"tiality of fortune, levied by the law of fociety, "which will not truft its poor members to the "precarious charity of the rich: Another part ❝must go to the debts and neceffities of the go❝vernment, which protects you in war and "peace, and is also a fine, which you must be " content to pay for the honour of being an "Englishman, and the advantage of living in a "land of liberty and fecurity. The learned "c profeffions will also have their fhare; the "church for taking care of your soul, the phy❝fician for looking after your body, and the

lawyer must have part of your property for "fuperintending the reft. The merchant, tradef"man and artifan will have their profit upon all "the multiplied wants, comforts and indulgen <c ces of civilized life; these are not to be enu"merated, for they depend on the humours "and habits of men; they have grown up with "the refinements and elegancies of the age, "and they will further encreafe, as these fhall "advance: They are the conductors, which, "like the blood-veffels in the human frame, cir"culate your wealth, and every other man's "wealth, through every limb and even fibre “of the national body: The hand of industry "creates that wealth, and to the hand of "industry

industry it finally returns, as blood does to the heart.'

If we trace the fituation of man from a mere ftate of nature to the higheft ftate of civilization, we fhall find thefe artificial wants and dependences encrease with every stage and degree of his improvements; fo that if we confider each nation apart as one great machine, the feveral parts and fprings, which give it motion, naturally be come more and more complicated and multifarious, as the uses to which it is applied are more and more diverfified. Again, if we compare two nations in an equal state of civilization, we may remark, that where the greater freedom obtains, there the greater variety of artificial wants will obtain alfo, and of course property will circulate through more channels: This I take to be the cafe upon a comparison between France and England, arifing from the different conftitutions of them and us with refpect to civil liberty.

The natural wants of men are pretty much the fame in moft ftates, but the humours of men will take different directions in different coun◄ tries, and are governed in a great degree by the laws and constitution of the realm in which they are found: There are numbers of people in England, who get their living by arts and occu pations, which would not be tolerated in a de

spotic government. Men's manners are fimplified in proportion to the restraint and circumfeription under which they are kept. The country fports of English gentlemen furnish maintenance and employment to vaft numbers of our people, whereas in France and other arbitrary ftates, men of the first rank and fortune refide in the capital, and keep no establishments of this fort. What a train of grooms, jockies and ftable-boys follow the heels of our horfes and hounds in tight boots and leather breeches! each of which carries the clothes of fix men upon his back, cafed in one fkin of flannel under another, like the coats of an onion. The locomotive mania of an Englishman circulates his perfon, and of course his cash, into every quarter of the kingdom: A Frenchman takes a journey only when he cannot help it, an Englishman has no other reason but because he likes it; he moves with every fhift of the weather, and follows the changes of the most variable climate in the world; a frofty morning puts him from his hunting, and he is in London before night; a thaw meets him in town, and again he scampers into the country: He has a horfe to run at Epfom, another at Salisbury, and a third at York, and he muft be on the fpot to back every one of them; he has a ftud at Newmarket, a miftrefs in Lon

don,

don, a fhooting-box in Norfolk, and a pack of fox-hounds in the New Foreft: For one wheel that real business puts in motion, pleasure, whim, ennui turn one hundred: Sickness, which confines all the rest of the world, fends him upon his travels; one doctor plunges him into the fea at Brighthelmftone, a fecond steeps him in warm water at Buxton; and a third fends him to Bath; for the gentlemen of the learned faculty, whether they help us into life, or help us out of it, make us pay toll at each gate; and if at any time their art keeps us alive, the fine we must pay to their ingenuity makes the renewal in fome cafes too hard a bargain for a poor man to profit by. In all other countries upon earth a man is contented to be well and pay nothing for being fo, but in England even health is an expensive article, as we are for ever contriving how to be a little better, and phyficians are too confcientious to take a fee and do nothing for it. If there is any thing like ridicule in this, it is against the patient and not against the physician I would wish to point it; it is in England that the profeffion is truly dignified, and if it is here accompanied with greater emoluments, it is proportionably practifed with fuperior learning; if life is more valuable in a land of freedom than in a land of flavery, why should it not be paid for according

cording to its value? In defpotic ftates, where men's lives are in fact the property of the prince, all fubjects fhould in juftice be cured or killed at his proper charge; but where a man's houfe is his caftle, his health is his own concern.

As to the other learned profeffion of the law, to its honour be it fpoken, there is that charming perplexity about it, that we can ruin one another and ourfelves with the greatest certainty and facility. It is fo fuperior to all other fciences, that it can turn demonftration into doubt, truth into contradiction, make improbability put matter of fact out of countenance, and hang up a point for twenty years, which common fenfe would decide in as many minutes. It is the glorious privilege of the freemen of England to make their own laws, and they have made fo many, that they can neither count them up nor comprehend them. The parliament of England is without comparison the moft voluminous author in the world; and there is fuch a happy ambiguity in its works, that its ftudents have as much to fay on the wrong fide of every queftion as upon the right: In all cafes of difcuffion it is one man's business to puzzle, and another's to explain, and though victory be ever fo certain, it is agreed between the parties to make a long battle: There must be an extraordinary faculty

of