quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society. Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the woolcomber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs 1 made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners 2 of the world! What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of these workmen! To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brick-maker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order 1 1. Drugs are herbs which have become dry, the O. E. form of which was dryge, M. E. drize. 2. Corners: corner is a diminutive from Fr. corne, Lat. cornu, a horn. to produce them. Were we to examine in the same manner all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing these different conveniences;-if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages. 3. Dress, fr. It. drizzare, Fr. dresser, comes from L. L. directiare, formed from directus. Thus the phrase once used "to address one's steps" is the same as the modern "to direct one's steps." From this meaning address, dress passed to that of "to get oneself ready," as in Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1, "The prologue is addrest? 4. Kitchen-grate: a kitchen is a place where a cook carries on his operations, the internal vowel being modified; though en is usually a diminutive termination; and grate comes from Lat. crates, a hurdle, through Ptg. grade, It. grada. CHAPTER XIV. THE DAWN OF ROMANTIC POETRY. James Thomson. 1700-1748. (History, p. 199.) 163. From 'WINTER.' REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY WINTER. 'Tis done!-Dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends His desolate domain. Behold, fond man! See here thy pictured life; pass some few years, And pale concluding Winter comes at last, And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled Of happiness? those longings after fame? To reason's eye refined, clears up apace. In palaces, lay straining her low thought, The storms of wintry Time will quickly pass, 1. Arraigned: arraign, by derivation, is to call to account (ad rationes), just as darraign is derationare, clear the account, settle the controversy. 164. From 'THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.' O mortal man, who livest here by toil, And, certes, there is for it reason great; For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, 1 Moil, to harass oneself with labour, probably from Lat. moliri; or "perhaps only a secondary application" of moil, to cover with dirt, "from the laborious efforts of one struggling through wet and mud" (Wedgwood). In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, A most enchanting wizard1 did abide, Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground: And there a season2 atween June and May, between. Half-prankt 3 with spring, with summer half-imbrown'd, A listless climate 4 made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared e'en for play. Was naught around but images of rest; 6 Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, 1. Wizard is formed by adding the socalled augmentative suffix ard to wise; though others would make it wiz-hart, wise-heart. 2. Season, Fr. saison, would seem to come from Lat. satio (literally a sowing, but used in later times in a more general seuse), as reason, from Lat. ratio. Others, however, take it from Lat. statio, comparing it with Ger. stunde, from stehn, to stand. 3. Half-prankt: to prank meant to trim oneself out for show. "Some pranked their ruffs." Spenser, Faery Queen, cast. blended. Book I. It comes perhaps from the same source as prance. 4. Climate: properly speaking, a climate is one of the rà κλíμara, or thirty inclinations into which the old geographers divided the space between the equator and the pole. Brande and Cox's 'Dictionary of Science and Art,' as quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright. 5. Sheen, bright. 6 Vacant, free from care, unemployed. 7. Coil, a noise, tumult, in which sense it is supposed to be of Celtic origin. |