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I do not know how I can effect this more naturally, than by relating the facts and circumstances which influenced my own mind. I can scarcely be accused of egotism as in the communications and conversations which I am about to mention as having occurred to me during my residence abroad, I am no otherwise the hero of the tale, than as being the passive receiver or auditor. But above all, let it not be forgotten, that in the following paragraphs I speak as a Christian Moralist, not as a Statesman.

To examine any thing wisely, two conditions are requisite: first, a distinct notion of the desirable ENDS, in the complete accomplishment of which would consist the perfection of such a thing, or its ideal excellence; and, secondly, a calm and kindly mode of feeling, without which we shall hardly fail either to overlook, or not to make due allowances for, the circumstances which prevent these ends from being all perfectly realized in the particular thing which we are to examine. For instance, we must have a general notion what a MAN can be and ought to be, before we can fitly proceed

to determine on the merits or demerits of any one individual. For the examination of our own Government, I prepared my mind, therefore, by a short Catechism, which I shall communicate in the next Essay, and on which the letter and anecdotes that follow, will, I flatter myself, be found an amusing, if not an instructive commentary.

ESSAY V.

Hoc potissimum pacto felicem ác magnum regem se fore judicans: non si quam plurimis sed si quam optimis imperet. Preinde parum esse putat justis præsidiis regnum suum muniisse, nisi idem viris eruditione juxta ac vitæ integritate præcellentibus ditet atque honestet. Nimirum intelligit hæc demum esse vera regni decora, has veras opes: hanc veram et nullis unquam seculis cessuram gloriam.-Eras. Rot. R. S. Poncherio, Episc. Parisien. Epistola.

Translation.-Judging that he will have employed the most effectual means of being a happy and powerful king, not by governing the most numerous but the most moral people. He deemed of small sufficiency to have protected the country by fleets and garrison, unless he should at the same time enrich and ornament it with men of eminent learning and sanctity.

IN what do all States agree? A number of men-exert-powers-in union. Wherein do they differ? 1st. In the quality and quantity One State possesses Chemists,

of the powers.

Mechanists, Mechanics of all kinds, Men of Science; and the arts of war and peace; and its Citizens naturally strong and of habitual courage. Another State may possess none or a few only of these, or the same more imperfectly. Or of two States possessing the same in equal perfection the one is more numerous than the other, as France and Switzerland. 2d. In the more or less perfect union of these powers. Compare Mr. Leckie's valuable and authentic documents respecting the state of Sicily with the preceding Essay on Taxation. 3dly. In the greater or less activity of exertion. Think of the ecclesiastical State and its silent metropolis, and then of the county of Lancaster and the towns of Manchester and Liverpool. What is the condition of powers exerted in union by a number of men? A Government. What are the ends of Government? They are of two kinds, negative and positive. The negative ends of Government are the protection of life, of personal freedom, of property, of reputation, and of religion, from foreign and from domestic attacks. The positive ends.

are, 1st. to make the means of subsistence more easy to each individual: 2d. that in addition to the necessaries of life he should derive from the union and division of labour a share of the comforts and conveniencies which humanize and ennoble his nature; and at the same time the power of perfecting himself in his own branch of industry by having those things which he needs provided for him by others among his fellow-citizens; including the tools and raw or manufactured materials necessary for his own employment. I knew a profound mathematician in Sicily, who had devoted a full third of his life to the perfecting the discovery of the Longitude, and who had convinced not only himself but the principal mathematicians of Messina and Palermo that he had succeeded; but neither throughout Sicily or Naples could he find a single Artist capable of constructing the instrument which he had invented. * 3dly. The

The good old man, who is poor, old, and blind, universally esteemed for the innocence and austerity of his life not less than for his learning, and yet universally neglected, except by persons almost as poor

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