wafte their fubftance, and make themfelves mutually miferable, by having recourfe to the tribunals of juftice follow but our direction, and we will accommodate matters without any expence to either. If the rage of debate is too ftrong upon either party, they are remitted back for another day, in order that time may foften their tempers, and produce a reconciliation. They are thus fent for twice or thrice; if their folly happens to be incurable, they are permitted to go to law, and as we give up to amputation fuch members as cannot be cured by art, juftice is permitted to take its course. It is unneceffary to make here long declamations, or calculate what fociety would fave, were this law adopted. I am fenfible, that the man who advises any reformation, only ferves to make himself ridiculous. What ! mankind will be apt to fay, adopt the customs of countries that have not fo much real liberty as our own; our prefent cuftoms what are they to any man; we are very happy under them; this must be a very pleafant fellow, who attempts to make us happier than we already are! Does he not know that abufes are the patrimony of a great part of the nation. Why deprive us of a malady by which fuch numbers find their account. This I muft own is an argument to which I have nothing to reply. What numberlefs favings might there not be made in both arts and commerce, particularly in the liberty of exercifing trade, without the neceffary prerequifites of freedom! Such useless obftructions have crept into every ftate, from a fpirit of monopoly, a narrow felfish spirit of gain, without the least attention to general fociety. Such a clog upon induftry frequently drives the poor from labour, and reduces them by degrees to a state of hopeless indigence. We have already a more than fufficient repugnance repugnance to labour; we should by no means increafe the obftacles, or make excufes in a state for idlenefs. Such faults have ever crept into a ftate, under wrong or needy adminiftrations. Exclufive of the mafters, there are numberless faulty expences among the workmen ; clubs, garnifhes, freedoms, and fuch like impofitions, which are not too minute even for law to take notice of, and which fhould be abolished without mercy, fince they are ever the inlets to excefs andidlenefs, and are the parent of all those outrages which naturally fall upon the more useful part of fociety. In the towns and countries I have feen, I never faw a city or village yet, whose miseries were not in proportion to the number of its public houses. In Rotterdam, you may go through eight or ten ftreets without finding a public house. In Antwerp, almost every fecond house seems an alehoufe. In the one city all wears the appearance of happiness and warm affuence; in the other, the young fellows walk about the ftreets in fhabby finery, their fathers fit at the door derning or knitting stockings, while their ports are filled with dunghills. under Alehouses are ever an occafion of debauchery and excefs, and either in a religious or political light, it would be our highest interest to have the greatest part of them fuppreffed. They fhould be put laws of not continuing open beyond a certain hour, and harbouring only proper perfons. These rules, it may be faid, will diminish the neceffary taxes; but this is false reasoning, fince what was confumed in debauchery abroad, would, if fuch a regulation took place, be more juftly, and perhaps more equitably for the workmen's family, fpent at home; and this cheaper to them, and without lofs of time. On the other hand, our alehouses being ever open interrupt business; the workman is never certain who frequents frequents them, nor can the mafter be fure of having what was begun, finished at the convenient time. An habit of frugality among the lower orders of mankind is much more beneficial to fociety than the unreflecting might imagine. The pawnbroker, the attorney, and other pefts of fociety, might by proper management be turned into ferviceable members; and, were their trades abolished, it is poffible the fame avarice that conducts the one, or the fame chicanery that characterizes the other, might by proper regulations be converted into frugality, and commendable prudence. But fome have made the eulogium of luxury, have represented it as the natural confequence of every country that is become rich. Did we not employ our extraordinary wealth in fuperfluities, fay they, what other means would there be to employ it in? To which it may be anfwered, if frugality were established in the ftate, if our expences were laid out rather in the neceffaries than the fuperfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness. The rich and the great would be better able to fatisfy their creditors; they would be better able to marry their children, and, inftead of one marriage at prefent, there might be two, if fuch regulations took place. The imaginary calls of vanity, which in reality contribute nothing to our real felicity, would not then be attended to, while the real calls of Nature might be always and univerfally fupplied. The difference of employment in the subject is what, in reality, produces the good of fociety. If the fubject be engaged in providing only the luxuries, the neceffaries must be deficient in proportion. If neglecting the produce of our own country, our minds are fet upon the productions of another, we increase our wants, but not our means; and every new imported ported delicacy for our tables, or ornament in our equipage, is a tax upon the poor. The true intereft of every government is to cultivate the neceffaries, by which is always meant every happinefs our own country can produce; and fuppress all the luxuries, by which is meant, on the other hand, every happiness imported from abroad. Commerce has therefore its bounds; and every new import, inftead of receiving encouragement, fhould be firft examined whether it be conducive to the intereft of fociety. Among the many publications with which the prefs is every day burthened, I have often wondered why we never had, as in other countries, an Economical Journal, which might at once direct to all the useful discoveries in other countries, and fpread those of our own. As other journals ferve to amuse the learned, or what is more often the cafe, to make them quarrel, while they only ferve to give us the hiftory of the mifchievous world, for fo I call our warriors; or the idle world, for fo may the learned be called; they never trouble their heads about the most useful part of mankind, our peasants and our artizans; were fuch a work carried into execution with proper management and just direction, it might ferve as a repofitory for every useful improvement, and increase that knowledge which learning often ferves to confound. Sweden feems the only country where the fcience of œconomy feems to have fixed its empire. In other countries, it is cultivated only by a few admirers, or by focieties which have not received fufficient fanction to become completely ufeful; but here there is founded a royal academy, deftined to this purpose only, compofed of the most learned and powerful members of the ftate; an academy which declines every thing which only terminates in amuse ment, ment, erudition, or curiofity; and admits only of obfervations tending to illuftrate husbandry, agriculture, and every real phyfical improvement. In this country nothing is left to private rapacity, but every improvement is immediately diffufed, and its inventor immediately recompenfed by the state. Happy were it fo in other countries; by this means every impoftor would be prevented from ruining or deceiving the public with pretended difcoveries or noftrums, and every real inventor would not, by this means, fuffer the inconveniences of fufpicion. In fhort, the reconomy, equally unknown to the prodigal and avaricious, feems to be a juft mean between both extremes; and to a tranfgreffion of this at prefent decried virtue it is that we are to attribute a great part of the evils which infeft fociety. A tafte for fuperfluity, amusement, and pleasure bring effeminacy, idlenefs, and expence in their train. But a thirst of riches is always proportioned to our debauchery, and the greateft prodigal is too frequently found to be the greateft mifer; fo that the vices which feem the moft oppofite, are frequently found to produce each other; and, to avoid both, it is only neceffary to be frugal. Virtus eft medium vitiorum et utrinque reductum. HOR. A REVERIE. SCARCELY a day paffes in which we do not hear compliments paid to Dryden, Pope, and other writers of the laft age, while not a month comes forward that is not loaded with invective against the . writers |