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"as amusing to you to be told of our ad"ventures in foreign climes and countries; "of our dangers, difficulties and escapes; "our

our remarks upon the manners and cuf"toms of other nations, as to enclose the "whole converfation within the hedge of

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your own eftate, and fhut up intelligence, "wide as the world itself, within the nar "row limits of your parish pound? Be"lieve me, fir, we are glad to hear you, "and we refpect your order in the state, "but we are willing to hear each other alfo "in our turns; for let me obferve to you in "the ftile of the Compting-houfe, that con"verfation, like trade, abhors a monopoly, " and that a man can derive no benefit from fociety, unless he hears others talk as well "as himself."

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No. LXXXV.

WAS in company the other day with a young gentleman, who had newly fucceeded to a confiderable eftate, and was a good deal ftruck with the conversation of an elderly perfon prefent, who was very deliberately cafting up the feveral demands that the community at large had upon his property." Are you aware," fays he, "how small a portion of your revenue will "properly remain to yourself, when you “have satisfied all the claims which you "must pay to society and your country for

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living amongst us and fupporting the cha"racter of what is called a landed gentle"man? Part of your income will be ftopt "for the maintenance of them who have "none, under the denomination of poor"rates; this may be called a fine upon the partiality of fortune, levied by the law of

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fociety, which will not trust its poor "members to the precarious charity of the "rich: Another part must go to the debts VOL. III. "sand

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"and neceffities of the government, which "protects you in war and peace, and is alfo "a fine, which you must be content to pay "for the honour of being an Englishman, "and the advantage of living in a land of liberty and fecurity. The learned pro"feffions will alfo have their fhare; the "church for taking care of your foul, the

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physician for looking after your body, and "the lawyer must have part of your property for fuperintending the reft. The

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merchant, tradesman and artisan will have "their profit upon all the multiplied wants, "comforts and indulgences of civilized "life: thefe are not to be enumerated, for

they depend on the humours and habits "of men; they have grown up with the "refinements and elegancies of the age,

and they will further encrease, as these "fhall advance: They are the conductors, which, like the blood-veffels in the hu-. "man frame, circulate your wealth, and 66 every other man's wealth, through every "limb and even fibre of the national body: “The hand of industry creates that wealth, "and to the hand of industry it finally re

"turns, as blood does to the heart."

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If we trace the fituation of man from a mere state of nature to the highest state of civilization, we fhall find thefe artificial wants and dependences encrease with every stage and degree of his improvements; fo that if we confider each nation apart as one great machine, the several parts and springs, which give it motion, naturally become more and more complicated and multifarious, as the uses to which it is applied are more and more diverfified. Again, if we compare two nations in an equal ftate of civilization, we may remark, that where the greater freedom obtains, there the greater variety of artificial wants will obtain also, and of course property will circulate through more channels: This I take to be the cafe upon a comparifon between France and England, arifing from the different conftitutions of them and us with refpect to civil liberty.

The natural wants of men are pretty much the fame in moft ftates, but the humours of men will take different directions in different countries, and are governed in a great degree by the laws and conftitution

of the realm in which they are found: There are numbers of people in England, who get their living by arts and occupations, which would not be tolerated in a defpotic government. Men's manners are fimplified in proportion to the restraint and circumfcription under which they are kept. The country sports of English gentlemen furnish maintenance and employment to vast numbers of our people, whereas in France and other arbitrary states, men of the first rank and fortune refide in the capital, and keep no eftablishments of this fort. What a train of grooms, jockies and ftable-boys follow the heels of our horfes and hounds in tight boots and leather breeches! each of which carries the clothes of fix men upon his back, cafed in one fkin of flannel under another, like the coats of an onion. The loco-motive mania of an Englishman circulates his perfon, and of course his cash, into every quarter of the kingdom: A Frenchman takes a journey only when he cannot help it, an Englishman has no other reafon but because he likes it; he moves with every shift of the weather, and fol

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