Why should the expenditure of a great landed property, which is a
dispersion of the surplus product of the soil, appear intolerable to
you or to me, when it takes its course through the accumulation of vast
libraries, which are the history of the force and weakness of the human
mind; through great collections of ancient records, medals, and coins,
which attest and explain laws and customs; through paintings and
statues, that, by imitating nature, seem to extend the limits of
creation; through grand monuments of the dead, which continue the
regards and connections of life beyond the grave; through collections of
the specimens of nature, which become a representative assembly of all
the classes and families of the world, that by disposition facilitate,
and, by exciting curiosity, open the avenues to science? If by great
permanent establishments, all these objects of expense are better
secured from the inconstant sport of personal caprice and personal
extravagance, are they worse than if the same tastes prevailed in
scattered individuals? Does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter,
who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as
pleasantly and as salubriously, in the construction and repair of the
majestic edifices of religion, as in the painted booths and sordid sties
of vice and luxury; as honourably and as profitably in repairing
those sacred works, which grow hoary with innumerable years, as on the
momentary receptacles of transient voluptuousness; in opera-houses, and
brothels, and gaming-houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the Champ
de Mars? Is the surplus product of the olive and the vine worse employed
in the frugal sustenance of persons, whom the fictions of a pious
imagination raise to dignity by construing in the service of God, than
in pampering the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by
being made useless domestics, subservient to the pride of man? Are
the decorations of temples an expenditure less worthy a wise man, than
ribbons, and laces, and national cockades, and petites maisons, and
petits soupers, and all the innumerable fopperies and follies, in which
opulence sports away the burthen of its superfluity?
We tolerate even these; not from love of them, but for fear of worse. We
tolerate them, because property and liberty, to a degree, acquire that
toleration. But why proscribe the other, and surely, in every point of
view, the more laudable use of estates? Why, through the violation
of all property, through an outrage upon every principle of liberty,
forcibly carry them from the better to the worse?
This comparison between the new individuals and the old corps, is made
upon a supposition that no reform could be made in the latter. But, in
a question of reformation, I always consider corporate bodies, whether
sole or consisting of many, to be much more susceptible of a public
direction by the power of the state, in the use of their property, and
in the regulation of modes and habits of life in their members, than
private citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to be: and this seems to
me a very material consideration for those who undertake anything which
merits the name of a politic enterprise. So far as to the estates of
monasteries.
With regard to the estates possessed by bishops and canons, and
commendatory abbots, I cannot find out for what reason some landed
estates may not be held otherwise than by inheritance. Can any
philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate the positive or the
comparative evil of having a certain, and that too a large, portion of
landed property, passing in succession through persons whose title to
it is, always in theory, and often, in fact, an eminent degree of piety,
morals, and learning; a property, which, by its destination, in
their turn, and on the score of merit, gives to the noblest families
renovation and support, to the lowest the means of dignity and
elevation; a property the tenure to which is the performance of some
duty (whatever value you may choose to set upon that duty), and the
character of whose proprietors demands, at least, an exterior decorum,
and gravity of manners; who are to exercise a generous but temperate
hospitality; part of whose income they are to consider as a trust for
charity; and who, even when they fail in their trust, when they slide
from their character, and degenerate into a mere common secular nobleman
or gentleman, are in no respect worse than those who may succeed them in
their forfeited possessions? Is it better that estates should be held
by those who have no duty, than by those who have one?--by those whose
character and destination point to virtues, than by those who have no
rule and direction in the expenditure of their estates but their
own will and appetite? Nor are these estates held altogether in the
character or with the evils supposed inherent in mortmain. They pass
from hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any other. No
excess is good; and therefore too great a proportion of landed property
may be held officially for life: but it does not seem to me of material
injury to any commonwealth, that there should exist some estates
that have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous
acquisition of money.