retain our corn, and feed ourselves upon that which was sown and raised to feed other nations. It is perhaps impossible for human wisdom to go further, than to contrive a law of which the good is certain and uniform, and the evil, though possible in itself, yet always subject to certain and effectual restraints. This is the true state of the bounty upon corn: it certainly and necessarily increases our crops, and can never lessen them but by our own permission. That, notwithstanding the bounty, there have been from time to time years of scarcity, cannot be denied. But who can regulate the seasons? In the dearest years we owe to the bounty that they have not been dearer. We must always suppose part of our ground sown for our own consumption, and part in hope of a foreign sale. The time sometimes comes, when the product of all this land is scarcely sufficient; but if the whole be too little, how great would have been the deficiency, if we had sown only that part which was designed for ourselves? "But perhaps, if exportation were less encouraged, the superfluous stores of plentiful years might be laid up by the farmer against years of scarcity." This may be justly answered by affirming, that, if exportation were discouraged, we should have no years of plenty. Cheapness is produced by the possibility of dearness. Our farmers at present plough and sow with the hope that some country will always be in want, and that they shall grow rich by supplying. Indefinite hopes are always carried by the frailty of human nature beyond reason. While therefore exportation is encouraged, as much corn will be raised as the farmer can hope to sell, and therefore generally more than can be sold at the price of which he dreamed, when he ploughed and sowed. the good of the bounty is certain, and evil avoida ble; that by the hope of exportation corn will be increased, and that this increase may be kept at home. Plenty can only be produced by encouraging agriculture; and agriculture can be encouraged only by making it gainful. No influence can dispose the farmer to sow what he cannot sell; and if he is not to have the chance of scarcity in his favour, he will take care that there never shall be plenty. The truth of these principles our ancestors discovered by reason, and the French have now found it by experience. In this regulation we have the honour of being masters to those who, in commercial policy, have been long accounted the masters of the world. Their prejudices, their emulation, and their vanity, have at last submitted to learn of us how to ensure the bounties of nature; and it forms a strange vicissitude of opinions, that should incline us to repeal the law which our rivals are adopting. It may be speciously enough proposed, that the bounty should be discontinued sooner. Of this every man will have his own opinion; which, as no general principles can reach it, will always seem to him more reasonable than that of another. This is a question of which the state is always changing with time and place, and which it is therefore very difficult to state or to discuss. It may however be considered, that the change of old establishments is always an evil; and that therefore, where the good of the change is not certain and constant, it is better to preserve that reverence and that confidence which is produced by consistency of conduct and permanency of laws. That, since the bounty was so fixed, the price of money has been much diminished: so that the bounty does not operate so far as when it was first fixed, but the price at which it ceases, though nominally the same, has, in effect and in reality, gradually diminished. The greatest part of our corn is well known to be raised by those who pay rent for the ground which they employ, and of whom few can bear to delay the sale of one year's produce to another. It is therefore vain to hope that large stocks of It is difficult to discover any reason why that grain will ever remain in private hands; he that bounty, which has produced so much good, and has not sold the corn of last year, will with diffi- has hitherto produced no harm, should be withdence and reluctance till his field again: the drawn or abated. It is possible, that, if it were accumulation of a few years would end in a vaca-reduced lower, it would still be the motive of tion of agriculture, and the husbandman would agriculture, and the cause of plenty; but why apply himself to some more profitable calling. we should desert experience for conjecture, and If the exportation of corn were totally prohibit-exchange a known for a possible good, will not ed, the quantity possible to be consumed among us would be quickly known, and being known would rarely be exceeded; for why should corn be gathered which cannot be sold? we should therefore have little superfluity in the most favourable seasons; for the farmer, like the rest of mankind, acts in hope of success, and the harvest seldom outgoes the expectation of the spring. But for droughts or blights, we should never be provided; any intemperature of seasons would reduce us to distress, which we now only read of in our histories; what is now scarcity, would then be famine. What would be caused by prohibiting exportation, will be caused in a less degree by obstructing it, and in some degree by every deduction of encouragement; as we lessen hope, we shall lessen labour; as we lessen, labour, we shall lessen plenty. It must always be steadily remembered, that easily be discovered. If by a balance of probabilities, in which a grain of dust may turn the scale-or by a curious scheme of calculation, in which, if one postulate in a thousand be erroneous, the deduction which promises plenty may end in famine ;—if, by a specious mode of uncertain ratiocination, the critical point at which the bounty should stop, might seem to be discovered; I shall still continue to believe that it is more safe to trust what we have already tried; and cannot but think bread a product of too much importance to be made the sport of subtilty and the topic of hypothetical disputation. The advantage of the bounty is evident and irrefragable. Since the bounty was given, mul titudes eat wheat who did not eat it before, and yet the price of wheat has abated. What more is to be hoped from any change of practice? Ar alteration cannot make our condition better, and is therefore very likely to make it worse. MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. COMPLETE VINDICATION OF THE LICENSERS OF THE STAGE, FROM THE MALICIOUS AND SCANDALOUS ASPERSIONS OF MR. BROOKE, AUTHOR OF GUSTAVUS VASA, WITH A PROPOSAL FOR MAKING THE OFFICE OF LICENSER MORE EXTENSIVE AND EFFECTUAL. BY AN IMPARTIAL HAND. It is generally agreed by the writers of all parties, that few crimes are equal, in their degree of guilt, to that of calumniating a good and gentle, or defending a wicked and oppressive administration. It is therefore with the utmost satisfaction of mind, that I reflect how often I have employed my pen in vindication of the present ministry, and their dependents and adherents, how often I have detected the specious fallacies of the advocates for independence, how often I have softened the obstinacy of patriotism, and how often triumphed over the clamour of opposition. I have, indeed, observed but one set of men, upon whom all my arguments have been thrown away; which neither flattery can draw to compliance, nor threats reduce to submission; and who have, notwithstanding all expedients that either invention or experience could suggest, continued to exert their abilities in a vigorous and constant opposition of all our measures. The unaccountable behaviour of these men, the enthusiastic resolution with which, after a hundred successive defeats, they still renewed their attacks: the spirit with which they continued to repeat their arguments in the senate, though they found a majority determined to condemn them; and the inflexibility with which they rejected all offers of places and preferments, at last excited my curiosity so far, that I applied myself to inquire with great diligence into the real motives of their conduct, and to discover what principle it was that had force to inspire such unextinguishable zeal, and to animate such unwearied efforts. they make no scruple of avowing in the most public manner, notwithstanding the contempt and ridicule to which it every day exposes them, and the loss of those honours and profits from which it excludes them. This wild passion, or principle, is a kind of fanaticism by which they distinguish those of their own party, and which they look upon as a certain indication of a great mind. We have no name for it at court; but among themselves they term it by a kind of cant-phrase, a regard for posterity. This passion seems to predominate in all their conduct, to regulate every action of their lives, and sentiment of their minds; I have heard L— and P—, when they have made a vigorous opposition, or blasted the blossom of some ministerial scheme, cry out, in the height of their exultations, This will deserve the thanks of posterity! And when their adversaries, as it much more frequently falls out, have out-numbered and overthrown them, they will say with an air of revenge, and a kind of gloomy triumph, Posterity will curse you for this. It is common among men under the influence of any kind of frenzy, to believe that all the world has the same odd notions that disorder their own imaginations. Did these unhappy men, these deluded patriots, know how little we are concerned about posterity, they would never attempt to fright us with their curses, or tempt us to a neglect of our own interest by a prospect of their gratitude. But so strong is their infatuation, that they seem to have forgotten even the primary law of For this reason I attempted to cultivate a self-preservation; for they sacrifice without nearer acquaintance with some of the chiefs of scruple every flattering hope, every darling enthat party, and imagined that it would be neces-joyment, and every satisfaction of life, to this sary for some time to dissemble my sentiments, ruling passion, and appear in every step to conthat I might learn theirs. sult not so much their own advantage, as that of posterity. Dissimulation to a true politician is not difficult, and therefore I readily assumed the character of a proselyte; but found, that their principle of action was no other, than that which Strange delusion! that can confine all their thoughts to a race of men whom they neither know, nor can know; from whom nothing is to be feared, nor any thing expected; who cannot even bribe a special jury, nor have so much as a single riband to bestow. This fondness for posterity is a kind of madness which at Rome was once almost epidemical, and infected even the women and the children. It reigned there till the entire destruction of Carthage; after which it began to be less general, and in a few years afterwards a remedy was discovered, by which it was almost entirely extinguished. In England it never prevailed in any such degree; some few of the ancient Barons seem indeed to have been disordered by it; but the contagion has been for the most part timely checked, and our ladies have been generally free. But there has been in every age a set of men much admired and reverenced, who have affected to be always talking of posterity, and have laid out their lives upon the composition of poems, for the sake of being applauded by this imaginary generation. The present poets I reckon among the most inexorable enemies of our most excellent ministry, and much doubt whether any method will effect the cure of a distemper, which in this class of men may be termed not an accidental disease, but a defect in their original frame and constitution. Mr. Brooke, a name I mention with all the detestation suitable to my character, could not forbear discovering this depravity of his mind in his very prologue, which is filled with sentiments so wild, and so much unheard of among those who frequent levees and courts, that I much doubt, whether the zealous licenser proceeded any further in his examination of his performance. He might easily perceive that a man, Who bade his moral beam through every age, was too much a bigot to exploded notions, to compose a play which he could license without manifest hazard of his office, a hazard which no man would incur untainted with the love of posterity. We cannot therefore wonder that an author, wholly possessed by this passion, should vent his resentment for the licenser's just refusal, in virulent advertisements, insolent complaints, and scurrilous assertions of his rights and privileges, and proceed in defiance of authority to solicit a subscription. This temper, which I have been describing, is almost complicated with ideas of the high prerogatives of human nature, of a sacred unalienable birthright, which no man has conferred upon us, and which neither kings can take, nor senates give away; which we may justly assert whenever and by whomsoever it is attacked, and which, if ever it should happen to be lost, we may take the first opportunity to recover it. The natural consequence of these chimeras is contempt of authority, and an irreverence for uny superiority but what is founded upon merit; and their notions of merit are very peculiar, for it is among them no great proof of merit to be wealthy and powerful, to wear a garter or a star, to command a regiment or a senate, to have the ear of the minister or of the king, or to possess any of those virtues and excellences, which among us entitle a man to little less than worship and prostration. We may therefore easily conceive that Mr. Brooke thought himself entitled to be importu nate for a license, because, in his own opinion, he deserved one, and to complain thus loudly at the repulse he met with. His complaints will have, I hope, but little weight with the public; since the opinions of the sect in which he is enlisted are exposed, and shown to be evidently and demonstrably opposite to that system of subordination and dependence, to which we are indebted for the present tranquillity of the nation, and that cheerfulness and readiness with which the two houses concur in all our designs. I shall, however, to silence him entirely, or at least to show those of our party that he ought to be silent, consider singly every instance of hardship and oppression which he has dared to publish in the papers, and to publish in such a manner, that I hope no man will condemn me for want of candour in becoming an advocate for the ministry, if I can consider his advertise ments as nothing less than an appeal to his country. Let me be forgiven if I cannot speak with temper of such insolence as this; is a man without title, pension, or place, to suspect the impartiality or the judgment of those who are intrusted with the administration of public affairs? Is he, when the law is not strictly observed in regard to him, to think himself aggrieved, to tell his sentiments in print, assert his claim to better usage, and fly for redress to another tribunal? If such practices be permitted, I will not venture to foretell the effects of them; the ministry may soon be convinced, that such sufferers will find compassion, and that it is safer not to bear hard upon them, than to allow them to complain, The power of licensing in general being firmly established by an Act of Parliament, our poet has not attempted to call in question, but contents himself with censuring the manner in which it has been executed; so that I am not now engaged to assert the licenser's authority, but to defend his conduct. The poet seems to think himself aggrieved, because the licenser kept his tragedy in his hands one and twenty days, whereas the law allows him to detain it only fourteen. Where will the insolence of the malecontents end? Or how are such unreasonable expectations possibly to be satisfied? Was it ever known that a man exalted into a high station, dismissed a suppliant in the time limited by law? Ought not Mr. Brooke to think himself happy that his play was not detained longer? If he had been kept a year in suspense, what redress could he have obtained? Let the poets remember, when they appear before the licenser, or his deputy, that they stand at the tribunal from which there is no appeal permitted, and where nothing will so well become them as reverence and submission. Mr. Brooke mentions in his preface his knowledge of the laws of his own country: had he extended his inquiries to the civil law, he could have found a full justification of the licenses's conduct, Boni judicis est ampliare suam auctoritatem. If then it be the business of a good judge to enlarge his authority, was it not in the licenser the utmost clemency and forbearance, to extend fourteen days only to twenty-one. I suppose this great man's inclination to perform at least this duty of a good judge, is not questioned by any, either of his friends or enemies. I may therefore venture to hope, that he will extend his power by proper degrees, and that I shall live to see a malecontent writer earnestly soliciting for the copy of a play, which he had delivered to the licenser twenty years before. tion, we told them the next year that it was necessary, because all the nations round us were at peace. This reason finding no better reception than the other, we had recourse to our apprehensions of an invasion from the Pretender, of an insurrection in favour of gin, and of a general disaffection among the people. But as they continue still impenetrable, and "I waited," says he, "often on the licenser, oblige us still to assign our annual reasons, we and with the utmost importunity entreated an shall spare no endeavour to procure such as may answer." Let Mr. Brooke consider, whether be more satisfactory than any of the former. that importunity was not a sufficient reason for The reason we once gave for building barracks the disappointment. Let him reflect how much was for fear of the plague, and we intend next more decent it had been to have waited the lei-year to propose the augmentation of our troops sure of a great man, than to have pressed upon for fear of a famine. him with repeated petitions, and to have in- The committee, by which the act for licensing truded upon those precious moments which he the stage was drawn up, had too long known the has dedicated to the service of his country. inconvenience of giving reasons, and were too Mr. Brooke was doubtless led into this impro-well acquainted with the characters of great men, per manner of acting, by an erroneous notion to lay the Lord Chamberlain, or his deputy, that the grant of a license was not an act of under any such tormenting obligation. favour, but of justice; a mistake into which he could not have fallen, but from a supine inattention to the design of the statute, which was only to bring poets into subjection and dependence, not to encourage good writers, but to discourage all. There lies no obligation upon the licenser to grant his sanction to a play, however excellent; nor can Mr. Brooke demand any reparation. whatever applause his performance may meet with. Another grievance is, that the licenser assigned no reason for his refusal. This is a higher strain of insolence than any of the former. Is it for a poet to demand a licenser's reason for his proceedings? Is he not rather to acquiesce in the decision of authority, and conclude that there are reasons which he cannot comprehend? Yet lest Mr. Brooke should imagine that a license was refused him without just reasons, I shall condescend to treat him with more regard than he can reasonably expect, and point out such sentiments as not only justly exposed him to that refusal, but would have provoked any ministry less merciful than the present to have inflicted some heavier penalties upon him. His prologue is filled with such insinuations as no friend of our excellent government can read without indignation and abhorrence, and cannot but be owned to be a proper introduction to such scenes, as seem designed to kindle in the audience a flame of opposition, patriotism, public spirit, and independency; that spirit which we have so long endeavoured to suppress, and which cannot be revived without the entire subversion of all our schemes. has endeavoured with subtlety, equal to his malice, to make us suspicious of our firmest friends, to infect our consultations with distrust, and to ruin us by disuniting us. Unhappy would it be for men in power, were The seditious poet, not content with making they always obliged to publish the motives of an open attack upon us, by declaring in plain their conduct. What is power but the liberty of terms, that he looks upon freedom as the only acting without being accountable? The advo-source of public happiness and national security, cates for the Licensing Act have alleged, that the Lord Chamberlain has always had authority to prohibit the representation of a play for just reasons. Why then did we call in all our force to procure an act of parliament? Was it to enable him to do what he has always done? to confirm an authority which no man attempted to impair, or pretended to dispute? No certainly: our intention was to invest him with new privileges, and to empower him to do that without reason, which with reason he could do before. We have found by long experience, that to lie under a necessity of assigning reasons, is very troublesome, and that many an excellent design has miscarried by the loss of time spent unnecessarily in examining reasons. Always to call for reasons, and always to rejet them, shows a strange degree of perverseness; yet such is the daily behaviour of our adversaries, who have never yet been satisfied with any reasons that have been offered by us. They have made it their practice to demand once a year the reasons for which we maintain a standing army. One year we told them that it was necessary, because all the nations round us were involved in war; this had no effect upon them, and therefore resolving to do our utmost for their satisfac This indeed will not be easily effected; a union founded upon interest and cemented by dependence is naturally lasting; but confederacies which owe their rise to virtue or mere conformity of sentiments, are quickly dissolved, since no individual has any thing either to hope or fear for himself, and public spirit is generally too weak to combat with private passions. The poet has, however, attempted to weaken our combination by an artful and sly assertion, which, if suffered to remain unconfuted, may operate by degrees upon our minds in the days of leisure and retirement which are now ap proaching, and perhaps fill us with such surmises as may at least very much embarrass our affairs. The law by which the Swedes justified their opposition to the encroachments of the King of Denmark, he not only calls Great Nature's law, the law within the breast, but proceeds to tell us that it is -Stamp'd by Heaven upon the ur.letter'd mind. By which he evidently intends to insinuate a maxim which is, I hope, as false as it is perni cious, that men are naturally fond of liberty till | those unborn ideas and desires are effaced by literature. The author, if he be not a man mewed up in his solitary study, and entirely unacquainted with the conduct of the present ministry, must know that we have hitherto acted upon different principles. We have always regarded letters as great obstructions to our scheme of subordination, and have therefore, when we have heard of any man remarkably unlettered, carefully noted him down as the most proper person for any employments of trust or honour, and considered him as a man in whom we could safely repose our most important secrets. From among the uneducated and unlettered we have chosen not only our ambassadors and other negotiators, but even our journalists and pamphleteers; nor have we had any reason to change our measures, or to repent of the confidence which we have placed in ignorance. Are we now therefore to be told, that this law is Stamp'd upon th' unletter'd mind? Are we to suspect our placemen, our pensioners, our generals, our lawyers, our best friends in both houses, all our adherents among the atheists and infidels, and our very gazetteers, clerks and court-pages, as friends to independency? Doubtless this is the tendency of his assertion, but we have known them too long to be thus imposed upon, the unlettered have been our warmest and most constant defenders, nor have we omitted any thing to deserve their favour, but have always endeavoured to raise their reputation, extend their influence, and increase their number. In his first act he abounds with sentiments very inconsistent with the ends for which the power of licensing was granted; to enumerate them all would be to transcribe a great part of his play, a task which I shall very willingly leave to others, who, though true friends to the government, are not inflamed with zeal so fiery and impatient as mine, and therefore do not feel the same emotions of rage and resentment at the sight of those infamous passages, in which venality and dependence are represented as mean in themselves, and productive of remorse and infelicity. He has debauch'd the genius of our country, Thus is that decent submission to our superiors, that courts are not to be mentioned with so little ceremony, and that though gallantries and amours are admitted there, it is almost treason to suppose them infected with debauchery or lust. has conceived any thought of an uncommon niaIt is observable, that when this hateful writer lignity, a thought which tends in a more particular manner to excite the love of liberty, animate the heat of patriotism, or degrade the majesty of kings, he takes care to put it in the mouth of his hero, that it may be more forcibly impressed upon his reader. Thus Gustavus, speaking of his tatters, cries out, -Yes, my Arvida, Beyond the sweeping of the proudest train That shades a monarch's heel, I prize these weeds, Here this abandoned son of liberty makes a full For they are sacred to my country's freedom. discovery of his execrable principles; the tatters of Gustavus, the usual dress of the assertors of these doctrines, are of more divinity, because they are sacred to freedom, than the sumptuous and magnificent robes of regality itself. Such sentiments are truly detestable, nor could any thing be an aggravation of the author's guilt, except his ludicrous manner of mentioning a monarch. his heel, is a thing too venerable and sacred to The heel of a monarch, or even the print of be treated with such levity, and placed in contrast with rags and poverty. He that will speak contemptuously of the heel of a monarch, will, whenever he can with security, speak contemp tuously of his head. have occurred, in the perusal of the first pages; These are the most glaring passages which One line which ought, in my opinion, to be my indignation will not suffer me to proceed farerased from every copy by a special act of parlia-ther, and I think much better of the licenser, ment, is mentioned by Anderson, as pronounced than to believe he went so far. by the hero in his sleep, In the few remarks which I have set down, the reader will easily observe, that I have strained no expression beyond its natural import, and have divested myself of all heat, partiality, and prejudice. ceived any So far therefore is Mr. Brooke from having rehard or unwarrantable treatment, that the licenser has only acted in pursuance of that law to which he owes his power, a law which every admirer of the administration must own to be very necessary, and to have produced very salutary effects. I am indeed surprised, that this great office is not drawn out into a longer series of deputations, since it might afford a gainful and reputa ble employment to a great number of the friends of the government; and I should think, instead of having immediate recourse to the deputylicenser himself, it might be sufficient honour for any poet, except the laureat, to stand bare |