whether they help us into life, or help us out of it, make us pay toll at each gate; and if at any time their art keeps us alive, the fine we must pay to their ingenuity makes the renewal in some cases too hard a bargain for a poor man to profit by. In all other countries upon earth a man is contented to be well and pay nothing for being so, but in England even health is an expensive article, as we are for ever contriving how to be a little better, and physicians are too conscientious to take a fee and do nothing for it. If there is any thing like ridicule in this, it is against the patient and not against the physician I would wish to point it; it is in England that the profession is truly dignified, and if it is here accompanied with greater emoluments, it is proportionably practised with superior learning; if life is more valuable in a land of freedom than in a land of slavery, why should it not be paid for according to its value? In despotic states, where men's lives are in fact the property of the prince, all subjects should in justice be cured or killed at his proper charge; but where a man's house is his castle, his health is his

own concern.

As to the other learned profession of the law, to its honour be it spoken, there is that charming perplexity about it, that we can ruin one another and ourselves with the greatest certainty and facility. It is so superior to all other sciences, that it can turn demonstration into doubt, truth into contradiction, make improbability put matter of fact out of countenance, and hang up a point for twenty years, which common sense would decide in as many minutes. It is the glorious privilege of the freemen of England to make their own laws, and they have made so many, that they can neither count them up nor comprehend them. The parliament of England is without comparison the most voluminous author

in the world; and there is such a happy ambiguity in its works, that its students have as much to say on the wrong side of every question as upon the right: in all cases of discussion it is one man's business to puzzle, and another's to explain, and though victory be ever so certain, it is agreed between the parties to make a long battle: there must be an extraordinary faculty of expression in the law, when the only parts clearly understood are those which it has not committed to writing.

I shall say very little in this place upon the sacred profession of divinity: it is to be lamented that the church of England is not provided with a proper competency for all who are engaged in performing its functions; but I cannot close with their opinion, who are for stripping its dignities, and equalizing those splendid benefices, which are at once the glory and the support of its establishment. Levellers and reformers will always have the popular cry on their side, and I have good reason to know with what inveteracy a man is persecuted for an opinion which opposes it; and yet it is hard to give credit to the sincerity and disinterestedness of him who courts popularity, and deny it to the man who sacrifices his repose, and stands the brunt of abuse in defence of what he believes to be the truth.

And now having fallen upon the mention of Popularity, I shall take leave to address that divinity with a few lines picked up from an obscure author, which, though below poetry, are not quite prose, and on that account pretty nearly suited to the level of their subject.

O Popularity, thou giddy thing!

What grace or profit dost thou bring?
Thou art not honesty, thou art not fame;
I cannot call thee by a worthy name:

To say I hate thee were not true;
Contempt is properly thy due;

I cannot love thee and despise thee too.

Thou art no patriot, but the veriest cheat
That ever traffick'd in deceit;

A state empiric, bellowing loud

Freedom and phrenzy to the mobbing crowd; And what car'st thou, if thou canst raise Illuminations and huzzas,

Tho' half the city sunk in one bright blaze?

A patriot! no; for thou dost hold in hate
The very peace and welfare of the state;
When anarchy assaults the sovereign's throne,
Then is the day, the night thine own;
Then is thy triumph, when the foe
Levels some dark insidious blow,
Or strong rebellion lays thy country low.
Thou canst affect humility to hide
Some deep device of monstrous pride;
Conscience and charity pretend
For compassing some private end;
And in a canting conventicle note

Long scripture passages canst quote,
When persecution rankles in thy throat.

Thou hast no sense of nature at thy heart,
No ear for science, and no eye for art,
Yet confidently dost decide at once

This man a wit, and that a dunce;
And, (strange to tell!) howe'er unjust,
We take thy dictates upon trust,
For if the world will be deceiv'd, it must.

In truth and justice thou hast no delight,
Virtue thou dost not know by sight;
But, as the chymist by his skill
From dross and dregs a spirit can distill,
So from the prisons, or the stews,
Bullies, blasphemers, cheats or Jews
Shall turn to heroes, if they serve thy views.

Thou dost but make a ladder of the mob,
Whereby to climb into some courtly job;

There safe reposing, warm and snug,
Thou answer'st with a patient shrug,
Miscreants, begone! who cares for you,
Ye base-born, brawling, clamorous crew?
You've serv'd my turn, and, vagabonds, adieu!

NUMBER LXXXVI.

BEING now arrived at the conclusion of my third volume*, and having hitherto given my readers very little interruption in my own person, I hope I may be permitted to make one short valedictory address to these departing adventurers, in whose success I am naturally so much interested.

I have employed much time and care in rearing up these Essays to what I conceived maturity, and qualifying them, as far as I was able, to shift for themselves, in a world where they are to inherit no popularity from their author, nor to look for any favour but what they can earn for themselves. To any, who shall question them who they are, and whence they come, they may truly answer-We are all one man's sons-we are indeed Observers, but no Spies. If this shall not suffice, and they must needs give a further account of themselves, they will have to say, that he who sent them into the world, sent them as an offering of his good-will to mankind; that he trusts they have been so trained as not to hurt the feelings or offend the principles of any man, who shall admit them into his company; and that for their errors (which he cannot doubt are many) he hopes they will be found errors of the understanding, not of the heart: they are the first-fruits of his

*This alludes to the original form of publishing these volumes. C.

leisure and retirement; and as the mind of a man in that situation will naturally bring the past scenes of active life under its examination and review, it will surely be considered as a pardonable zeal for being yet serviceable to mankind; if he gives his experience and observations to the world, when he has no further expectations from it on the score of fame or fortune. These are the real motives for the publication of these Papers, and this the Author's true state of mind: to serve the cause of morality and religion is his first ambition; to point out some useful lessons for amending the education and manners of young people of either sex, and to mark the evil habits and unsocial humours of men, with a view to their reformation, are the general objects of his undertaking. He has formed his mind to be contented with the consciousness of these honest endeavours, and with a very moderate share of success. he has ample reason notwithstanding to be more than satisfied with the reception these Papers have already had in their probationary excursion; and it is not from any disgust, taken up in a vain conceit of his own merits, that he has more than once observed upon the frauds and follies of popularity, or that he now repeats his opinion, that it is the worst guide a public man can follow, who wishes not to go out of the track of honesty; for at the same time that he has seen men force their way in the world by effrontery, and heard others applauded for their talents, whose only recommendation has been their ingenuity in wickedness, he can recollect very few indeed who have succeeded, either in fame or fortune, under the disadvantages of modesty and merit.

To such readers, as shall have taken up these Essays with a candid disposition to be pleased, he will not scruple to express a hope that they have not been altogether disappointed; for though he has