To these you may add as auxiliaries to mischief, an habit of sloth and

idleness, and strong aversion to labour and assiduity, which all young

people will contract that are not brought up to downright working,

or at least kept employed most days in the week, and the greatest part

of the day. All children that are idle, even the best of either sex,

are bad company to one another whenever they meet.

It is not, then, the want of reading and writing, but the concurrence

and complication of more substantial evils, that are the perpetual

nursery of abandoned profligates in great and opulent nations; and

whoever would accuse ignorance, stupidity, and dastardness, as the

first, and what the physicians call the procataric cause, let him

examine into the lives, and narrowly inspect the conversations and

actions of ordinary rogues and our common felons, and he will find

the reverse to be true, and that the blame ought rather to be laid

on the excessive cunning and subtlety, and too much knowledge in

general, which the worst of miscreants and the scum of the nation

are possessed of.

Human nature is every where the same: genius, wit, and natural parts,

are always sharpened by application, and may be as much improved

in the practice of the meanest villany, as they can in the exercise

of industry, or the most heroic virtue. There is no station of life,

where pride, emulation, and the love of glory may not be displayed. A

young pick-pocket, that makes a jest of his angry prosecutor, and

dextrously wheedles the old justice into an opinion of his innocence,

is envied by his equals, and admired by all the fraternity. Rogues

have the same passions to gratify as other men, and value themselves

on their honour and faithfulness to one another, their courage,

intrepidity, and other manly virtues, as well as people of better

professions; and in daring enterprises, the resolution of a robber

may be as much supported by his pride, as that of an honest soldier,

who fights for his country.

The evils then we complain of, are owing to quite other causes than

what we assign for them. Men must be very wavering in their sentiments,

if not inconsistent with themselves, that at one time will uphold

knowledge and learning to be the most proper means to promote religion,

and defend at another, that ignorance is the mother of devotion.

But if the reasons alleged for this general education are not the true

ones, whence comes it, that the whole kingdom, both great and small,

are so unanimously fond of it? There is no miraculous conversion to be

perceived among us, no universal bent to goodness and morality that

has on a sudden overspread the island; there is as much wickedness

as ever, charity is as cold, and real virtue as scarce: the year

seventeen hundred and twenty, has been as prolific in deep villany,

and remarkable for selfish crimes and premeditated mischief, as can

be picked out of any century whatever; not committed by poor ignorant

rogues, that could neither read nor write, but the better sort of

people as to wealth and education, that most of them were great

masters in arithmetic, and lived in reputation and splendor. To say,

that when a thing is once in vogue, the multitude follows the common

cry, that charity schools are in fashion in the same manner as hooped

petticoats, by caprice, and that no more reason can be given for

the one than the other, I am afraid will not be satisfactory to the

curious, and at the same time I doubt much, whether it will be thought

of great weight by many of my readers, what I can advance besides.

The real source of this present folly, is certainly very abstruse and

remote from sight; but he that affords the least light in matters of

great obscurity, does a kind office to the inquirers. I am willing to

allow, that in the beginning, the first design of those schools, was

good and charitable; but to know what increases them so extravagantly,

and who are the chief promoters of them now, we must make our search

another way, and address ourselves to the rigid party-men, that

are zealous for their cause, either episcopacy or presbytery; but

as the latter are but the poor mimicks of the first, though equally

pernicious, we shall confine ourselves to the national church, and

take a turn through a parish that is not blessed yet with a charity

school.--But here I think myself obliged in conscience to ask pardon of

my reader, for the tiresome dance I am going to lead him, if he intends

to follow me, and therefore I desire, that he would either throw away

the book and leave me, or else arm himself with the patience of Job,

to endure all the impertinences of low life; the cant and tittle-tattle

he is like to meet with before he can go half a street's length.

First we must look out among the young shop-keepers, that have

not half the business they could wish for, and consequently time

to spare. If such a new-beginner has but a little pride more than

ordinary, and loves to be meddling, he is soon mortified in the

vestry, where men of substance and long standing, or else your pert

litigious or opinionated bawlers, that have obtained the title of

notable men, commonly bear the sway. His stock and perhaps credit

are but inconsiderable, and yet he finds within himself a strong

inclination to govern. A man thus qualified, thinks it a thousand

pities there is no charity-school in the parish: he communicates

his thoughts to two or three of his acquaintance first; they do the

same to others, and in a month's time there is nothing else talked

of in the parish. Every body invents discourses and arguments to the

purpose, according to his abilities.--It is an arrant shame, says one,

to see so many poor that are not able to educate their children, and

no provision made for them, where we have so many rich people. What

do you talk of rich, answers another, they are the worst: they must

have so many servants, coaches and horses: they can lay out hundreds,

and some of them thousands of pounds for jewels and furniture, but

not spare a shilling to a poor creature that wants it: when modes and

fashions are discoursed of, they can hearken with great attention,

but are wilfully deaf to the cries of the poor. Indeed, neighbour,

replies the first, you are very right, I do not believe there is a

worse parish in England for charity than ours: It is such as you and

I that would do good if it was in our power, but of those that are

able there is very few that are willing.

Others more violent, fall upon particular persons, and fasten slander

on every man of substance they dislike, and a thousand idle stories

in behalf of charity, are raised and handed about to defame their

betters. While this is doing throughout the neighbourhood, he that

first broached the pious thought, rejoices to hear so many come

into it, and places no small merit in being the first cause of so

much talk and bustle: but neither himself nor his intimates, being

considerable enough to set such a thing on foot, some body must be

found out who has greater interest: he is to be addressed to, and

showed the necessity, the goodness, the usefulness, and Christianity

of such a design: next he is to be flattered.--Indeed, Sir, if you

would espouse it, nobody has a greater influence over the best of the

parish than yourself: one word of you I am sure would engage such a

one: if you once would take it to heart, Sir, I would look upon the

thing as done, Sir.--If by this kind of rhetoric they can draw in some

old fool, or conceited busy-body that is rich, or at least reputed

to be such, the thing begins to be feasible, and is discoursed of

among the better sort. The parson or his curate, and the lecturer,

are every where extolling the pious project. The first promoters

meanwhile are indefatigable: if they were guilty of any open vice,

they either sacrifice it to the love of reputation, or at least grow

more cautious and learn to play the hypocrite, well knowing that to

be flagitious or noted for enormities, is inconsistent with the zeal

which they pretend to, for works of supererogation and excessive piety.

The number of these diminutive patriots increasing, they form

themselves into a society, and appoint stated meetings, where every

one concealing his vices, has liberty to display his talents. Religion

is the theme, or else the misery of the times occasioned by atheism

and profaneness. Men of worth, who live in splendour, and thriving

people that have a great deal of business of their own, are seldom

seen among them. Men of sense and education likewise, if they have

nothing to do, generally look out for better diversion. All those

who have a higher aim, shall have their attendance easily excused,

but contribute they must, or else lead a weary life in the parish. Two

sorts of people come in voluntarily, stanch churchmen, who have good

reasons for it in petto, and your sly sinners that look upon it as

meritorious, and hope that it will expiate their guilt, and Satan

be nonsuited by it at a small expence. Some come into it to save

their credit, others to retrieve it, according as they have either

lost or are afraid of losing it: others again do it prudentially,

to increase their trade and get acquaintance, and many would own

to you, if they dared to be sincere and speak the truth, that they

would never have been concerned in it, but to be better known in the

parish. Men of sense that see the folly of it, and have nobody to fear,

are persuaded into it not to be thought singular, or to run counter

to all the world; even those who are resolute at first in denying it,

it is ten to one but at last they are teazed and importuned into a

compliance. The charge being calculated for most of the inhabitants,

the insignificancy of it is another argument that prevails much,

and many are drawn in to be contributors, who, without that, would

have stood out and strenuously opposed the whole scheme.

The governors are made of the middling people, and many inferior to

that class are made use of, if the forwardness of their zeal can

but over-balance the meanness of their condition. If you should

ask these worthy rulers, why they take upon them so much trouble,

to the detriment of their own affairs and loss of time, either

singly or the whole body of them, they would all unanimously answer,

that it is the regard they have for religion and the church, and the

pleasure they take in contributing to the good, and eternal welfare

of so many poor innocents, that in all probability would run into

perdition, in these wicked times of scoffers and freethinkers. They

have no thought of interest; even those who deal in and provide these

children with what they want, have not the least design of getting by

what they sell for their use; and though in every thing else, their

avarice and greediness after lucre be glaringly conspicuous, in this

affair they are wholly divested from selfishness, and have no worldly

ends. One motive above all, which is none of the least with the most

of them, is to be carefully concealed, I mean the satisfaction there

is in ordering and directing: there is a melodious sound in the word

governor, that is charming to mean people: every body admires sway

and superiority; even imperium in belluas has its delights: there

is a pleasure in ruling over any thing; and it is this chiefly that

supports human nature in the tedious slavery of school-masters. But

if there be the least satisfaction in governing the children, it must

be ravishing to govern the school-master himself. What fine things

are said and perhaps wrote to a governor, when a school-master is to

be chosen! How the praises tickle, and how pleasant it is not to find

out the fulsomeness of the flattery, the stiffness of the expressions,

or the pedantry of the stile!

Those who can examine nature, will always find, that what these people

most pretend to is the least, and what they utterly deny their greatest

motive. No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy,

nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts,

and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are

innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them. If we will

mind the pastimes and recreations of young children, we shall observe

nothing more general in them, than that all who are suffered to do it,

take delight in playing with kittens and little puppy dogs. What makes

them always lugging and pulling the poor creatures about the house,

proceeds from nothing else but that they can do with them what they

please, and put them into what posture and shape they list; and the

pleasure they receive from this, is originally owing to the love of

dominion, and that usurping temper all mankind are born with.

When this great work is brought to bear, and actually accomplished,

joy and serenity seem to overspread the face of every inhabitant,

which likewise to account for, I must make a short digression. There

are every where slovenly sorry fellows, that are used to be seen always

ragged and dirty: these people we look upon as miserable creatures in

general, and unless they are very remarkable, we take little notice

of them, and yet among these there are handsome and well-shaped men,

as well as among their betters. But if one of these turns soldier,

what a vast alteration is there observed in him for the better, as

soon as he is put in his red coat, and we see him look smart with

his grenadier's cap and a great ammunition sword! All who knew him

before are struck with other ideas of his qualities, and the judgment

which both men and women form of him in their minds, is very different

from what it was. There is something analogous to this in the sight

of charity children; there is a natural beauty in uniformity, which

most people delight in. It is diverting to the eye to see children

well matched, either boys or girls, march two and two in good order;

and to have them all whole and tight in the same clothes and trimming,

must add to the comeliness of the sight; and what makes it still more

generally entertaining, is the imaginary share which even servants,

and the meanest in the parish, have in it, to whom it costs nothing:

our parish church, our charity children. In all this there is a

shadow of property that tickles every body, that has a right to make

use of the words, but more especially those who actually contribute,

and had a great hand in advancing the pious work.

It is hardly conceivable, that men should so little know their own

hearts, and be so ignorant of their inward condition, as to mistake

frailty, passion, and enthusiasm, for goodness, virtue and charity;

yet nothing is more true than that the satisfaction, the joy and

transports they feel on the accounts I named, pass with these miserable

judges for principles of piety and religion. Whoever will consider of

what I have said for two or three pages, and suffer his imagination

to rove a little further on what he has heard and seen concerning

this subject, will be furnished with sufficient reasons, abstract

from the love of God and true Christianity, why charity-schools are

in such uncommon vogue, and so unanimously approved of and admired

among all sorts and conditions of people. It is a theme which every

body can talk of, and understands thoroughly; there is not a more

inexhaustible fund for tittle-tattle, and a variety of low conversation

in hoy-boats and stage-coaches. If a governor that in behalf of the

school or the sermon, exerted himself more than ordinary, happens

to be in company, how he is commended by the women, and his zeal and

charitable disposition extolled to the skies! Upon my word, sir, says

an old lady, we are all very much obliged to you; I do not think any

of the other governors could have made interest enough to procure us

a bishop; it was on your account, I am told, that his lordship came,

though he was not very well: to which the other replies very gravely,

that it is his duty, but that he values no trouble nor fatigue, so he

can be but serviceable to the children, poor lambs: indeed, says he,

I was resolved to get a pair of lawn sleeves, though I rid all night

for it, and I am very glad I was not disappointed.

Sometimes the school itself is discoursed of, and of whom in all the

parish it is most expected he should build one: The old room where

it is now kept is ready to drop down; such a one had a vast estate

left him by his uncle, and a great deal of money besides; a thousand

pounds would be nothing in his pocket.

At others, the great crowds are talked of that are seen at some

churches, and the considerable sums that are gathered; from whence,

by an easy transition, they go over to the abilities, the different

talents and orthodoxy of clergymen. Dr. ---- is a man of great parts

and learning, and I believe he is very hearty for the church, but

I do not like him for a charity sermon. There is no better man in

the world than ----; he forces the money out of their pockets. When

he preached last for our children, I am sure there was abundance of

people that gave more than they intended when they came to church. I

could see it in their faces, and rejoiced at it heartily.

Another charm that renders charity-schools so bewitching to the

multitude, is the general opinion established among them, that they

are not only actually beneficial to society as to temporal happiness,

but likewise that Christianity enjoys and requires of us, we should

erect them for our future welfare. They are earnestly and fervently

recommended by the whole body of the clergy, and have more labour and

eloquence laid out upon them than any other Christian duty; not by

young persons, or poor scholars of little credit, but the most learned

of our prelates, and the most eminent for orthodoxy, even those who do

not often fatigue themselves on any other occasion. As to religion,

there is no doubt but they know what is chiefly required of us, and

consequently the most necessary to salvation: and as to the world,

who should understand the interest of the kingdom better than the

wisdom of the nation, of which the lords spiritual are so considerable

a branch? The consequence of this sanction is, first, that those,

who, with their purses or power, are instrumental to the increase or

maintenance of these schools, are tempted to place a greater merit in

what they do, than otherwise they could suppose it deserved. Secondly,

that all the rest, who either cannot, or will not any wise contribute

towards them, have still a very good reason why they should speak well

of them; for though it be difficult, in things that interfere with

our passions, to act well, it is always in our power to wish well,

because it is performed with little cost. There is hardly a person so

wicked among the superstitious vulgar, but in the liking he has for

charity schools, he imagines to see a glimmering hope that it will

make an atonement for his sins, from the same principle as the most

vicious comfort themselves with the love and veneration they bear to

the church; and the greatest profligates find an opportunity in it

to show the rectitude of their inclinations at no expence.

But if all these were not inducements sufficient to make men stand

up in defence of the idol I speak of, there is another that will

infallibly bribe most people to be advocates for it. We all naturally

love triumph, and whoever engages in this course is sure of conquest,

at least in nine companies out of ten. Let him dispute with whom he

will, considering the speciousness of the pretence, and the majority

he has on his side, it is a castle, an impregnable fortress he can

never be beat out of; and was the most sober, virtuous man alive to

produce all the arguments to prove the detriment charity-schools,

at least the multiplicity of them, do to society, which I shall

give hereafter, and such as are yet stronger, against the greatest

scoundrel in the world, who should only make use of the common cant

of charity and religion, the vogue would be against the first, and

himself lose his cause in the opinion of the vulgar.

The rise, then, and original of all the bustle and clamour that is made

throughout the kingdom in behalf of charity schools, is chiefly built

on frailty and human passion, at least it is more than possible that a

nation should have the same fondness, and feel the same zeal for them

as are shown in ours, and yet not be prompted to it by any principle

of virtue or religion. Encouraged by this consideration, I shall,

with the greater liberty, attack this vulgar error, and endeavour to

make it evident, that far from being beneficial, this forced education

is pernicious to the public, the welfare whereof, as it demands of

us a regard superior to all other laws and considerations, so it

shall be the only apology I intend to make for differing from the

present sentiments of the learned and reverend body of our divines,

and venturing plainly to deny, what I have just now owned to be openly

asserted by most of our bishops, as well as inferior clergy. As our

church pretends to no infallibility even in spirituals, her proper

province, so it cannot be an affront to her to imagine that she may

err in temporals, which are not so much under her immediate care. But

to my task.

The whole earth being cursed, and no bread to be had but what we

eat in the sweat of our brows, vast toil must be undergone before

man can provide himself with necessaries for his sustenance, and the

bare support of his corrupt and defective nature, as he is a single

creature; but infinitely more to make life comfortable in a civil

society, where men are become taught animals, and great numbers of

them have, by mutual compact, framed themselves into a body politic;

and the more man's knowledge increases in this state, the greater will

be the variety of labour required to make him easy. It is impossible

that a society can long subsist, and suffer many of its members to

live in idleness, and enjoy all the ease and pleasure they can invent,

without having, at the same time, great multitudes of people that

to make good this defect will condescend to be quite the reverse,

and by use and patience inure their bodies to work for others and

themselves besides.

The plenty and cheapness of provisions depends, in a great measure,

on the price and value that is set upon this labour, and consequently

the welfare of all societies, even before they are tainted with foreign

luxury, requires that it should be performed by such of their members

as, in the first place, are sturdy and robust, and never used to ease

or idleness; and, in the second, soon contented as to the necessaries

of life; such as are glad to take up with the coarsest manufacture

in every thing they wear, and in their diet have no other aim than

to feed their bodies when their stomachs prompt them to eat, and,

with little regard to taste or relish, refuse no wholesome nourishment

that can be swallowed when men are hungry, or ask any thing for their

thirst but to quench it.

As the greatest part of the drudgery is to be done by daylight,

so it is by this only that they actually measure the time of their

labour without any thought of the hours they are employed, or the

weariness they feel; and the hireling in the country must get up in

the morning, not because he has rested enough, but because the sun

is going to rise. This last article alone would be an intolerable

hardship to grown people under thirty, who, during nonage, had been

used to lie a-bed as long as they could sleep: but all three together

make up such a condition of life, as a man more mildly educated would

hardly choose, though it should deliver him from a gaol or a shrew.

If such people there must be, as no great nation can be happy without

vast numbers of them, would not a wise legislature cultivate the

breed of them with all imaginable care, and provide against their

scarcity as he would prevent the scarcity of provision itself? No

man would be poor, and fatigue himself for a livelihood, if he could

help it: The absolute necessity all stand in for victuals and drink,

and in cold climates for clothes and lodging, makes them submit to

any thing that can be bore with. If nobody did want, nobody would

work; but the greatest hardships are looked upon as solid pleasures,

when they keep a man from starving.

From what has been said, it is manifest, that in a free nation, where

slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude

of laborious poor; for besides that they are the never-failing nursery

of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no

product of any country could be valuable. To make the society happy,

and people easy under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that

great numbers of them should be ignorant, as well as poor. Knowledge

both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man

wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied.

The welfare and felicity, therefore, of every state and kingdom,

require that the knowledge of the working poor should be confined

within the verge of their occupations, and never extended (as to things

visible), beyond what relates to their calling. The more a shepherd,

a ploughman, or any other peasant, knows of the world, and the things

that are foreign to his labour or employment, the less fit he will

be to go through the fatigues and hardships of it with cheerfulness

and content.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic, are very necessary to those whose

business require such qualifications; but where people's livelihood

has no dependence on these arts, they are very pernicious to the poor,

who are forced to get their daily bread by their daily labour. Few

children make any progress at school, but, at the same time, they

are capable of being employed in some business or other, so that

every hour those of poor people spend at their book is so much time

lost to the society. Going to school, in comparison to working, is

idleness, and the longer boys continue in this easy sort of life,

the more unfit they will be when grown up for downright labour,

both as to strength and inclination. Men who are to remain and end

their days in a laborious, tiresome, and painful station of life,

the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they will

submit to it for ever after. Hard labour, and the coarsest diet, are

a proper punishment to several kinds of malefactors, but to impose

either on those that have not been used and brought up to both, is

the greatest cruelty, when there is no crime you can charge them with.

Reading and writing are not attained to without some labour of the

brain and assiduity, and before people are tolerably versed in either,

they esteem themselves infinitely above those who are wholly ignorant

of them, often with so little justice and moderation, as if they

were of another species. As all mortals have naturally an aversion to

trouble and pains-taking, so we are all fond of, and apt to overvalue

those qualifications we have purchased at the expence of our ease and

quiet for years together. Those who spent a great part of their youth

in learning to read, write, and cypher, expect, and not unjustly,

to be employed where those qualifications may be of use to them; the

generality of them will look upon downright labour with the utmost

contempt, I mean labour performed in the service of others in the

lowest station of life, and for the meanest consideration. A man, who

has had some education, may follow husbandry by choice, and be diligent

at the dirtiest and most laborious work; but then the concern must be

his own, and avarice, the care of a family, or some other pressing

motive, must put him upon it; but he will not make a good hireling,

and serve a farmer for a pitiful reward; at least he is not so fit for

it as a day labourer that has always been employed about the plough

and dung cart, and remembers not that ever he has lived otherwise.

When obsequiousness and mean services are required, we shall always

observe that they are never so cheerfully nor so heartily performed,

as from inferiors to superiors; I mean inferiors not only in riches

and quality, but likewise in knowledge and understanding. A servant

can have no unfeigned respect for his master, as soon as he has

sense enough to find out that he serves a fool. When we are to

learn or to obey, we shall experience in ourselves, that the greater

opinion we have of the wisdom and capacity of those that are either

to teach or command us, the greater deference we pay to their laws

and instructions. No creatures submit contentedly to their equals;

and should a horse know as much as a man, I should not desire to be

his rider.

Here I am obliged again to make a digression, though I declare I never

had a less mind to it than I have at this minute; but I see a thousand

rods in piss, and the whole posse of diminutive pedants against me,

for assaulting the Christ-cross-row, and opposing the very elements

of literature.

This is no panic fear, and the reader will not imagine my apprehensions

ill grounded, if he considers what an army of petty tyrants I have to

cope with, that all either actually persecute with birch, or else are

soliciting for such a preferment. For if I had no other adversaries

than the starving wretches of both sexes, throughout the kingdom of

Great Britain, that from a natural antipathy to working, have a great

dislike to their present employment, and perceiving within a much

stronger inclination to command than ever they felt to obey others,

think themselves qualified, and wish from their hearts to be masters

and mistresses of charity schools, the number of my enemies would, by

the most modest computation, amount to one hundred thousand at least.

Methinks I hear them cry out, that a more dangerous doctrine never

was broached, and Popery is a fool to it, and ask what brute of

a Saracen it is that draws his ugly weapon for the destruction of

learning. It is ten to one but they will indict me for endeavouring, by

instigation of the prince of darkness, to introduce into these realms

greater ignorance and barbarity, than ever nation was plunged into by

Goths and Vandals since the light of the gospel first appeared in the

world. Whoever labours under the public odium, has always crimes laid

to his charge he never was guilty of, and it will be suspected that

I have had a hand in obliterating the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps

affirmed, that it was at my request that the small Bibles, published by

patent in the year 1721, and chiefly made use of in charity schools,

were, through badness of print and paper, rendered illegible; which

yet I protest I am as innocent of as the child unborn. But I am in

a thousand fears; the more I consider my case, the worse I like it,

and the greatest comfort I have is in my sincere belief, that hardly

any body will mind a word of what I say; or else, if ever the people

suspected that what I write would be of any weight to any considerable

part of the society, I should not have the courage barely to think

on all the trades I should disoblige; and I cannot but smile, when I

reflect on the variety of uncouth sufferings that would be prepared

for me, if the punishment they would differently inflict upon me was

emblematically to point at my crime. For if I was not suddenly stuck

full of useless pen knives up to the hilts, the company of stationers

would certainly take me in hand, and either have me buried alive

in their hall, under a great heap of primers and spelling-books,

they would not be able to sell; or else send me up against tide to

be bruised to death in a paper mill, that would be obliged to stand

still a week upon my account. The ink-makers, at the same time,

would, for the public good, offer to choke me with astringents, or

drown me in the black liquor that would be left upon their hands;

which, if they joined stock, might easily be performed in less than

a month; and if I should escape the cruelty of these united bodies,

the resentment of a private monopolist would be as fatal to me, and

I should soon find myself pelted and knocked on the head with little

squat Bibles clasped in brass, and ready armed for mischief, that,

charitable learning ceasing, would be fit for nothing but unopened

to fight with, and exercises truly polemic.

The digression I spoke of just now, is not the foolish trifle that

ended with the last paragraph, and which the grave critic, to whom

all mirth is unseasonable, will think very impertinent; but a serious

apologetical one I am going to make out of hand, to clear myself from

having any design against arts and sciences, as some heads of colleges

and other careful preservers of human learning might have apprehended,

upon seeing ignorance recommended as a necessary ingredient in the

mixture of civil society.

In the first place, I would have near double the number of professors

in every university of what there is now. Theology with us is generally

well provided, but the two other faculties have very little to boast

of, especially physic. Every branch of that art ought to have two or

three professors, that would take pains to communicate their skill

and knowledge to others. In public lectures, a vain man has great

opportunities to set off his parts, but private instructions are more

useful to students. Pharmacy, and the knowledge of the simples, are as

necessary as anatomy or the history of diseases: it is a shame, that

when men have taken their degree, and are by authority intrusted with

the lives of the subject, they should be forced to come to London to be

acquainted with the Materia Medica, and the composition of medicines,

and receive instructions from others that never had university

education themselves; it is certain, that in the city I named, there

is ten times more opportunity for a man to improve himself in anatomy,

botany, pharmacy, and the practice of physic, than at both universities

together. What has an oil shop to do with silks; or who would look

for hams and pickles at a mercers? Where things are well managed,

hospitals are made as subservient to the advancement of students in

the art of physic, as they are to the recovery of health in the poor.

Good sense ought to govern men in learning as well as in trade: no

man ever bound his son apprentice to a goldsmith to make him a linen

draper; then why should he have a divine for his tutor to become

a lawyer or a physician? It is true, that the languages, logic and

philosophy, should be the first studies in all the learned professions;

but there is so little help for physic in our universities that are

so rich, and where so many idle people are well paid for eating and

drinking, and being magnificently, as well as commodiously lodged,

that bar books, and what is common to all the three faculties, a man

may as well qualify himself at Oxford or Cambridge to be a Turkey

merchant, as he can to be a physician; which is, in my humble opinion,

a great sign that some part of the great wealth they are possessed

of is not so well applied as it might be.

Professors should, besides their stipends allowed them by the public,

have gratifications from every student they teach, that self-interest,

as well as emulation and the love of glory, might spur them on to

labour and assiduity. When a man excels in any one study or part of

learning, and is qualified to teach others, he ought to be procured, if

money will purchase him, without regarding what party, or indeed what

country or nation he is of, whether black or white. Universities should

be public marts for all manner of literature, as your annual fairs,

that are kept at Leipsic, Frankfort, and other places in Germany,

are for different wares and merchandises, where no difference is

made between natives and foreigners, and which men resort to from

all parts of the world with equal freedom and equal privilege.

From paying the gratifications I spoke of, I would excuse all students

designed for the ministry of the gospel. There is no faculty so

immediately necessary to the government of a nation as that of

theology, and as we ought to have great numbers of divines for the

service of this island, I would not have the meaner people discouraged

from bringing up their children to that function. For though wealthy

men, if they have many sons, sometimes make one of them a clergyman,

as we see even persons of quality take up holy orders, and there

are likewise people of good sense, especially divines, that from a

principle of prudence bring up their children to that profession, when

they are morally assured that they have friends or interest enough,

and shall be able, either by a good fellowship at the university,

advowsons, or other means to procure them a livelihood: but these

produce not the large number of divines that are yearly ordained,

and for the bulk of the clergy, we are indebted to another original.

Among the middling people of all trades there are bigots who have a

superstitious awe for a gown and cassock: of these there are multitudes

that feel an ardent desire of having a son promoted to the ministry of

the gospel, without considering what is to become of them afterwards;

and many a kind mother in this kingdom, without consulting her own

circumstances or her child's capacity, transported with this laudable

wish, is daily feasting on this pleasing thought, and often before her

son is twelve years old, mixing maternal love with devotion, throws

herself into ecstasies and tears of satisfaction, by reflecting on the

future enjoyment she is to receive from seeing him stand in a pulpit,

and, with her own ears, hearing him preach the word of God. It is to

this religious zeal, or at least the human frailties that pass for

and represent it, that we owe the great plenty of poor scholars the

nation enjoys. For, considering the inequality of livings, and the

smallness of benefices up and down the kingdom, without this happy

disposition in parents of small fortune, we could not possibly be

furnished from any other quarter with proper persons for the ministry,

to attend all the cures of souls, so pitifully provided for, that no

mortal could live upon them that had been educated in any tolerable

plenty, unless he was possessed of real virtue, which it is foolish

and indeed injurious, we should more expect from the clergy than we

generally find it in the laity.

The great care I would take to promote that part of learning which

is more immediately useful to society, should not make me neglect

the more curious and polite, but all the liberal arts, and every

branch of literature should be encouraged throughout the kingdom,

more than they are, if my wishing could do it. In every county, there

should be one or more large schools, erected at the public charge,

for Latin and Greek, that should be divided into six or more classes,

with particular masters in each of them. The whole should be under

the care and inspection of some men of letters in authority, who would

not only be titular governors, but actually take pains at least twice

a-year, in hearing every class thoroughly examined by the master of it,

and not content themselves with judging of the progress the scholars

had made for the themes and other exercises that had been made out

of their sight.

At the same time, I would discharge and hinder the multiplicity of

those petty schools, that never would have had any existence had

the masters of them not been extremely indigent. It is a vulgar

error, that nobody can spell or write English well without a little

smatch of Latin. This is upheld by pedants for their own interest,

and by none more strenuously maintained than such of them as are

poor scholars in more than one sense; in the mean time it is an

abominable falsehood. I have known, and I am still acquainted with

several, and some of the fair sex, that never learned any Latin,

and yet kept to strict orthography, and write admirable good sense;

where, on the other hand, every body may meet with the scribblings

of pretended scholars, at least such as went to a grammar school

for several years, that have grammar faults and are ill spelled. The

understanding of Latin thoroughly, is highly necessary to all that

are designed for any of the learned professions, and I would have

no gentleman without literature; even those who are to be brought up

attorneys, surgeons, and apothecaries, should be much better versed in

that language than generally they are; but to youth, who afterwards

are to get a livelihood in trades and callings in which Latin is not

daily wanted, it is of no use, and the learning of it an evident loss

of just so much time and money as are bestowed upon it. When men come

into business, what was taught them of it, in those petty schools is

either soon forgot, or only fit to make them impertinent, and often

very troublesome in company. Few men can forbear valuing themselves on

any knowledge they had once acquired, even after they have lost it;

and, unless they are very modest and discreet, the undigested scraps

which such people commonly remember of Latin, seldom fail of rendering

them, at one time or other, ridiculous to those who understand it.

Reading and writing I would treat as we do music and dancing, I would

not hinder them nor force them upon the society: as long as there

was any thing to be got by them, there would be masters enough to

teach them; but nothing should be taught for nothing but at church:

and here I would exclude even those who might be designed for the

ministry of the gospel; for, if parents are so miserably poor that

they cannot afford their children these first elements of learning,

it is impudence in them to aspire any further.

It would encourage, likewise, the lower sort of people to give their

children this part of education, if they could see them preferred to

those of idle sots or sorry rake-hells, that never knew what it was to

provide a rag for their brats but by begging. But now, when a boy or

a girl are wanted for any small service, we reckon it a duty to employ

our charity children before any other. The education of them looks like

a reward for being vicious and unactive, a benefit commonly bestowed on

parents, who deserve to be punished for shamefully neglecting their

families. In one place you may hear a rascal half drunk, damning

himself, call for the other pot, and as a good reason for it, add,

that his boy is provided for in clothes, and has his schooling for

nothing: In another you shall see a poor woman in great necessity,

whose child is to be taken care of, because herself is a lazy slut,

and never did any thing to remedy her wants in good earnest, but

bewailing them at a gin-shop.

If every body's children are well taught, who, by their own industry,

can educate them at our universities, there will be men of learning

enough to supply this nation and such another; and reading, writing,

or arithmetic, would never be wanting in the business that requires

them, though none were to learn them but such whose parents could

be at the charge of it. It is not with letters as it is with the

gifts of the Holy Ghost, that they may not be purchased with money;

and bought wit, if we believe the proverb, is none of the worst.

I thought it necessary to say thus much of learning, to obviate

the clamours of the enemies to truth and fair dealing, who, had I

not so amply explained myself on this head, would have represented

me as a mortal foe to all literature and useful knowledge, and a

wicked advocate for universal ignorance and stupidity. I shall now

make good my promise, of answering what I know the well-wishers to

charity schools would object against me, by saying that they brought

up the children under their care, to warrantable and laborious trades,

and not to idleness as I did insinuate.

I have sufficiently showed already, why going to school was idleness

if compared to working, and exploded this sort of education in the

children of the poor, because it incapacitates them ever after for

downright labour, which is their proper province, and, in every

civil society, a portion they ought not to repine or grumble at,

if exacted from them with discretion and humanity. What remains, is,

that I should speak as to their putting them out to trades, which I

shall endeavour to demonstrate to be destructive to the harmony of

a nation, and an impertinent intermeddling with what few of these

governors know any thing of.

In order to this, let us examine into the nature of societies, and

what the compound ought to consist of, if we would raise it to as high

a degree of strength, beauty, and perfection, as the ground we are to

do it upon will let us. The variety of services that are required to

supply the luxurious and wanton desires, as well as real necessities of

man, with all their subordinate callings, is in such a nation as ours

prodigious; yet it is certain that though the number of those several

occupations be excessively great, it is far from being infinite;

if you add one more than is required, it must be superfluous. If a

man had a good stock, and the best shop in Cheapside to sell turbants

in, he would be ruined; and if Demetrius, or any other silversmith,

made nothing but Diana's shrines, he would not get his bread, now the

worship of that goddess is out of fashion. As it is folly to set up

trades that are not wanted, so what is next to it is to increase in any

one trade, the numbers beyond what are required. As things are managed

with us, it would be preposterous to have as many brewers as there

are bakers, or as many woollen-drapers as there are shoemakers. This

proportion as to numbers, in every trade, finds itself, and is never

better kept than when nobody meddles or interferes with it.

People that have children to educate that must get their livelihood,

are always consulting and deliberating what trade or calling they

are to bring them up to, until they are fixed; and thousands think on

this, that hardly think at all on any thing else. First, they confine

themselves to their circumstances, and he that can give but ten pounds

with his son must not look out for a trade, where they ask an hundred

with an apprentice; but the next they think on, is always which will

be the most advantageous; if there be a calling where at that time

people are more generally employed than they are in any other in the

same reach, there are presently half a score fathers ready to supply

it with their sons. Therefore the greatest care most companies have,

is about the regulation of the number of apprentices. Now, when all

trades complain, and perhaps justly, that they are overstocked, you

manifestly injure that trade, to which you add one member more than

would flow from the nature of society. Besides that, the governors

of charity schools do not deliberate so much what trade is the best,

but what tradesmen they can get that will take the boys, with such a

sum; and few men of substance and experience will have any thing to

do with these children; they are afraid of a hundred inconveniencies

from the necessitous parents of them: so that they are bound, at least

most commonly, either to sots and neglectful masters, or else such

as are very needy and do not care what becomes of their apprentices,

after they have received the money; by which it seems as if we studied

nothing more than to have a perpetual nursery for charity schools.

When all trades and handicrafts are overstocked, it is a certain

sign there is a fault in the management of the whole; for it is

impossible there should be too many people if the country is able to

feed them. Are provisions dear? Whose fault is that, as long as you

have ground untilled and hands unemployed? But I shall be answered,

that to increase plenty, must at long-run undo the farmer, or lessen

the rents all over England. To which I reply, that what the husbandman

complains of most, is what I would redress: the greatest grievance

of farmers, gardeners, and others, where hard labour is required,

and dirty work to be done, is, that they cannot get servants for the

same wages they used to have them at. The day-labourer grumbles at

sixteen pence to do no other drudgery, than what thirty years ago

his grandfather did cheerfully for half the money. As to the rents,

it is impossible they should fall while you increase your numbers;

but the price of provisions, and all labour in general, must fall with

them, if not before; and a man of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year,

has no reason to complain that his income is reduced to one hundred,

if he can buy as much for that one hundred as before he could have

done for two.

There is no intrinsic worth in money, but what is alterable with the

times; and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling,

it is (as I have already hinted before) the labour of the poor, and not

the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the

comforts of life must arise from. It is in our power to have a much

greater plenty than we enjoy, if agriculture and fishery were taken

care of, as they might be; but we are so little capable of increasing

our labour, that we have hardly poor enough to do what is necessary

to make us subsist. The proportion of the society is spoiled, and

the bulk of the nation, which should every where consist of labouring

poor, that are unacquainted with every thing but their work, is too

little for the other parts. In all business where downright labour is

shunned or over-paid, there is plenty of people. To one merchant you

have ten book keepers, or at least pretenders; and every where in the

country the farmer wants hands. Ask for a footman that for some time

has been in gentlemen's families, and you will get a dozen that are

all butlers. You may have chamber-maids by the score, but you cannot

get a cook under extravagant wages.

Nobody will do the dirty slavish work, that can help it. I do not

discommend them; but all these things show, that the people of the

meanest rank, know too much to be serviceable to us. Servants require

more than masters and mistresses can afford; and what madness is it to

encourage them in this, by industriously increasing at our cost, that

knowledge, which they will be sure to make us pay for over again! And

it is not only that those who are educated at our own expence, encroach

upon us, but the raw ignorant country wenches and boobily fellows that

can do, and are good for nothing, impose upon us likewise. The scarcity

of servants occasioned by the education of the first, gives a handle

to the latter of advancing their price, and demanding what ought only

to be given to servants that understand their business, and have most

of the good qualities that can be required in them. There is no place

in the world where there are more clever fellows to look at, or to do

an errand, than some of our footmen; but what are they good for in the

main? The greatest part of them are rogues, and not to be trusted;

and if they are honest, half of them are sots, and will get drunk

three or four times a week. The surly ones are generally quarrelsome,

and valuing their manhood beyond all other considerations, care not

what clothes they spoil, or what disappointments they may occasion,

when their prowess is in question. Those who are good-natured, are

generally sad whore-masters, that are ever running after the wenches,

and spoil all the maid-servants they come near. Many of them are

guilty of all these vices, whoring, drinking, quarrelling, and yet

shall have all their faults overlooked and bore with, because they

are men of good mien and humble address, that know how to wait on

gentlemen; which is an unpardonable folly in masters, and generally

ends in the ruin of servants.

Some few there are, that are not addicted to any of these failings,

and understand their duty besides; but as these are rarities, so there

is not one in fifty but what over-rates himself; his wages must be

extravagant, and you can never have done giving him; every thing in

the house is his perquisite, and he will not stay with you unless

his vails are sufficient to maintain a middling family; and though

you had taken him from the dunghill, out of an hospital, or a prison,

you shall never keep him longer than he can make of his place, what

in his high estimation of himself he shall think he deserves; nay,

the best and most civilized, that never were saucy and impertinent,

will leave the most indulgent master, and, to get handsomely away,

frame fifty excuses, and tell downright lies, as soon as they can mend

themselves. A man, who keeps an half-crown or twelve-penny ordinary,

looks not more for money from his customers, than a footman does

from every guest that dines or sups with his master; and I question

whether the one does not often think a shilling or half-a-crown,

according to the quality of the person, his due as much as the other.

A housekeeper, who cannot afford to make many entertainments, and

does not often invite people to his table, can have no creditable

man-servant, and is forced to take up with some country booby, or

other awkward fellow, who will likewise give him the slip, as soon

as he imagines himself fit for any other service, and is made wiser

by his rascally companions. All noted eating-houses, and places that

many gentlemen resort to for diversion or business, more especially

the precincts of Westminster-hall, are the great schools for servants,

where the dullest fellows may have their understandings improved;

and get rid at once of their stupidity and their innocence. They are

the academies for footmen, where public lectures are daily read, on

all sciences of low debauchery, by the experienced professors of them;

and students are instructed in above seven hundred illiberal arts, how

to cheat, impose upon, and find out the blind side of their masters,

with so much application, that in few years they become graduates in

iniquity. Young gentlemen and others, that are not thoroughly versed

in the world, when they get such knowing sharpers in their service,

are commonly indulging above measure; and for fear of discovering

their want of experience, hardly dare to contradict or deny them any

thing, which is often the reason, that by allowing them unreasonable

privileges, they expose their ignorance when they are most endeavouring

to conceal it.

Some perhaps will lay the things I complain of to the charge of

luxury, of which I said that it could do no hurt to a rich nation,

if the imports never did exceed the exports; but I do not think this

imputation just, and nothing ought to be scored on the account of

luxury, that is downright the effect of folly. A man may be very

extravagant in indulging his ease and his pleasure, and render the

enjoyment of the world as operose and expensive as they can be made, if

he can afford it, and, at the same time, show his good sense in every

thing about him: This he cannot be said to do, if he industriously

renders his people incapable of doing him that service he expects from

them. It is too much money, excessive wages, and unreasonable vails,

that spoil servants in England. A man may have five and twenty horses

in his stables, without being guilty of folly, if it suits with the

rest of his circumstances; but if he keeps but one, and overfeeds it

to show his wealth, he is a fool for his pains. Is it not madness to

suffer, that servants should take three, and others five per cent. of

what they pay to tradesmen for their masters, as is so well known

to watchmakers, and others that sell toys, superfluous nicknacks,

and other curiosities, if they deal with people of quality and

fashionable gentlemen, that are above telling their own money? If

they should accept of a present when offered, it might be connived

at, but it is an unpardonable impudence that they should claim it

as their due, and contend for it if refused. Those who have all the

necessaries of life provided for, can have no occasion for money, but

what does them hurt as servants, unless they were to hoard it up for

age or sickness, which, among our skip-kennels, is not very common,

and even then it makes them saucy and insupportable.

I am credibly informed, that a parcel of footmen are arrived to that

height of insolence, as to have entered into a society together, and

made laws, by which they oblige themselves not to serve for less than

such a sum, nor carry burdens, or any bundle or parcel above a certain

weight, not exceeding two or three pounds, with other regulations

directly opposite to the interest of those they serve, and altogether

destructive to the use they were designed for. If any of them be

turned away for strictly adhering to the orders of this honourable

corporation, he is taken care of till another service is provided

for him; and there is no money wanting at any time to commence and

maintain a law-suit against any master that shall pretend to strike,

or offer any other injury to his gentleman footman, contrary to the

statutes of their society. If this be true, as I have reason to believe

it is, and they are suffered to go on in consulting and providing for

their own ease and conveniency any further, we may expect quickly to

see the French comedy, Le Maitre le Valet acted in good earnest in

most families, which, if not redressed in a little time, and those

footmen increase their company to the number it is possible they may,

as well as assemble when they please with impunity, it will be in

their power to make a tragedy of it whenever they have a mind to it.

But suppose those apprehensions frivolous and groundless, it is

undeniable that servants, in general, are daily encroaching upon

masters and mistresses, and endeavouring to be more upon the level

with them. They not only seem solicitous to abolish the low dignity

of their condition, but have already considerably raised it in the

common estimation from the original meanness which the public welfare

requires it should always remain in. I do not say that these things are

altogether owing to charity schools, there are other evils they may be

partly ascribed to. London is too big for the country, and, in several

respects, we are wanting to ourselves. But if a thousand faults were

to concur before the inconveniences could be produced we labour under,

can any man doubt, who will consider what I have said, that charity

schools are accessary, or, at least, that they are more likely to

create and increase than to lessen or redress those complaints?

The only thing of weight, then, that can be said in their behalf is,

that so many thousand children are educated by them in the Christian

faith, and the principles of the church of England. To demonstrate that

this is not a sufficient plea for them, I must desire the reader,

as I hate repetitions, to look back on what I have said before,

to which I shall add, that whatever is necessary to salvation, and

requisite for poor labouring people to know concerning religion,

that children learn at school, may fully as well either by preaching

or catechizing be taught at church, from which, or some other place of

worship, I would not have the meanest of a parish that is able to walk

to it be absent on Sundays. It is the Sabbath, the most useful day in

seven, that is set apart for divine service and religious exercise,

as well as resting from bodily labour; and it is a duty incumbent on

all magistrates, to take particular care of that day. The poor more

especially and their children, should be made to go to church on it,

both in the fore and afternoon, because they have no time on any

other. By precept and example they ought to be encouraged and used

to it from their very infancy; the wilful neglect of it ought to be

counted scandalous, and if downright compulsion to what I urge might

seem too harsh, and perhaps impracticable, all diversions at least

ought strictly to be prohibited, and the poor hindered from every

amusement abroad that might allure or draw them from it.

Where this care is taken by the magistrates, as far as it lies in their

power, ministers of the gospel may instil into the smallest capacities,

more piety and devotion, and better principles of virtue and religion,

than charity schools ever did or ever will produce; and those who

complain, when they have such opportunities, that they cannot imbue

their parishioners with sufficient knowledge, of what they stand in

need of as Christians, without the assistance of reading and writing,

are either very lazy or very ignorant and undeserving themselves.

That the most knowing are not the most religious, will be evident if

we make a trial between people of different abilities, even in this

juncture, where going to church is not made such an obligation on

the poor and illiterate, as it might be. Let us pitch upon a hundred

poor men, the first we can light on, that are above forty, and were

brought up to hard labour from their infancy, such as never went

to school at all, and always lived remote from knowledge and great

towns: Let us compare to these an equal number of very good scholars,

that shall all have had university education, and be, if you will,

half of them divines, well versed in philology and polemic learning;

then let us impartially examine into the lives and conversations of

both, and I dare engage that among the first, who can neither read

nor write, we shall meet with more union and neighbourly love, less

wickedness and attachment to the world, more content of mind, more

innocence, sincerity, and other good qualities that conduce to the

public peace and real felicity, than we shall find among the latter,

where, on the contrary, we may be assured of the height of pride and

insolence, eternal quarrels and dissensions, irreconcileable hatreds,

strife, envy, calumny, and other vices, destructive to mutual concord,

which the illiterate labouring poor are hardly ever tainted with,

to any considerable degree.

I am very well persuaded, that what I have said in the last paragraph,

will be no news to most of my readers; but if it be truth, why should

it be stifled, and why must our concern for religion be eternally

made a cloak to hide our real drifts and worldly intentions? Would

both parties agree to pull off the mask, we should soon discover

that whatever they pretend to, they aim at nothing so much in charity

schools, as to strengthen their party; and that the great sticklers

for the church, by educating children in the principles of religion,

mean inspiring them with a superlative veneration for the clergy of

the church of England, and a strong aversion and immortal animosity

against all that dissent from it. To be assured of this, we are but

to mind on the one hand, what divines are most admired for their

charity sermons, and most fond to preach them; and on the other,

whether of late years we have had any riots or party scuffles among

the mob, in which the youth of a famous hospital in this city, were

not always the most forward ringleaders.

The grand asserters of liberty, who are ever guarding themselves,

and skirmishing against arbitrary power, often when they are in no

danger of it, are generally speaking, not very superstitious, nor

seem to lay great stress on any modern apostleship: yet some of these

likewise speak up loudly for charity schools; but what they expect

from them has no relation to religion or morality: they only look

upon them as the proper means to destroy, and disappoint the power of

the priests over the laity. Reading and writing increase knowledge;

and the more men know, the better they can judge for themselves,

and they imagine that, if knowledge could be rendered universal,

people could not be priest-rid, which is the thing they fear the most.

The first, I confess, it is very possible will get their aim. But sure

wise men that are not red-hot for a party, or bigots to the priests,

will not think it worth while to suffer so many inconveniencies, as

charity schools may be the occasion of, only to promote the ambition

and power of the clergy. To the other I would answer, that if all

those who are educated at the charge of their parents or relations,

will but think for themselves, and refuse to have their reason imposed

upon by the priests, we need not be concerned for what the clergy

will work upon the ignorant that have no education at all. Let them

make the most of them: considering the schools we have for those who

can and do pay for learning, it is ridiculous to imagine that the

abolishing of charity schools would be a step towards any ignorance

that could be prejudicial to the nation.

I would not be thought cruel, and am well assured if I know any

thing of myself, that I abhor inhumanity; but to be compassionate

to excess, where reason forbids it, and the general interest of

the society requires steadiness of thought and resolution, is an

unpardonable weakness. I know it will be ever urged against me, that

it is barbarous the children of the poor should have no opportunity

of exerting themselves, as long as God has not debarred them from

natural parts and genius, more than the rich. But I cannot think

this is harder, than it is that they should not have money, as long

as they have the same inclinations to spend as others. That great

and useful men have sprung from hospitals, I do not deny; but it is

likewise very probable, that when they were first employed, many as

capable as themselves not brought up in hospitals were neglected,

that with the same good fortune would have done as well as they,

if they had been made use of instead of them.

There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and

even in war, but this is no reason we should bring them all up to Latin

and Greek, or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and

housewifery. But there is no scarcity of sprightliness or natural

parts among us, and no soil and climate has human creatures to

boast of better formed, either inside or outside, than this island

generally produces. But it is not wit, genius, or docility we want,

but diligence, application, and assiduity.

Abundance of hard and dirty labour is to be done, and coarse living

is to be complied with: where shall we find a better nursery for these

necessities than the children of the poor? none, certainly, are nearer

to it or fitter for it: Besides that the things I called hardships,

neither seem nor are such to those who have been brought up to them,

and know no better. There is not a more contented people among us,

than those who work the hardest, and are the least acquainted with

the pomp and delicacies of the world.

These are truths that are undeniable; yet I know few people will

be pleased to have them divulged; what makes them odious, is an

unreasonable vein of petty reverence for the poor, that runs through

most multitudes, and more particularly in this nation, and arises from

a mixture of pity, folly, and superstition. It is from a lively sense

of this compound, that men cannot endure to hear or see any thing said

or acted against the poor; without considering how just the one, or

insolent the other. So a beggar must not be beat, though he strikes

you first. Journeymen tailors go to law with their masters, and are

obstinate in a wrong cause, yet they must be pitied; and murmuring

weavers must be relieved, and have fifty silly things done to humour

them, though in the midst of their poverty they insult their betters,

and, on all occasions, appear to be more prone to make holidays and

riots than they are to working or sobriety.

This puts me in mind of our wool, which, considering the posture

of our affairs, and the behaviour of the poor, I sincerely believe,

ought not, upon any account, to be carried abroad: but if we look into

the reason, why suffering it to be fetched away is so pernicious, our

heavy complaint and lamentations that it is exported can be no great

credit to us. Considering the mighty and manifold hazards that must be

run before it can be got off the coast, and safely landed beyond sea,

it is manifest that the foreigners, before they can work our wool,

must pay more for it very considerably, than what we can have it for

at home. Yet, notwithstanding this great difference in the prime cost,

they can afford to sell the manufactures made of it cheaper at foreign

markets than ourselves. This is the disaster we groan under, the

intolerable mischief, without which the exportation of that commodity

could be no greater prejudice to us than that of tin or lead, as long

as our hands were fully employed, and we had still wool to spare.

There is no people yet come to higher perfection in the woollen

manufacture, either as to dispatch or goodness of work, at least in

the most considerable branches, than ourselves; and therefore what

we complain of can only depend on the difference in the management of

the poor, between other nations and ours. If the labouring people in

one country will work twelve hours in a day, and six days in a week,

and in another they are employed but eight hours in a day, and not

above four days in a week the one is obliged to have nine hands for

what the other does with four. But if, moreover, the living, the food,

and raiment, and what is consumed by the workmen of the industrious,

costs but half the money of what is expended among an equal number

of the other, the consequence must be, that the first will have the

work of eighteen men for the same price as the other gives for the

work of four. I would not insinuate, neither do I think, that the

difference, either in diligence or necessaries of life between us

and any neighbouring nation, is near so great as what I speak of,

yet I would have it considered, that half of that difference, and

much less, is sufficient to over-balance the disadvantage they labour

under as to the price of wool.

Nothing to me is more evident, than that no nation in any manufacture

whatever can undersell their neighbours with whom they are at best

but equals as to skill and dispatch, and the conveniency for working,

more especially when the prime cost of the thing to be manufactured

is not in their favour, unless they have provisions, and whatever

is relating to their sustenance, cheaper, or else workmen that

are either more assiduous, and will remain longer at their work,

or be content with a meaner and coarser way of living than those

of their neighbours. This is certain, that where numbers are equal,

the more laborious people are, and the fewer hands the same quantity

of work is performed by, the greater plenty there is in a country of

the necessaries for life, the more considerable and the cheaper that

country may render its exports.

It being granted, then, that abundance of work is to be done, the

next thing which I think to be likewise undeniable, is, that the more

cheerfully it is done the better, as well for those that perform it,

as for the rest of the society. To be happy is to be pleased, and the

less notion a man has of a better way of living, the more content he

will be with his own; and, on the other hand, the greater a man's

knowledge and experience is in the world, the more exquisite the

delicacy of his taste, and the more consummate judge he is of things

in general, certainly the more difficult it will be to please him. I

would not advance any thing that is barbarous or inhuman: but when a

man enjoys himself, laughs and sings, and in his gesture and behaviour

shows me all the tokens of content and satisfaction, I pronounce him

happy, and have nothing to do with his wit or capacity. I never enter

into the reasonableness of his mirth, at least I ought not to judge

of it by my own standard, and argue from the effect which the thing

that makes him merry would have upon me. At that rate, a man that

hates cheese must call me fool for loving blue mold. De gustibus

non est disputandum is as true in a metaphorical, as it is in the

literal sense; and the greater the distance is between people as to

their condition, their circumstances and manner of living, the less

capable they are of judging of one another's troubles or pleasures.

Had the meanest and most uncivilized peasant leave incognito to

observe the greatest king for a fortnight; though he might pick out

several things he would like for himself, yet he would find a great

many more, which, if the monarch and he were to exchange conditions,

he would wish for his part to have immediately altered or redressed,

and which with amazement he sees the king submit to. And again, if the

sovereign was to examine the peasant in the same manner, his labour

would be unsufferable; the dirt and squalor, his diet and amours,

his pastimes and recreations would be all abominable; but then what

charms would he find in the other's peace of mind, the calmness and

tranquillity of his soul? No necessity for dissimulation with any

of his family, or feigned affection to his mortal enemies; no wife

in a foreign interest, no danger to apprehend from his children; no

plots to unravel, no poison to fear; no popular statesman at home,

or cunning courts abroad to manage; no seeming patriots to bribe;

no unsatiable favourite to gratify; no selfish ministry to obey; no

divided nation to please, or fickle mob to humour, that would direct

and interfere with his pleasures.

Was impartial reason to be judge between real good and real evil, and

a catalogue made accordingly, of the several delights and vexations

differently to be met with in both stations; I question whether the

condition of kings would be at all preferable to that of peasants,

even as ignorant and laborious as I seem to require the latter to

be. The reason why the generality of people would rather be kings

than peasants, is first owing to pride and ambition, that is deeply

riveted in human nature, and which to gratify, we daily see men

undergo and despise the greatest hazards and difficulties. Secondly,

to the difference there is in the force with which our affection is

wrought upon, as the objects are either material or spiritual. Things

that immediately strike our outward senses, act more violently upon

our passions than what is the result of thought, and the dictates of

the most demonstrative reason; and there is a much stronger bias to

gain our liking or aversion in the first, than there is in the latter.

Having thus demonstrated that what I urge could be no injury, or

the least diminution of happiness to the poor, I leave it to the

judicious reader, whether it is not more probable we should increase

our exports by the methods I hint at, than by sitting still and

damning and sinking our neighbours, for beating us at our own weapons;

some of them out-selling us in manufactures made of our own product,

which they dearly purchased, others growing rich in spite of distance

and trouble, by the same fish which we neglect, though it is ready

to jump into our mouths.

As by discouraging idleness with art and steadiness, you may compel the

poor to labour without force; so, by bringing them up in ignorance,

you may inure them to real hardships, without being ever sensible

themselves that they are such. By bringing them up in ignorance,

I mean no more, as I have hinted long ago, than that, as to worldly

affairs, their knowledge should be confined within the verge of their

own occupations, at least that we should not take pains to extend

it beyond those limits. When by these two engines we shall have made

provisions, and consequently labour cheap, we must infallibly outsell

our neighbours; and at the same time increase our numbers. This is

the noble and manly way of encountering the rivals of our trade,

and by dint of merit outdoing them at foreign markets.

To allure the poor, we make use of policy in some cases with

success. Why should we be neglectful of it in the most important point,

when they make their boast that they will not live as the poor of other

nations? If we cannot alter their resolution, why should we applaud

the justness of their sentiments against the common interest? I have

often wondered formerly how an Englishman that pretended to have the

honour and glory, as well as the welfare of his country at heart,

could take delight in the evening to hear an idle tenant that owed

him above a year's rent, ridicule the French for wearing wooden shoes,

when in the morning he had had the mortification of hearing the great

King William, that ambitious monarch, as well as able statesman, openly

own to the world, and with grief and anger in his looks, complain of

the exorbitant power of France. Yet I do not recommend wooden shoes,

nor do the maxims I would introduce require arbitrary power in one

person. Liberty and property I hope may remain secured, and yet the

poor be better employed than they are, though their children should

wear out their clothes by useful labour, and blacken them with country

dirt for something, instead of tearing them off their backs at play,

and daubing them with ink for nothing.

There is above three or four hundred years work, for a hundred

thousand poor more than we have in this island. To make every part

of it useful, and the whole thoroughly inhabited, many rivers are

to be made navigable; canals to be cut in hundreds of places. Some

lands are to be drained and secured from inundations for the future:

abundance of barren soil is to be made fertile, and thousands of

acres rendered more beneficial, by being made more accessible. Dii

laboribus omnia vendunt. There is no difficulty of this nature,

that labour and patience cannot surmount. The highest mountains may

be thrown into their valleys that stand ready to receive them; and

bridges might be laid where now we would not dare to think of it. Let

us look back on the stupendous works of the Romans, more especially

their highways and aqueducts. Let us consider in one view the vast

extent of several of their roads, how substantial they made them,

and what duration they have been of; and in another a poor traveller

that at every ten miles end is stopped by a turnpike, and dunned for

a penny for mending the roads in the summer, with what every body

knows will be dirt before the winter that succeeds is expired.

The conveniency of the public ought ever to be the public care, and

no private interest of a town, or a whole country, should ever hinder

the execution of a project or contrivance that would manifestly tend

to the improvement of the whole; and every member of the legislature,

who knows his duty. and would choose rather to act like a wise man,

than curry favour with his neighbours, will prefer the least benefit

accruing to the whole kingdom, to the most visible advantage of the

place he serves for.

We have materials of our own, and want neither stone nor timber to do

any thing; and was the money that people give uncompelled to beggars,

who do not deserve it, and what every housekeeper is obliged to pay

to the poor of his parish, that is other wise employed or ill-applied,

to be put together every year, it would make a sufficient fund to keep

a great many thousands at work. I do not say this because I think it

practicable, but only to show that we have money enough to spare,

to employ vast multitudes of labourers; neither should we want so

much for it as we perhaps might imagine. When it is taken for granted,

that a soldier, whose strength and vigour is to be kept up at least as

much as any body's, can live upon sixpence a-day, I cannot conceive

the necessity of giving the greatest part of the year, sixteen and

eighteen pence to a day-labourer.

The fearful and cautious people, that are ever jealous of their

liberty, I know will cry out, that where the multitudes I speak of

should be kept in constant pay, property and privileges would be

precarious. But they might be answered, that sure means might be

found out, and such regulations made, as to the hands in which to

trust the management and direction of these labourers, that it would

be impossible for the prince, or any body else, to make an ill use

of their numbers.

What I have said in the four or five last paragraphs, I foresee,

will, with abundance of scorn, be laughed at by many of my readers,

and at best be called building castles in the air; but whether that

is my fault or theirs is a question. When the public spirit has left

a nation, they not only lose their patience with it, and all thoughts

of perseverance, but become likewise so narrow-souled, that it is a

pain for them even to think of things that are of uncommon extent,

or require great length of time; and whatever is noble or sublime

in such conjectures, is counted chimerical. Where deep ignorance

is entirely routed and expelled, and low learning promiscuously

scattered on all the people, self-love turns knowledge into cunning;

and the more this last qualification prevails in any country, the

more the people will fix all their cares, concern, and application,

on the time present, without regard of what is to come after them,

or hardly ever thinking beyond the next generation.

But as cunning, according to my Lord Verulam, is but left-handed

wisdom; so a prudent legislator ought to provide against this disorder

of the society, as soon as the symptoms of it appear, among which

the following are the most obvious. Imaginary rewards are generally

despised; every body is for turning the penny, and short bargains;

he that is diffident of every thing and believes nothing but what

he sees with his own eyes, is counted the most prudent; and in all

their dealings, men seem to act from no other principle than that

of the devil take the hindmost. Instead of planting oaks, that will

require a hundred and fifty years before they are fit to be cut down,

they build houses with a design that they shall not stand above twelve

or fourteen years. All heads run upon the uncertainty of things, and

the vicissitudes of human affairs. The mathematics become the only

valuable study, and are made use of in every thing, even where it

is ridiculous, and men seem to repose no greater trust in Providence

than they would in a broken merchant.

It is the business of the public to supply the defects of the society,

and take that in hand first which is most neglected by private

persons. Contraries are best cured by contraries, and therefore,

as example is of greater efficacy than precept, in the amendment of

national failings, the legislature ought to resolve upon some great

undertakings, that must be the work of ages as well as vast labour,

and convince the world that they did nothing without an anxious

regard to their latest posterity. This will fix, or at least help to

settle, the volatile genius and fickle spirit of the kingdom; put us

in mind that we are not born for ourselves only, and be a means of

rendering men less distrustful, and inspiring them with a true love

for their country, and a tender affection for the ground itself,

than which nothing is more necessary to aggrandize a nation. Forms

of government may alter; religions and even languages may change,

but Great Britain, or at least (if that likewise might lose its

name) the island itself will remain, and in all human probability,

last as long as any part of the globe. All ages have ever paid their

kind acknowledgments to their ancestors, for the benefits derived

from them; and a Christian who enjoys the multitude of fountains,

and vast plenty of water to be met with in the city of St. Peter,

is an ungrateful wretch if he never casts a thankful remembrance on

old Pagan Rome, that took such prodigious pains to procure it.

When this island shall be cultivated, and every inch of it made

habitable and useful, and the whole the most convenient and agreeable

spot upon earth, all the cost and labour laid out upon it, will be

gloriously repaid by the incense of them that shall come after us;

and those who burn with the noble zeal and desire after immortality,

and took such care to improve their country, may rest satisfied, that

a thousand and two thousand years hence, they shall live in the memory

and everlasting praises of the future ages that shall then enjoy it.

Here I should have concluded this rhapsody of thoughts; but something

comes in my head concerning the main scope and design of this essay,

which is to prove the necessity there is for a certain portion of

ignorance, in a well-ordered society, that I must not omit, because,

by mentioning it, I shall make an argument on my side, of what, if I

had not spoke of it, might easily have appeared as a strong objection

against me. It is the opinion of most people, and mine among the rest,

that the most commendable quality of the present Czar of Muscovy, is

his unwearied application, in raising his subjects from their native

stupidity, and civilizing his nation: but then we must consider it is

what they stood in need of, and that not long ago the greatest part

of them were next to brute beasts. In proportion to the extent of his

dominions, and the multitudes he commands, he had not that number

or variety of tradesmen and artificers, which the true improvement

of the country required, and therefore was in the right, in leaving

no stone unturned to procure them. But what is that to us who labour

under a contrary disease? Sound politics are to the social body, what

the art of medicine is to the natural, and no physician would treat

a man in a lethargy as if he was sick for want of rest, or prescribe

in a dropsy what should be administered in a diabetes. In short,

Russia has too few knowing men, and Great Britain too many.

A

SEARCH

INTO THE

NATURE OF SOCIETY.

The generality of moralists and philosophers have hitherto agreed

that there could be no virtue without self-denial; but a late author,

who is now much read by men of sense, is of a contrary opinion, and

imagines that men, without any trouble, or violence upon themselves,

may be naturally virtuous. He seems to require and expect goodness

in his species, as we do a sweet taste in grapes and China oranges,

of which, if any of them are sour, we boldly pronounce that they are

not come to that perfection their nature is capable of. This noble

writer (for it is the Lord Shaftesbury I mean in his Characteristics)

fancies, that as a man is made for society, so he ought to be born with

a kind affection to the whole, of which he is a part, and a propensity

to seek the welfare of it. In pursuance of this supposition, he calls

every action performed with regard to the public good, Virtuous; and

all selfishness, wholly excluding such a regard, Vice. In respect to

our species, he looks upon virtue and vice as permanent realities, that

must ever be the same in all countries and all ages, and imagines that

a man of sound understanding, by following the rules of good sense,

may not only find out that pulchrum et honestum both in morality and

the works of art and nature, but likewise govern himself, by his

reason, with as much ease and readiness as a good rider manages a

well-taught horse by the bridle.

The attentive reader, who perused the foregoing part of this book,

will soon perceive that two systems cannot be more opposite than his

Lordship's and mine. His notions I confess, are generous and refined:

they are a high compliment to human-kind, and capable, by a little

enthusiasm, of inspiring us with the most noble sentiments concerning

the dignity of our exalted nature. What pity it is that they are not

true. I would not advance thus much if I had not already demonstrated,

in almost ever page of this treatise, that the solidity of them is

inconsistent with our daily experience. But, to leave not the least

shadow of an objection that might be made unanswered, I design to

expatiate on some things which hitherto I have but slightly touched

upon, in order to convince the reader, not only that the good and

amiable qualities of men are not those that make him beyond other

animals a sociable creature; but, moreover, that it would be utterly

impossible, either to raise any multitudes into a populous, rich,

and flourishing nation, or, when so raised, to keep and maintain

them in that condition, without the assistance of what we call Evil,

both natural and moral.

The better to perform what I have undertaken, I shall previously

examine into the reality of the pulchrum et honestum, the to kalon

that the ancients have talked of so much: the meaning of this is to

discuss, whether there be a real worth and excellency in things, a

pre-eminence of one above another; which every body will always agree

to that well understands them; or, that there are few things, if any,

that have the same esteem paid them, and which the same judgment is

passed upon in all countries and all ages. When we first set out in

quest of this intrinsic worth, and find one thing better than another,

and a third better than that, and so on, we begin to entertain great

hopes of success; but when we meet with several things that are all

very good or all very bad, we are puzzled, and agree not always with

ourselves, much less with others. There are different faults as well

as beauties, that as modes and fashions alter and men vary in their

tastes and humours, will be differently admired or disapproved of.

Judges of painting will never disagree in opinion, when a fine picture

is compared to the daubing of a novice; but how strangely have they

differed as to the works of eminent masters! There are parties among

connoisseurs; and few of them agree in their esteem as to ages and

countries; and the best pictures bear not always the best prices: a

noted original will be ever worth more than any copy that can be made

of it by an unknown hand, though it should be better. The value that

is set on paintings depends not only on the name of the master, and

the time of his age he drew them in, but likewise in a great measure

on the scarcity of his works; but, what is still more unreasonable,

the quality of the persons in whose possession they are, as well as the

length of time they have been in great families; and if the Cartons,

now at Hampton-Court, were done by a less famous hand than that of

Raphael, and had a private person for their owner, who would be forced

to sell them, they would never yield the tenth part of the money which,

with all their gross faults, they are now esteemed to be worth.

Notwithstanding all this, I will readily own, that the judgment

to be made of painting might become of universal certainty, or at

least less alterable and precarious than almost any thing else. The

reason is plain; there is a standard to go by that always remains

the same. Painting is an imitation of nature, a copying of things

which men have every where before them. My good humoured reader I

hope will forgive me, if, thinking on this glorious invention, I

make a reflection a little out of season, though very much conducive

to my main design; which is, that valuable as the art is I speak

of, we are beholden to an imperfection in the chief of our senses

for all the pleasures and ravishing delight we receive from this

happy deceit. I shall explain myself. Air and space are no objects

of sight, but as soon as we can see with the least attention, we

observe that the bulk of the things we see is lessened by degrees,

as they are further remote from us, and nothing but experience,

gained from these observations, can teach us to make any tolerable

guesses at the distance of things. If one born blind should remain

so till twenty, and then be suddenly blessed with sight, he would be

strangely puzzled as to the difference of distances, and hardly able,

immediately, by his eyes alone, to determine which was nearest to him,

a post almost within the reach of his stick, or a steeple that should

be half a mile off. Let us look as narrowly as we can upon a hole

in a wall that has nothing but the open air behind it, and we shall

not be able to see otherwise, but that the sky fills up the vacuity,

and is as near us as the back part of the stones that circumscribe

the space where they are wanting. This circumstance, not to call it a

defect, in our sense of seeing, makes us liable to be imposed upon,

and every thing, but motion, may, by art, be represented to us on

a flat, in the same manner as we see them in life and nature. If a

man had never seen this art put into practice, a looking-glass might

soon convince him that such a thing was possible, and I cannot help

thinking, but that the reflections from very smooth and well-polished

bodies made upon our eyes, must have given the first handle to the

inventions of drawings and painting.

In the works of nature, worth, and excellency, are as uncertain: and

even in human creatures, what is beautiful in one country, is not so

in another. How whimsical is the florist in his choice! Sometimes the

tulip, sometimes the auricula, and at other times the carnation shall

engross his esteem, and every year a new flower, in his judgment, beats

all the old ones, though it is much inferior to them both in colour and

shape. Three hundred years ago men were shaved as closely as they are

now: Since that they have wore beards, and cut them in vast variety of

forms, that were all as becoming, when fashionable, as now they would

be ridiculous. How mean and comically a man looks, that is otherwise

well dressed, in a narrow brimmed hat, when every body wears broad

ones; and again, how monstrous is a very great hat, when the other

extreme has been in fashion for a considerable time? experience has

taught us, that these modes seldom last above ten or twelve years,

and a man of threescore must have observed five or six revolutions

of them at least! yet the beginnings of these changes, though we have

seen several, seem always uncouth, and are offensive a-fresh whenever

they return. What mortal can decide which is the handsomest, abstract

from the mode in being, to wear great buttons or small ones? the many

ways of laying out a garden judiciously are almost innumerable; and

what is called beautiful in them, varies according to the different

tastes of nations and ages. In grass plats, knots and parterres, a

great diversity of forms is generally agreeable; but a round may be

as pleasing to the eye as a square: an oval cannot be more suitable

to one place, than it is possible for a triangle to be to another;

and the pre-eminence an octogon has over an hexagon is no greater in

figures, than at hazard eight has above six among the chances.

Churches, ever since Christians have been able to build them, resemble

the form of a cross, with the upper end pointing toward the east; and

an architect, where there is room, and it can be conveniently done, who

should neglect it, would be thought to have committed an unpardonable

fault; but it would be foolish to expect this of a Turkish mosque or

a Pagan temple. Among the many beneficial laws that have been made

these hundred years, it is not easy to name one of greater utility,

and, at the same time, more exempt from all inconveniences, than that

which regulated the dresses of the dead. Those who were old enough

to take notice of things when that act was made, and are yet alive,

must remember the general clamour that was made against it. At first,

nothing could be more shocking to thousands of people than that they

were to be buried in woollen, and the only thing that made that law

supportable was, that there was room left for people of some fashion

to indulge their weakness without extravagancy; considering the other

expences of funerals where mourning is given to several, and rings

to a great many. The benefit that accrues to the nation from it is

so visible, that nothing ever could be said in reason to condemn it,

which, in few years, made the horror conceived against it lessen

every day. I observed then that young people, who had seen but few

in their coffins, did the soonest strike in with the innovation;

but that those who, when the act was made, had buried many friends

and relations, remained averse to it the longest, and I remember many

that never could be reconciled to it to their dying day. By this time,

burying in linen being almost forgot, it is the general opinion that

nothing could be more decent than woollen, and the present manner of

dressing a corps; which shows that our liking or disliking of things

chiefly depends on mode and custom, and the precept and example of our

betters, and such whom one way or other we think to be superior to us.

In morals there is no greater certainty. Plurality of wives is odious

among Christians, and all the wit and learning of a great genius in

defence of it, has been rejected with contempt: But polygamy is not

shocking to a Mahometan. What men have learned from their infancy

enslaves them, and the force of custom warps nature, and, at the same

time, imitates her in such a manner, that it is often difficult to

know which of the two we are influenced by. In the east, formerly

sisters married brothers, and it was meritorious for a man to marry

his mother. Such alliances are abominable; but it is certain that,

whatever horror we conceive at the thoughts of them, there is nothing

in nature repugnant against them, but what is built upon mode and

custom. A religious Mahometan that has never tasted any spirituous

liquor, and has often seen people drunk, may receive as great an

aversion against wine, as another with us of the least morality and

education may have against lying with his sister, and both imagine that

their antipathy proceeds from nature. Which is the best religion? is

a question that has caused more mischief than all other questions

together. Ask it at Pekin, at Constantinople, and at Rome, and you will

receive three distinct answers extremely different from one another,

yet all of them equally positive and peremptory. Christians are well

assured of the falsity of the Pagan and Mahometan superstitions:

as to this point, there is a perfect union and concord among them;

but inquire of the several sects they are divided into, Which is the

true church of Christ? and all of them will tell you it is theirs,

and to convince you, go together by the ears.

It is manifest, then, that the hunting after this pulchrum & honestum,

is not much better than a wild-goose-chase that is but little to be

depended on: But this is not the greatest fault I find with it. The

imaginary notions that men may be virtuous without self-denial, are

a vast inlet to hypocrisy; which being once made habitual, we must

not only deceive others, but likewise become altogether unknown to

ourselves; and in an instance I am going to give, it will appear, how,

for want of duly examining himself, this might happen to a person of

quality, of parts, and erudition, one every way resembling the author

of the Characteristics himself.

A man that has been brought up in ease and affluence, if he is of a

quiet indolent nature, learns to shun every thing that is troublesome,

and chooses to curb his passions, more because of the inconveniences

that arise from the eager pursuit after pleasure, and the yielding

to all the demands of our inclinations, than any dislike he has to

sensual enjoyments; and it is possible, that a person educated under

a great philosopher, who was a mild and good-natured, as well as able

tutor, may, in such happy circumstances, have a better opinion of his

inward state than it really deserves, and believe himself virtuous,

because his passions lie dormant. He may form fine notions of the

social virtues, and the contempt of death, write well of them in

his closet, and talk eloquently of them in company, but you shall

never catch him fighting for his country, or labouring to retrieve

any national losses. A man that deals in metaphysics may easily throw

himself into an enthusiasm, and really believe that he does not fear

death while it remains out of sight. But should he be asked, why,

having this intrepidity either from nature, or acquired by philosophy,

he did not follow arms when his country was involved in war; or when

he saw the nation daily robbed by those at the helm, and the affairs

of the exchequer perplexed, why he did not go to court, and make use

of all his friends and interest to be a lord treasurer, that by his

integrity and wise management, he might restore the public credit:

It is probable he would answer that he loved retirement, had no

other ambition than to be a good man, and never aspired to have any

share in the government; or that he hated all flattery and slavish

attendance, the insincerity of courts and bustle of the world. I

am willing to believe him: but may not a man of an indolent temper

and unactive spirit, say, and be sincere in all this, and, at the

same time, indulge his appetites without being able to subdue them,

though his duty summons him to it. Virtue consists in action, and

whoever is possessed of this social love and kind affection to his

species, and by his birth or quality can claim any post in the public

management, ought not to sit still when he can be serviceable, but

exert himself to the utmost for the good of his fellow subjects. Had

this noble person been of a warlike genius, or a boisterous temper,

he would have chose another part in the drama of life, and preached

a quite contrary doctrine: For we are ever pushing our reason which

way soever we feel passion to draw it, and self-love pleads to all

human creatures for their different views, still furnishing every

individual with arguments to justify their inclinations.

That boasted middle way, and the calm virtues recommended in the

Characteristics, are good for nothing but to breed drones, and

might qualify a man for the stupid enjoyments of a monastic life,

or at best a country justice of peace, but they would never fit him

for labour and assiduity, or stir him up to great achievements and

perilous undertakings. Man's natural love of ease and idleness, and

proneness to indulge his sensual pleasures, are not to be cured by

precept: His strong habits and inclinations can only be subdued by

passions of greater violence. Preach and demonstrate to a coward the

unreasonableness of his fears, and you will not make him valiant,

more than you can make him taller, by bidding him to be ten foot

high, whereas the secret to raise courage, as I have made it public

in Remark on l. 321, is almost infallible.

The fear of death is the strongest when we are in our greatest vigour,

and our appetite is keen; when we are sharp-sighted, quick of hearing,

and every part performs its office. The reason is plain, because

then life is most delicious, and ourselves most capable of enjoying

it. How comes it, then, that a man of honour should so easily accept

of a challenge, though at thirty and in perfect health? It is his

pride that conquers his fear: For, when his pride is not concerned,

this fear will appear most glaringly. If he is not used to the sea, let

him but be in a storm, or, if he never was ill before, have but a sore

throat, or a slight fever, and he will show a thousand anxieties, and

in them the inestimable value he sets on life. Had man been naturally

humble and proof against flattery, the politician could never have

had his ends, or known what to have made of him. Without vices, the

excellency of the species would have ever remained undiscovered, and

every worthy that has made himself famous in the world, is a strong

evidence against this amiable system.

If the courage of the great Macedonian came up to distraction, when he

fought alone against a whole garrison, his madness was not less when

he fancied himself to be a god, or at least doubted whether he was

or not; and as soon as we make this reflection, we discover both the

passion and the extravagancy of it, that buoyed up his spirits in the

most imminent dangers, and carried him through all the difficulties

and fatigues he underwent.

There never was in the world a brighter example of an able and complete

magistrate than Cicero: When I think on his care and vigilance,

the real hazards he slighted, and the pains he took for the safety

of Rome; his wisdom and sagacity in detecting and disappointing

the stratagems of the boldest and most subtle conspirators, and,

at the same time, on his love to literature, arts, and sciences,

his capacity in metaphysics, the justness of his reasonings, the

force of his eloquence, the politeness of his style, and the genteel

spirit that runs through his writings; when I think, I say, on all

these things together, I am struck with amazement, and the least I

can say of him is, that he was a prodigious man. But when I have set

the many good qualities he had in the best light, it is as evident

to me on the other side, that had his vanity been inferior to his

greatest excellency, the good sense and knowledge of the world he

was so eminently possessed of, could never have let him be such a

fulsome as well as noisy trumpeter as he was of his own praises, or

suffered him rather than not proclaim his own merit, to make a verse

that a school boy would have been laughed at for. O! Fortunatam, &c.

How strict and severe was the morality of rigid Cato, how steady and

unaffected the virtue of that grand asserter of Roman liberty! but

though the equivalent this stoic enjoyed, for all the self-denial and

austerity he practised, remained long concealed, and his peculiar

modesty hid from the world, and perhaps himself a vast while, the

frailty of his heart, that forced him into heroism, yet it was brought

to light in the last scene of his life, and by his suicide it plainly

appeared that he was governed by a tyrannical power, superior to the

love of his country, and that the implacable hatred and superlative

envy he bore to the glory, the real greatness and personal merit

of Cæsar, had for a long time swayed all his actions under the most

noble pretences. Had not this violent motive over-ruled his consummate

prudence, he might not only have saved himself, but likewise most of

his friends that were ruined by the loss of him, and would in all

probability, if he could have stooped to it, been the second man

in Rome. But he knew the boundless mind and unlimited generosity

of the victor: it was his clemency he feared, and therefore chose

death because it was less terrible to his pride, than the thoughts

of giving his mortal foe so tempting an opportunity of showing the

magnanimity of his soul, as Cæsar would have found in forgiving such an

inveterate enemy as Cato, and offering him his friendship; and which,

it is thought by the judicious, that penetrating as well as ambitious

conqueror would not have slipped, if the other had dared to live.

Another argument to prove the kind disposition, and real affection

we naturally have for our species, is our love of company, and the

aversion men that are in their senses generally have to solitude,

beyond other creatures. This bears a fine gloss in the Characteristics,

and is set off in very good language to the best advantage: the next

day after I read it first, I heard abundance of people cry fresh

herrings, which, with the reflexion on the vast shoals of that and

other fish that are caught together, made me very merry, though I was

alone; but as I was entertaining myself with this contemplation, came

an impertinent idle fellow, whom I had the misfortune to be known by,

and asked me how I did, though I was, and dare say, looked as healthy

and as well as ever I was or did in my life. What I answered him I

forgot, but remember that I could not get rid of him in a good while,

and felt all the uneasiness my friend Horace complains of, from a

persecution of the like nature.