luxury and pride of the Romans in that age: to which state, however, we ourselves seem to be rapidly advancing, and partly from a similar cause the importation of the wealth, the luxury and effeminacy of the Afiatick nations; who will probably revenge the unprovoked injuries which they have received from the Europeans, by gradually corrupting the morals of their conquerors, and make them in their turns the prey of fome more virtuous and more warlike invaders.*

SENECA EPISTLE XLVII.

TO LUCILIUS.

I WAS much pleased to hear, from fome of your

neighbours in the country, upon what kind and familiar terms you live with your flaves. It is no more, indeed, than I should have expected from your goodsense and enlightened understanding. But, are they really our flaves?-No: they are men; they are our

companions;

* -Sævior armis

Luxuria incubuit; victumq; ulcifcitur orbem.

Juv. vi. 292.

companions; our humble freiends. Are they our slaves? No: they are only our fellow-fervants; if you reflect that we are all equally under the dominion of fortune. I cannot but smile, therefore, at those who would think themselves polluted, if they were obliged to eat with their fellow-fervants.

But why fo? Only because a most infolent custom has made it neceffary for the mafter, as he fits at table, to be attended by a crowd of flaves standing round him. He eats more than his ftomach can well contain; and, while he is thus voraciously cramming his diftended paunch,* his unhappy flaves dare not move their lips, or utter a word. The loweft whisper is punished with the lash. Nor are the most casual or involuntary circumftances exempted from ftripes. To cough, to fneeze, to hiccup, or to interrupt the filence of the company by any kind of noise, is a capital offence.

Thus the poor flaves remain the whole night fasting and mute. Hence it comes to pass, that those who are not permitted to fpeak before their mafters, take their revenge by talking enough behind their backs: whereas thofe

* The original has a remark, of importance to health, "that the belly being thus diftended, lofes its tone (and, the periftaltick motion being obftructed) difcharges its contents with more diffi culty than they were crammed in."

those flaves who have been indulged in the liberty, not only of talking in their master's prefence, but of converfing modeftly with them, have often been found ready to facrifice their own lives, to avert any danger which threatened the lives of their mafters. They talked in their convivial entertainments; but were impregnably filent under the torture.

From the fame abfurd arrogance, arose the proverbial expreffion, "A man has as many enemies as he has flaves." Alas! they are not yet our enemies, but we make them fo.

I forbear to mention many other cruel and inhuman practices on this fubject: That we do not treat our flaves as if they were men; but abuse them, as if they were beafts of burthen: That when we fit down to table, one is employed to wipe up the spittle; another to gather up the scraps, which drop from the drunken guests; one stands to carve the coftly fowls; and with certain artful flourishes, carrying his skilful hand round the breast and the rump, shakes it at once, properly carved, into the dish.

Wretched mortal, who lives for no other purpose than to cut up crammed turkies! Though he perhaps is more despicably wretched, who, to gratify his appetite,

has

has this poor mortal taught fo frivolous an art; which through neceffity alone he submits to learn.*

The fum of my precepts on this subject is in short this: That you live in fuch a manner with your inferiors as you would wish to have your superiors live with you. Do not estimate men by their functions, but by their manners: a man gives himself the one; accident allots him the other. He may be a flave in his person, but perhaps his mind is free. Shall it be imputed to him as a crime, that he is a flave? Tell me, who is not so. One man is a flave to his appetites: another to his avarice: another to his ambition: and all of us are flaves to fear. Here is a man of confular dignity, who makes himself a flave to a wealthy old woman. Here is a man abounding in riches; he is enflaved to a little artful handmaid. Behold our young men of the first quality, the slaves of actresses and singing-girls.

Now, what can be more ignominious, than this voluntary fervitude? Let not these fastidious fops, then, deter you from behaving with affability; or at least, without any unneceffary haughtinefs, even towards your flaves. Let them love and reverence, rather than fear you. "What,

*Some inftances of the abuse of their flaves are here omitted. This feems to allude to the focial doctrine of the paffions.

"What, then, would you have us give our flaves their liberty, and degrade their masters from their superior station?"

He that talks thus must have forgotten that masters ought to be content with what is sufficient for the gods themselves: who are only reverenced and loved. But love is incompatible with fear. Most wifely therefore, in my opinion, do you act; who will not be feared by your flaves; who chaftife them with words alone, and leave brutes to be governed by severity and stripes.

N. B. Cicero, Pliny the conful, and all the best and wifest of the Romans, speak of their flaves with the fame tenderness and humanity. If flaves therefore are abfolutely neceffary for cultivating our fugar-canes; let us, for fhame, treat them with as much humanity as those did their flaves who were strangers to the gospel.

But, as Governor Trelawny faid (with a fevere irony) forty years fince, "What fignify the sufferings or death of a few outlandish men, if we can send better goods to market?"

A CON