and genius, we find a man impelled by accident, hurried by neceffity, and the nobleft coneeptions of his mind rendered abortive by the ills of fortune. There is no plant that requires to be fo affiduoufly tended, and fo much favoured by every incidental and fubordinate circumstance, as the effufions of fancy, and the difcoveries of science.

While fuch appear to me the genuine effects of poverty, never will I infult the facred prefence of its victims, by telling them that poverty is no evil!

Hence alfo we may be led to perceive the mistake of those persons who affirm, that the wants which are of the first neceffity, are inconfiderable, and are easily supplied.

No; that is not inconfiderable, which cannot be purchased but by the facrifice of the best part of my time, and the firft fruit of my labours.

This is the state of fociety at the period in which I am born into the world. I cannot remedy the evil, and therefore muft fubmit to it. I ought to work up my mind to endure it with courage; I fhould yield with a chearful and active temper to the inequality of my burthen; but it is neither neceffary nor defirable that I fhould be infenfible to the true ftate of the cafe.

Addifon

Addison ludicrously exclaims in his tragedy of Cato:

What pity 'tis

That we can die but once to serve our country!

If the condition of human life correfponded indeed with this patriotic wish, a man might content himself to pass through one of its repetitions under the preffure of great difadvantages. But, when we recollect that we appear but once upon this theatre, that our life is fhort and precarious, that we rife out of nothing, and that, when we die, we "pafs a bourne from which no traveller returns*;" we cannot but deeply regret, that our exertions are fo many ways fettered and drawn aside from their true direction, and that the life we would improve for happinefs or for honour, is almost inevitably rendered in a great degree abortive.

The genuine wealth of man is leifure, when it meets with a difpofition to improve it. All other riches are of petty and inconfiderable value.

Is there not a state of fociety practicable, in which leifure fhall be made the inheritance of every one of its members?

That we may try the queftion in the most impartial manner, we will fet out of the view the man who subjects himself to expences which he is unable to difcharge. We will fuppofe it admitted, that the conduct of the man, whofe proceedings tend to a continual accumulation of debt, is eminently pernicious. It does not contribute to his own happiness. It drives him to the perpetual practice of fubterfuges. It obliges him to treat men, not according to their wants or their merits, but according to their importunity. It fixes on him an ever gnawing anxiety that poifons all his pleasures. He is altogether a stranger to that genuine lightness of heart, which characterifes the man at eafe, and the man of virtue. Care has placed her brand confpicuous on his brow. He is fubject to occafional paroxyfms of anguifh which no luxuries or fplendour can compenfate. He accufes the fyftem of nature of poifonous infection, but the evil is in his own fyftem of conduct.

The pains he fuffers in himself are the obvious counterpart of the evils he inflicts upon others. He might have foreseen the effects of his own conduct, and that forefight might have taught him to avoid it. But forefight was in many inftances to them impracticable. They fuffer, not in confequence of their own extravagance.

They

They cannot take to themselves the miferable confolation, that, if now they are diftreffed, they have at least lavished their money themselves, and had their period of profusion and riot.

There is no reason to be found in the code of impartial justice, why one man fhould work, while another man is idle. Mechanical and daily labour is the deadlieft foe to all that is great. and admirable in the human mind. But the fpendthrift is not merely content, that other men. fhould labour, while he is idle. They have re conciled themselves to that. They have found that, though unjust in itself, they cannot change the fyftem of political fociety; and they submit to their lot. They confole themselves with recollecting the ftipulated compenfation of their labours. But he is not fatisfied that they should labour for his gratification: he obliges them to do this gratuitoufly; he trifles with their expectations; he baffles their hopes; he subjects them to a long fucceffion of tormenting uncertainties. They labour indeed; but they do not confume the commodities they produce, nor derive the fmallest advantage from their industry. "We have laboured; and other men have entered into the fruits of our labours*.

Setting therefore out of the question the man

*John, Chap. viii, ver. 38.

who

That we may try the queftion in the most impartial manner, we will fet out of the view the man who subjects himself to expences which he is unable to discharge. We will fuppofe it admitted, that the conduct of the man, whose proceedings tend to a continual accumulation of debt, is eminently pernicious. It does not contribute to his own happiness. It drives him to the perpetual practice of fubterfuges. It obliges him to treat men, not according to their wants or their merits, but according to their importunity. It fixes on him an ever gnawing anxiety that poifons all his pleasures. He is altogether a stranger to that genuine lightness of heart, which characterifes the man at eafe, and the man of virtue. Care has placed her brand confpicuous on his brow. He is fubject to occafional paroxyfms of anguifh which no luxuries or fplendour can compenfate. He accufes the fyftem of nature of poifonous infection, but the evil is in his own fyftem of conduct.

The pains he fuffers in himself are the obvious counterpart of the evils he inflicts upon others. He might have forefeen the effects of his own conduct, and that forefight might have taught him to avoid it. But forefight was in many inftances to them impracticable. They fuffer, not in confequence of their own extravagance.

They