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the very habit of converfing together, and contributing to each other's pleasure and entertainment. Thus industry, knowlege, and humanity, are linked together by an indiffoluble chain, and are found, from experience as well as reafon, to be peculiar to the more polished, and, what are commonly denominated, the more luxurious ages.

Nor are these advantages attended with disadvantages which bear any proportion to them. The more men refine upon pleafure, the less will they indulge in exceffes of any kind; because nothing is more deftructive to true pleasure than fuch exceffes. One may safely affirm, that the TARTARS are oftener guilty of beaftly gluttony, when they feaft on their dead horses, than EUROPEAN Courtiers with all their refinements of cookery. And if libertine love, or even infidelity to the marriage-bed, be more frequent in polite ages, when it is often regarded only as a piece of gallantry; drunkenness, on the other hand, is much less common: A vice more odious, and more pernicious both to mind and body. And in this matter I would appeal, not only to an OVID or a PETRONIUS, but to a SENECA or a CATO. We know, that CESAR, during CATILINE's confpiracy, being neceffitated to put into CATO's hands a billet-doux, which difcovered an intrigue with SERVILIA, CATO's own fifter, that stern philofopher threw it back to him with indignation; and, in the bitterness of his wrath, gave him the appellation of drunkard, as a term more opprobrious than that with which he could more justly have reproached him.

But industry, knowlege, and humanity, are not advantageous in private life alone: They diffuse their beneficial influence on the public, and render the government as great and flourishing

flourishing as they make individuals happy and profperous. The increase and confumption of all the commodities which ferve to the ornament and pleasure of life, are advantageous to fociety; because at the fame time that they multiply those innocent gratifications to individuals, they are a kind of storehouse of labour, which, in the exigencies of ftate, may be turned to the public fervice. In a nation, where there is no demand for fuch fuperfluities, men fink into indolence, lofe all the enjoyment of life, and are useless to the public, which cannot maintain nor fupport its fleets and armies, from the industry of such flothful members.

The bounds of all the EUROPEAN kingdoms are, at prefent, pretty near the same they were two hundred years ago: But what a difference is there in the power and grandeur of those kingdoms? Which can be afcribed to nothing but the increase of art and induftry. When CHARLES VIII. of FRANCE invaded ITALY, he carried with him about 20,000 men: And yet this armament fo exhausted the nation, as we learn from GUICCIARDIN, that for fome years it was not able to make fo great an effort. The late king of FRANCE, in time of war,

*

kept in pay above 400,000 men ; though from MAZARINE'S

death to his own, he was engaged in a courfe of wars that lasted near thirty years.

This industry is much promoted by the knowlege inseparable from the ages of art and refinement; as, on the other hand, this knowlege enables the public to make the best advantage of the industry of its subjects. Laws, order, police, difcipline; these can never be carried to any degree of perfection, before human

The infcription on the PLACE-DE-VENDOME fays 440,000.

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reafon

reafon has refined itself by exercife, and by an application to the more vulgar arts, at leaft, of commerce and manufactures. Can> we expect, that a government will be well modelled by a peo-ple, who know not how to make a spinning-wheel, or to em-ploy a loom to advantage? Not to mention, that all ignorant, ages are infefted with fuperftition, which throws the government off its bias, and disturbs men in the pursuit of their in-tereft and happiness.

Knowlege in the arts of government naturally begets mildnefs and moderation, by inftructing men in the advantages of humane maxims above rigour and feverity, which drive fubjects into rebellion, and render the return to fubmiffion impracticable, by cutting off all hopes of pardon. When the tempers ofmen are softened as well as their knowlege improved, this humanity appears still more confpicuous, and is the chief character-. iftic which diftinguishes a civilized age from times of barbarity, and ignorance. Factions are then lefs inveterate, revolutions lefs tragical, authority lefs fevere, and feditions less frequent.. Even foreign wars abate of their cruelty; and after the field of. battle, where honour and intereft steel men against compaffion as well as fear, the combatants divest themselves of the brute, and refume the man. .

Nor need we fear, that men, by losing their ferocity, will* lose their martial spirit, or become less undaunted and vigorous in defence of their country or their liberty. The arts have no such effect in enervating either the mind or body. On the contrary, industry, their infeparable attendant, adds new force to: both. And if anger, which is faid to be the whetstone of courage, lofes fomewhat of its asperity, by politeness and refine

ment;

ment; a fenfe of honour, which is a stronger, more conftant, and more governable principle, acquires fresh vigour by that eleva→ tion of genius, which arifes from knowlege and a good education. Add to this, that courage can neither have any duration, nor be of any ufe, when not accompanied with discipline and martial skill, which are feldom found among a barbarous people. The ancients remarked, that DATAMES was the only barbarian that ever knew the art of war. And PYRRHUS feeing the ROMANS marshal their army with fome art and fkill, faid with surprize, These barbarians have nothing barbarous in their difcipline! 'Tis observable, that as the old ROMANS, by applying themselves folely to war, were the only uncivilized people that ever poffeffed military difcipline; fo the modern ITALIANS are the only civilized people, among EUROPEANS, that ever wanted courage and a martial fpirit. Those who would afcribe this effeminacy of the ITALIANS to their luxury or politeness, or application to the arts, need but confider the FRENCH and ENGLISH, whose bravery is as uncontestable, as their love for luxury, and their affiduity in commerce. The ITALIAN hiftorians. give us a more fatisfactory reason for this degeneracy of their countrymen. They fhew us how the fword was dropt at once by all the ITALIAN fovereigns; while the VENETIAN. aristocracy was jealous of its fubjects, the FLORENTINE de- mocracy applied itself intirely to commerce; ROME was governed by priests, and NAPLES by women. War then became. the business of foldiers of fortune, who fpared one another, and, to the astonishment of the world, could engage a whole day in what they called a battle, and return at night to their camp, without the leaft bloodshed.

What

What has chiefly induced fevere moralifts to declaim against refinement in the arts, is the example of ancient Rome, which, joining to its poverty and rufticity, virtue and public spirit, rofe to fuch a furprizing height of grandeur and liberty; but having learned from its conquered provinces the ASIATIC luxury, fell into every kind of corruption; whence arofe fedition and civil wars, attended at last with the total lofs of liberty. All the LATIN claffics, whom we peruse in our infancy, are full of these fentiments, and univerfally afcribe the ruin of their state to the arts and riches imported from the Eaft: Infomuch that SALLUST represents a tafte for painting as a vice no less than lewdness and drinking. And fo popular were these sentiments, during the latter ages of the republic, that this author abounds in praises of the old rigid ROMAN virtue, though himself the most egregious inftance of modern luxury and corruption; speaks contemptuously of the GRECIAN eloquence, though the most elegant writer in the world; nay, employs prepofterous digreffions and declamations to this purpose, though a model of taste. and correctness.

But it would be easy to prove, that these writers mistook the cause of the disorders in the ROMAN ftate, and ascribed to luxury and the arts, what really proceeded from an ill-modelled government, and the unlimited extent of conquests. Refinement on the pleasures and conveniencies of life has no natural tendency to beget venality and corruption. The value which all men put upon any particular pleasure, depends on comparifon and experience; nor is a porter lefs greedy of money, which he spends on bacon and brandy, than a courtier, who purchases champagne and ortolans. Riches are valuable at all

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