dered and oppressed. In return, they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because he is the creature of Lord Bute; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgraceful representation of him. The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take an active concern in your affairs, even if they were as well afled to your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than to the servants of the crown; they pleased themselves with the hope that their sovereign, if not favourable to their cause, at least was impartial. The decisive personal part you took against them has effectually banished that first distinction from their minds. They consider you as united with your servants against America; and know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side, from the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but if ever you retire to America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to digest, as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles II. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of polity and religion, there is one point in which they all agree; they equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. It is not, then, from the alienated affections of Ireland or America that you can reasonably look for assistance: still less from the people of England, who are actually contending for their rights, and in this great question are parties against you. You are not, however, destitute of every appearance of support; you have all the Jacobites, non-jurors, Roman Catholics, and Tories of this country; and all Scotland, without exception. Considering from what family you are descended, the choice of your friends has been singularly directed; and truly, sir, if you had not lost the Whig interest of England, I should admire your dexterity in turning the hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you to place any confidence in men who, before they are faithful to you, must renounce every opinion, and betray every principle, both in church and state, which they inherit from their ancestors, and are confirmed in by their education; whose numbers are so inconsiderable, that they have long since been obliged to give up the principles and language which distinguish them as a party, and to fight under the banners of their enemies? Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, and must conclude in treachery. At first they deceive; at last they betray. As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart and understanding so biased from your earliest infancy in their favour, that nothing less than your own misfortunes can undeceive you. You will not accept of the uniform experience of your ancestors; and when once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith. A bigoted understanding can draw a proof of attachment to the house of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the * In the king's speech of 8th November 1708, it was declared that the spirit of faction had broken out afresh in some of the colonies, and in one of them proceeded to acts of violence and resistance to the execution of the laws; that Boston was in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and had proceeded to measures subversive of the constitution, and attended with circumstances that manifested a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain.' Let house of Stuart; and find an earnest of future lovalty in former rebellions. Appearances are, however, in their favour; so strongly, indeed, that one would think they had forgotten that you are their lawful king, and had mistaken you for a pretender to the crown. it be admitted, then, that the Scotch are as sincere in their present professions, as if you were in reality not an Englishman, but a Briton of the north; you would not be the first prince of their native country against whom they have rebelled, nor the first whom they have basely betrayed. Have you forgotten, sir, or nas your favourite concealed from you, that part of our history when the unhappy Charles (and he, too, had private virtues) fled from the open avowed indig nation of his English subjects, and surrendered himself at discretion to the good faith of his own countrymen? Without looking for support in their affections as subjects, he applied only to their honour as gentlemen for protection. They received him, as they would your majesty, with bows, and smiles, and falsehood; and kept him till they had settled their bargain with the English parliament; then basely sold their native king to the vengeance of his enemies. This, sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but the deliberate treachery of a Scotch parliament, representing the nation. A wise prince might draw from it two lessons of equal utility to himself: on one side he might learn to dread the undisguised resentment of a generous people who dare openly assert their rights, and who in a just cause are ready to meet their sovereign in the field; on the other side he would be taught to apprehend something far more formidablea fawning treachery, against which no prudence can guard, no courage can defend. The insidious smile upon the cheek would warn him of the canker in the heart. From the uses to which one part of the army has been too frequently applied, you have some reason to expect that there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understanding. You take the sense of the army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice with which you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable undistinguishing favour with which the Guards are treated; while those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great original duty they owe their country, their resentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the rewards and honours of their profession. The prætorian bands, enervated and debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the Roman populace; but when the distant legions took the alarm, they marched to Rome and gave away the empire. On this side, then, whichever way you turn your eyes, you see nothing but perplexity and distress. You may determine to support the very ministry who have reduced your affairs to this deplorable situation; you may shelter yourself under the forms of a parliament, and set your people at defiance; but be assured, sir, that such a resolution would be as imprudent as it would be odious. If it did not immediately shake your establishment, it would rob you of your peace of mind for ever. On the other, how different is the prospect! how easy, how safe and honourable is the path before you! The. English nation declare they are grossly injured by their representatives, and solicit your majesty to exert your lawful prerogative, and give them an op portunity of recalling a trust which they find has been ISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Discard those little scandalously abused. You are not to be told that the power of the House of Commons is not original; but delegated to them for the welfare of the people, A question of right from whom they received it. arises between the constituent and the representative body. By what authority shall it be decided? Will your majesty interfere in a question in which you It would be a have properly no immediate concern? step equally odious and unnecessary. Shall the lords be called upon to determine the rights and privileges of the commons? They cannot do it without a flagrant breach of the constitution. Or will you refer it to the judges? They have often told your ancestors What that the law of parliament is above them. party, then, remains, but to leave it to the people to determine for themselves? They alone are injured; And since there is no superior power to which the cause can be referred, they alone ought to determine. I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious argument upon a subject already so discussed, that inspi-knowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an ration could hardly throw a new light upon it. There honour, to your understanding. Tell them you are are, however, two points of view in which it particu- determined to remove every cause of complaint confidence to no man that does not possess the confilarly imports your majesty to consider the late pro- against your government; that you will give your ceedings of the House of Commons. By depriving a subject of his birthright, they have attributed to their dence of your subjects; and leave it to themselves to whether or not it be in reality the general sense of own vote an authority equal to an act of the whole determine, by their conduct at a future election, legislature; and though, perhaps, not with the same motives, have strictly followed the example of the the nation, that their rights have been arbitrarily inLong Parliament, which first declared the regal office vaded by the present House of Commons, and the conuseless, and soon after, with as little ceremony, dis-stitution betrayed. They will then do just ce to their solved the House of Lords. The same pretended power which robs an English subject of his birthright, may In another view, rob an English king of his crown. the resolution of the House of Commons, apparently not so dangerous to your majesty, is still more alarming to your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his right, they have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. They have set aside a return as illegal, without daring to censure those officers who were particularly apprised of Mr Wilkes's incapacity (not only by the declaration of the house, but expressly by the writ directed to them), and who nevertheless returned him as duly elected. They have rejected the majority of votes, the only criterion by which ur laws judge of the sense of the people; they have transferred the right of election from the collective to the representative body; and by these acts, taken separately or together, they have essentially altered the original constitution of the House of Commons. Versed as your majesty undoubtedly is in the English history, it cannot easily escape you how much it is your interest, as well as your duty, to prevent one of the three estates from encroaching upon the province of the other two, or assuming the authority of them all. When once they have departed from the great constitutional line by which all their proceedings should be directed, who will answer for their future moderation? or what assurance will they give you, that when they have trampl upon their equals, they will submit to a superio"? Your majesty may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and the tyrant are allied. Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit the abandoned profligacy of the present House of Commons, but oppose their dissolution upon an opinion (I confess not very unwarrantable) that their successors would be equally at the disposal of the treasury. I cannot persuade myself that the nation will have profited so little by experience. But if that opinion were well-founded, you might then gratify our wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamour against your government, without offering any material injury to the favourite cause of corruption. The You have still an honourable part to act. affections of your subjects may still be recovered. 58 representatives and to themselves. These sentiments, sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions; and when they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends whose affections The first foundation of friendship is not the power of are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made you a king, forbade you to have a friend; it is a law of nature, which cannot be violated with impu nity. The mistaken prince who looks for friendship will find a favourite, and in that favourite the ruin of his affairs. The people of England are loyal to the house of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational; fit for Eng. We cannot long be deluded by nolishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your majesty's encouragement. The name of Stuart of itself is minal distinctions. DE LOLME. The Constitution of England, or an Account of the English Government, by M. DE LOLME, was recommended by Junius as a performance deep, solid, and ingenious.' The author was a native of * Mr. Wilkes, who was then under confinement in the king's bench, on a sentence of a fine of a thousand pounds, and twenty-two months' imprisonment (from the 18th of June 1768), for the publication of the North Briton No. 45, and the 241 Essay on Woman. Geneva, who had studied the law. His work on the English constitution was first published in Holland, in the French language. The English edition, enlarged and dedicated by the author to King George III., appeared in 1775. De Lolme wrote several slight political treatises, and expected to be patronised by the British government. In this he was disappointed; and his circumstances were so reduced, that he was glad to accept of relief from the Literary Fund. He left England, and died in Switzerland in 1807, aged sixty-two. The praise of Junius has not been confirmed by the present generation, for De Lolme's work has fallen into neglect. He evinces considerable acuteness in tracing and pointing out the distinguishing features of our constitution; but his work is scarcely entitled to the appellation of solid;' his admiration is too excessive and undistinguishing to be always just. Of the ease and spirit with which this foreigner wrote our language, we give one specimen, a correct remark on the freedom with which Englishmen complain of the acts of their government:-The agitation of the popular mind is not in England what it would be in other states; it is not the symptom of a profound and general discontent, and the forerunner of violent commotions. Foreseen, regulated, even hoped for by the constitution, this agitation animates all parts of the state, and is to be considered only as the beneficial vicissitude of the seasons. The governing power being dependent on the nation, is often thwarted; but so long as it continues to deserve the affection of the people, it can never be endangered. Like a vigorous tree, which stretches its branches far and wide, the slightest breath can put it in motion; but it acquires and exerts at every moment a new degree of force, and resists the winds by the strength and elasticity of its fibres and the depth of its roots. In a word, whatever revolutions may at times happen among the persons who conduct the public affairs in England, they never occasion the shortest interruption of the power of the laws, or the smallest diminution of the security of indivi duals. A man who should have incurred the enmity of the most powerful men in the state-what do I say?-though he had, like another Vatinius, drawn upon himself the united detestation of all parties, might, under the protection of the laws, and by keeping within the bounds required by them, continue to set both his enemies and the whole nation at defiance.' DR ADAM SMITH. is productive of wealth, when employed in manu factures and commerce, as well as when it is employed in the cultivation of land; he traced the various means by which labour may be rendered most effective; and gave a most admirable analysis and exposition of the prodigious addition made to its efficacy by its division among different individuals and countries, and by the employment of accumulated wealth or capital in industrious undertakings. He also showed, in opposition to the commonly received opinions of the merchants, politicians, and statesmen of his time, that wealth does not consist in the abundance of gold and silver, but in the abundance of the various necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life; that it is in every case sound policy to leave individuals to pursue their own interest in their own way; that, in prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to themselves, they necessarily prosecute such as are at the same time advantageous to the public; and that every regulation intended to force industry into particular channels, or to determine the species of commercial intercourse to be carried on between different parts of the same country, or between distant and independent countries, is impolitic and pernicious." Though correct in his fundamental positions, Dr Smith has been shown to be guilty of several errors. He does not always reason correctly from the principles he lays down; and some of his distinctions (as that between the different classes of society as productive and unproductive consumers) have been shown, by a more careful analysis and observation, to be unfounded. But these defects do not touch the substantial merits of the work, which produced,' says Mackintosh, ‘an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most impor tant parts of the legislation of all civilised states. In a few years it began to alter laws and treaties, and has made its way, throughout the convulsions of revolution and conquest, to a due ascendant over the minds of men, with far less than the average obstructions of prejudice and clamour, which choke the channels through which truth flows into practice.' In this work, as in his Moral Sentiments,' Dr Smith is copious and happy in his illustrations. The following account of the advantages of the division of labour is very finely written :-* Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer in a civilised and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the inaterials from some of those workmen to others, who often live in a very distant part of the country? How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those To say nothing of such complicated Dr ADAM SMITH'S Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, laid the foundations of the science of political economy. Some of its leading principles had been indicated by Hobbes and Locke; Hume in his essays had also stated some curious results respecting wealth and trade; and several French writers had made considerable advances towards the formation of a system. Smith, however, after a labour of ten years, produced & complete system of political economy; and the execution of his work evinces such indefatigable research, so much sagacity, learning, and information, derived from arts and manufactures, no less than from books, that the 'Wealth of Nations' must always be regarded as one of the greatest works in political philosophy which the world has produced. Its leading principles, as enumerated by its best and latest commentator, Mr M'Culloch, may be thus summed up: He showed that the only source of the opulence of nations is labour; that the natural wish to augment our for-workmen! tunes and rise in the world is the cause of riches being accumu.ated. He demonstrated that labour * M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy, p. 57. machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine in the same manner all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long land-carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pevter plates upon which he serves up and divides his rictuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prin, does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.' DR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-WILLIAM MELMOTH- kind of reputation.' His Poor Richard's Almanack. and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelpma As Adam Smith taught how the wealth of nations might be accumulated and preserved, Dr BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790), with a humbler aim, but with scarcely less practical sagacity, applied the me lessons to individuals. By his admirable writings, and still more admirable life, he inculcated the virtues of industry, frugality, and independence of thought, and may be reckoned one of the benefactors of mankind. Franklin was a native of Boston in America, and was brought up to the trade of a printer. By unceasing industry and strong natural talents (which he assiduously cultivated), he rose to be one of the representatives of Philadelphia, and after the separation of America from Britain, he was ambassador for the states at the court of France. Several important treaties were negotiated by him. and in all the fame and fortunes of his native counry-its struggles, disasters, and successes-he bore prominent part. The writings of Franklin are not numerous; he always, as he informs us, 'set a greater value on a lo of good than on any other i in construction. The refined classical taste and learning of W LIAM MELMOTH (1710-1799) enriched this period with a translation of Pliny's Letters, which Warton, a highly competent judge, pronounced to be one of the few translations that are better than the original. Under the assumed name of Fitzosborne, Melmoth also published a volume of Letters on Literary and Moral Subjects, remarkable for elegance of style. The same author translated Cicero's Letters to several of his friends, and the treatises De Amicitia Melmoth was an amiable, and De Senectute, to which he appended large and valuable annotations. accomplished, and pious man, and his character shines forth in all his writings. His translations are still the best we possess; and his style, though sometimes feeble from excess of polish and ornament, is generally correct, perspicuous, and musical 243 [On Thinking.] [From Melmoth's Letters.] life, we may have occasion, perhaps, to remark that thinking is no less uncommon in the literary than the civil world. The number of those writers who can, with any justness of expression, be termed thinking authors, would not form a very copious library, though one were to take in all of that kind which both ancient and modern times have produced. Necessarily, I imagine, must one exclude from a collection of this sort all critics, commentators, translators, and, in short, all that numerous under-tribe in the commonwealth of literature that owe their existence merely to the thoughts of others. I should reject, for the same reason, such compilers as Valerius Maximus and Aulus Gellius: though it must be owned, indeed, their serve to us several curious traces of antiquity, which time would otherwise have entirely worn out. Those teeming geniuses, likewise, who have propagated the fruits of their studies through a long series of tracts, would have little pretence, I believe, to be admitted as writers of reflection. For this reason I cannot regret the loss of those incredible numbers of compositions which some of the ancients are said to have produced: Quale fuit Cassi rapido ferventius amni If one would rate any particular merit according to its true valuation, it may be necessary, perhaps, to consider how far it can be justly claimed by mankind in general. I am sure, at least, when I read the very uncommon sentiments of your last letter, I found their judicious author rise in my esteem, by reflecting that there is not a more singular character in the world than that of a thinking man. It is not merely having a succession of ideas which lightly skim over the mind, that can with any propriety be styled by that denomination. It is observing them separately and dis-works have acquired an accidental value, as they pretinctly, and ranging them under their respective classes; it is calmly and steadily viewing our opinions on every side, and resolutely tracing them through all their consequences and connections, that constitutes the man of reflection, and distinguishes reason from fancy. Providence, indeed, does not seem to have formed any very considerable number of our species for an extensive exercise of this higher faculty, as the thoughts of the far greater part of mankind are necessarily restrained within the ordinary purposes of animal life. But even if we look up to those who move in much superior orbits, and who have opportunities to improve, as well as leisure to exercise their understandings, we shall find that thinking is one of the least exerted privileges of cultivated humanity. It is, indeed, an operation of the mind which meets with many obstructions to check its just and free direction; but there are two principles which prevail more or less in the constitutions of most men, that particularly contribute to keep this faculty of the soul unemployed; I mean pride and indolence. To descend to truth through the tedious progression of wellexamined deductions, is considered as a reproach to the quickness of understanding, as it is much too laborious a method for any but those who are possessed of a vigorous and resolute activity of mind. For this reason the greater part of our species generally choose either to seize upon their conclusions at once, or to take them by rebound from others, as best suiting with their vanity or their laziness. Accordingly, Mr Locke observes, that there are not so many errors and wrong opinions in the world as is generally imagined. Not that he thinks mankind are by any means uniform in embracing truth; but because the majority of them, he maintains, have no thought or opinion at all about those doctrines concerning which they raise the greatest clamour. Like the common soldiers in an army, they follow where their leaders direct, without knowing or even inquiring into the cause for which they so warmly contend. This will account for the slow steps by which truth has advanced in the world on one side, and for those absurd systems which at different periods have had a universal currency on the other; for there is a strange disposition in human nature either blindly to tread the same paths that have been traversed by others, or to strike out into the most devious extravagances: the greater part of the world will either totally renounce their reason, or reason only from the wild suggestions of a heated imagination. From the same source may be derived those divisions and animosities which break the union both of public and private societies, and turn the peace and harmony of human intercourse into dissonance and contention. For, while men judge and act by such measures as have not been proved by the standard of dispassionate reason, they must equally be mistaken in their estimates both of their own conduct and that of others. If we turn our view from active to contemplative Ingenium; capsis quem fama est esse, librisque Thus Epicurus, we are told, left behind him three [On Conversation.] It is with much pleasure I look back upon that philosophical week which I lately enjoyed at ; as there is no part, perhaps, of social life which affords more real satisfaction than those hours which one passes in rational and unreserved conversation. The free communication of sentiments amongst a set of ingenious and speculative friends, such as those you gave me the opportunity of meeting, throws the mind into the most advantageous exercise, and shows the strength or weakness of its opinions, with greater force of conviction than any other method we can employ. That it is not good for man to be alone,' is true in more views of our species than one; and society gives strength to our reason, as well as polish to our manners. The soul, when left entirely to her own solitary contemplations, is insensibly drawn by a sort of constitutional bias, which generally leads her opinions to the side of her inclinations. Hence it is that she contracts those peculiarities of reasoning, and little habits of thinking, which so often confirm her in the most fantastical errors; but nothing is more likely to recover the mind from this false bent than the counter-warmth of impartial debate. Conversation opens our views, and gives our faculties a more vigorous play; it puts us upon turning our notions on every side, and holds them up to a light tha discovers those latent flaws which would probably have ha |