THE good fenfe of the common people is amazing to those strangers who visit this country: in all converfation where they can be fuppofed to understand the subject at all, they fhew a degree of knowledge not to be found amongst the peasants of any nation; the meanest labourer has fomething to say in his favour, which cannot be met with in any other place.

THIS advantage they draw from being accustomed to think for themselves; their minds are naturally inquifitive; and not being flavishly. dependant on priest or master, there is a liberality of thinking amongst them all, and a probity not easily conceived: the poor of the country-villages, who gain their daily bread, are extremely honeft, and have not yet loft the influence of religion. Liberty effects this amongst fmall numbers and ruins great,

IN London amongst the lower class all is anarchy, drunkenness, and thievery; in the country good order, fobriety and honefty, unless in manufacturing towns, where the refemblance of London is more confpicuous. No country can

be

be more inviting to pass the fummer in than this; the heats are temperate, the verdure in the fields the most brilliant, and continues through the year; even the autumn is far from being difagreeable; but alas! the dreary winter makes me figh for the funny shores of Baja; the ferenity of sky, and tepid breezes of that place, added to this clime, would make the whole Elyfium. Adieu,

LETTER XXVIII.

To the Reverend Father DOMINICO

MANZONI, at Rome.

Dear Sir,

N

r

O where is the word liberty mention'd with

so much ardour as in England, and no where lefs understood. The general meaning of it, as it is received in this nation, is the power of each man doing what he pleases, and preventing the rest from doing the fame thing: this is rather fovereignty than freedom; and as people know in this country, that property and title beget a kind of defpotifm, it is a common thing to add in the advertisement of the fale of an estate, as a recommendatory confideration, a nota bene, "No Lord within ten miles of it."

THIS defire of liberty fo conftantly in the mouth of man, and yet in his practice fo little to be found with an inclination to allow it to others, has often made me reflect whether this was fo natural a paffion as has been afferted? and

if the love of power was not more original and native, than that of freedom?

lieve the love of power, is nothing more than the love of liberty carried beyond its due proportion, in the laws of fociety and nature. Men in general, at least in this kingdom, fcarce think themselves free as long as they find any oppofition to their defires; every impulse of paffion that meets an obftacle, is conceived as an objection to their freedom: a man therefore fanfies that independancy and liberty are the fame things for that reafon he muft endeavour to fubdue all' around him to his inclinations; for no ambitious man thinks himself free as long as others can check him in his attempts. Thus the mind fteals from that liberty which belongs to all, to an independancy which belongs to none; and from thence to that of power over others for the fake of being quite independant; and then it terminates in defpotifm, if no oppofition destroy its defign. Tyranny itself feems to make this progrefs in the minds of men: thus abfolute power feems to be a combination

of

of two objects of the fame paffion, love of felf and liberty.

THE truth of this feems to be confirmed by obfervations on 'mankind every where. Tyrants have generally fhewn the strongest felf-love of all others in avarice fometimes, at others, in plundering for the fake of profufion on themselves, in murders, thro' fear of the deftruction of felf. Thus it may be I think fairly said, that the defire of power is the love of liberty mixt with the excess of self-love.

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Ir this be true, it should be the purfuit of all free states as much as poffible to endeavour to throw the paffion of felf-love into disgrace, ta brand with farcasm the mifer's forehead, and keep the incenfe on the altars of generofity and liberality eternally burning. A king, of all de meaning difpofitions, can have none fo criminal as perfonal avarice, to his nation; his heart fhould. be open to the men of science and men of art; and that truly royal spirit of giving to the meritori ous, should gain him the universal affection of a people; which it will never effect, if it be given indifcriminately without diftinction: yet avarice