encouraging vice, and should think it an unspeakable felicity for a state, if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly banished from it; but I am afraid it is impossible." I give my reasons why I think it so; and, speaking occasionally of the music-houses at Amsterdam, I give a short account of them, than which nothing can be more harmless; and I appeal to all impartial judges, whether, what I have said of them is not ten times more proper to give men (even the voluptuous of any state) a disgust and aversion against them, than it is to raise any criminal desire. I am sorry the Grand Jury should conceive that I published this with a design to debauch the nation, without considering, that, in the first place, there is not a sentence nor a syllable that can either offend the chastest ear, or sully the imagination of the most vicious; or, in the second, that the matter complained of is manifestly addressed to magistrates and politicians, or, at least, the more serious and thinking part of mankind; whereas a general corruption of manners as to lewdness, to be produced by reading, can only be apprehended from obscenities easily purchased, and every way adapted to the tastes and capacities of the heedless multitude and unexperienced youth of both sexes: but that the performance, so outrageously exclaimed against, was never calculated for either of these classes of people, is self-evident from every circumstance. The beginning of the prose is altogether philosophical, and hardly intelligible to any that have not been used to matters of speculation; and the running title of it is so far from being specious or inviting, that without having read the book itself, nobody knows what to make of it, while, at the same time, the price is five shillings. From all which it is plain, that if the book contains any dangerous tenets, I have not been very solicitous to scatter them among the people. I have not said a word to please or engage them, and the greatest compliment I have made them has been, Apage vulgus. But as nothing (I say, p. 138) would more clearly demonstrate the falsity of my notions than that, the generality of the people should fall in with them, so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude. I write not to many, nor seek for any well-wishers, but among the few that can think abstractly, and have their minds elevated above the vulgar." Of this I have made no ill use, and ever preserved such a tender regard to the public, that when I have advanced any uncommon sentiments, I have used all the precautions imaginable, that they might not be hurtful to weak minds that might casually dip into the book. When (p. 137.) I owned, "That it was my sentiment that no society could be raised into a rich and mighty kingdom, or so raised subsist in their wealth and power for any considerable time, without the vices of man," I had premised, what was true, "That I had never said or imagined, that man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty kingdom, as in the most pitiful commonwealth:" which caution, a man less scrupulous than myself might have thought superfluous, when he had already explained himself on that head in the very same paragraph which begins thus: "I lay down, as a first principle, that in all societies, great or small, it is the duty of every member of it to be good; that virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced, the laws obeyed, and the transgressors punished." There is not a line in the book that contradicts this doctrine, and I defy my enemies to disprove what I have advanced, p. 139, "That if I have shown the way to worldly greatness, I have always, without hesitation, preferred the road that leads to virtue." No man ever took more pains not to be misconstrued than myself: mind p. 138, when I say, "That societies cannot be raised to wealth and power, and the top of earthly glory, without vices; I do not think, that by so saying, I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or covetous, when I affirm, that the profession of the law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendour, if there was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people." A caution of the same nature I had already given towards the end of the Preface, on account of a palpable evil inseparable from the felicity of London. To search into the real causes of things, imports no ill design, nor has any tendency to do harm. A man may write on poisons, and be an excellent physician. Page 235, I say, "No man needs to guard himself against blessings, but calamities require hands to avert them." And lower, "It is the extremities of heat and cold, the inconstancy and badness of seasons, the violence and uncertainty of winds, the vast power and treachery of water, the rage and untractableness of fire, and the stubbornness and sterility of the earth, that rack our invention, how we shall either avoid the mischiefs they produce, or correct the malignity of them, and turn their several forces to our own advantage a thousand different ways." While a man is inquiring into the occupation of vast multitudes, I cannot see why he may not say all this and much more, without being accused of depreciating and speaking slightly of the gifts and munificence of heaven; when, at the same time, he demonstrates, that without rain and sunshine this globe would not be habitable to creatures like ourselves. It is an out-of-the-way subject, and I would never quarrel with the man who should tell me that it might as well have been let alone: yet I always thought it would please men of any tolerable taste, and not be easily lost.

My vanity I could never conquer, so well as I could wish; and I am too proud to commit crimes, and as to the main scope, the intent of the book, I mean the view it was wrote with, I protest that it has been with the utmost sincerity, what I have declared of it in the Preface, where you will find these words: "If you ask me, why I have done all this, cui bono? And what good these notions will produce? Truly, besides the reader's diversion, I believe none at all; but if I was asked, what naturally ought to be expected from them? I would answer, That, in the first place, the people who continually find fault with others, by reading them would be taught to look at home, and examining their own consciences, be made ashamed of always railing at what they are more or less guilty of themselves; and that, in the next, those who are so fond of the ease and comforts of a great and flourishing nation, would learn more patiently to submit to those inconveniences, which no government upon earth can remedy, when they should see the impossibility of enjoying any great share of the first, without partaking likewise of the latter."

The first impression of the Fable of the Bees, which came out in 1714, was never carped at, or publicly taken notice of; and all the reason I can think on, why this second edition should be so unmercifully treated, though it has many precautions which the former wanted, is an Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, which is added to what was printed before. I confess, that it is my sentiment, that all hard and dirty work, ought, in a well-governed nation, to be the lot and portion of the poor, and that to divert their children from useful labour till they are fourteen or fifteen years old, is a wrong method to qualify them for it when are they grown up. I have given several reasons for my opinion in that Essay, to which I refer all impartial men of understanding, assuring them that they will not meet with such monstrous impiety in it as reported. What an advocate I have been for libertinism and immorality, and what an enemy to all instructions of youth in the Christian faith, may be collected from the pains I have taken on education for above seven pages together: and afterwards again, page 193, where speaking of the instructions the children of the poor might receive at church; from which, I say, "Or some other place of worship, I would not have the meanest of a parish that is able to walk to it, be absent on Sundays," I have these words: "It is the Sabbath, the most useful day in seven, that is set apart for divine service and religious exercise, as well as resting from bodily labour; and it is a duty incumbent on all magistrates, to take a particular care of that day. The poor more especially, and their children, should be made to go to church on it, both in the fore and the afternoon, because they have no time on any other. By precept and example, they ought to be encouraged to it from their very infancy: the wilful neglect of it ought to be counted scandalous; and if downright compulsion to what I urge might seem too harsh, and perhaps impracticable, all diversions at least ought strictly to be prohibited, and the poor hindered from every amusement abroad, that might allure or draw them from it." If the arguments I have made use of are not convincing, I desire they may be refuted, and I will acknowledge it as a favour in any one that shall convince me of my error, without ill language, by showing me wherein I have been mistaken: but calumny, it seems, is the shortest way of confuting an adversary, when men are touched in a sensible part. Vast sums are gathered for these charity schools, and I understand human nature too well to imagine, that the sharers of the money should hear them spoke against with any patience. I foresaw, therefore, the usage I was to receive, and having repeated the common cant that is made for charity schools, I told my readers, page 165. "This is the general cry, and he that speaks the least word against it, is an uncharitable, hard-hearted, and inhuman, if not a wicked, profane and atheistical wretch." For this reason, it cannot be thought, that it was a great surprise to me, when in that extraordinary letter to Lord C. I saw myself called "profligate author; the publication of my tenets, an open and avowed proposal to extirpate the Christian faith and all virtue, and what I had done so stunning, so shocking, so frightful, so flagrant an enormity, that it cried for the vengeance of Heaven." This is no more than what I have already expected from the enemies to truth and fair dealing, and I shall retort nothing on the angry author of that letter, who endeavours to expose me to the public fury. I pity him, and have charity enough to believe that he has been imposed upon himself, by trusting to fame and the hearsay of others; for no man in his wits can imagine that he should have read one quarter part of my book, and write as he does.

I am sorry if the words Private Vices, Public Benefits, have ever given any offence to a well-meaning man. The mystery of them is soon unfolded, when once they are rightly understood; but no man of sincerity will question the innocence of them, that has read the last paragraph, where I take my leave of the reader, "and conclude with repeating the seeming paradox, the substance of which is advanced in the title page; that private vices, by the dexterous management of a skilful politician, may be turned into public benefits." These are the last words of the book, printed in the same large character with the rest. But I set aside all what I have said in my vindication; and if, in the whole book called the Fable of the Bees, and presented by the grand jury of Middlesex to the judges of the King's Bench, there is to be found the least title of blasphemy or profaneness, or any thing tending to immorality or the corruption of manners, I desire it may be published; and if this be done without invective, personal reflections, or setting the mob upon me, things I never design to answer, I will not only recant, but likewise beg pardon of the offended public in the most solemn manner: and (if the hangman might be thought too good for the office) burn the book myself, at any reasonable time and place my adversaries shall be pleased to appoint.

The Author of the Fable of the Bees.

THE FABLE OF THE BEES.

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