Chapter IV: Preface (3)

Thieves and pick-pockets steal for a livelihood, and either what they can get honestly is not sufficient to keep them, or else they have an aversion to constant working: they want to gratify their senses, have victuals, strong drink, lewd women, and to be idle when they please. The victualler, who entertains them, and takes their money, knowing which way they come at it, is very near as great a villain as his guests. But if he fleeces them well, minds his business, and is a prudent man, he may get money, and be punctual with them he deals with: The trusty out-clerk, whose chief aim is his master's profit, sends him in what beer he wants, and takes care not to lose his custom; while the man's money is good, he thinks it no business of his to examine whom he gets it by. In the mean time, the wealthy brewer, who leaves all the management to his servants, knows nothing of the matter, but keeps his coach, treats his friends, and enjoys his pleasure with ease and a good conscience; he gets an estate; builds houses, and educates his children in plenty, without ever thinking on the labour which wretches perform, the shifts fools make, and the tricks knaves play to come at the commodity, by the vast sale of which he amasses his great riches.

A highwayman having met with a considerable booty, gives a poor common harlot, he fancies, ten pounds to new-rig her from top to toe; is there a spruce mercer so conscientious that he will refuse to sell her a thread sattin, though he knew who she was? She must have shoes and stockings, gloves, the stay and mantua maker, the sempstress, the linen-draper, all must get something by her, and a hundred different tradesmen dependent on those she laid her money out with, may touch part of it before a month is at an end. The generous gentleman, in the mean time, his money being near spent, ventured again on the road, but the second day having committed a robbery near Highgate, he was taken with one of his accomplices, and the next sessions both were condemned, and suffered the law. The money due on their conviction fell to three country fellows, on whom it was admirably well bestowed. One was an honest farmer, a sober pains-taking man, but reduced by misfortunes: The summer before, by the mortality among the cattle, he had lost six cows out of ten, and now his landlord, to whom he owed thirty pounds, had seized on all his stock. The other was a day-labourer, who struggled hard with the world, had a sick wife at home, and several small children to provide for. The third was a gentleman's gardener, who maintained his father in prison, where, being bound for a neighbour, he had lain for twelve pounds almost a year and a half; this act of filial duty was the more meritorious, because he had for some time been engaged to a young woman, whose parents lived in good circumstances, but would not give their consent before our gardener had fifty guineas of his own to show. They received above fourscore pounds each, which extricated every one of them out of the difficulties they laboured under, and made them, in their opinion, the happiest people in the world.

Nothing is more destructive, either in regard to the health or the vigilance and industry of the poor, than the infamous liquor, the name of which, derived from Juniper in Dutch, is now, by frequent use, and the laconic spirit of the nation, from a word of middling length, shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating gin, that charms the unactive, the desperate and crazy of either sex, and makes the starving sot behold his rags and nakedness with stupid indolence, or banter both in senseless laughter, and more insipid jests! It is a fiery lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrails, and scorches every part within; and, at the same time, a Lethe of oblivion, in which the wretch immersed drowns his most pinching cares, and with his reason, all anxious reflection on brats that cry for food, hard winters frosts, and horrid empty home.

In hot and adust tempers it makes men quarrelsome, renders them brutes and savages, sets them on to fight for nothing, and has often been the cause of murder. It has broke and destroyed the strongest constitutions, thrown them into consumptions, and been the fatal and immediate occasion of apoplexies, phrenzies, and sudden death. But, as these latter mischiefs happen but seldom, they might be overlooked and connived at: but this cannot be said of the many diseases that are familiar to the liquor, and which are daily and hourly produced by it; such as loss of appetite, fevers, black and yellow jaundice, convulsions, stone and gravel, dropsies, and leucophlegmacies.

Among the doting admirers of this liquid poison, many of the meanest rank, from a sincere affection to the commodity itself, become dealers in it, and take delight to help others to what they love themselves, as whores commence bawds to make the profits of one trade subservient to the pleasures of the other. But as these starvelings commonly drink more than their gains, they seldom, by selling, mend the wretchedness of condition they laboured under while they were only buyers. In the fag-end and outskirts of the town, and all places of the vilest resort, it is sold in some part or other of almost every house, frequently in cellars, and sometimes in the garret. The petty traders in this Stygian comfort, are supplied by others in somewhat higher station, that keep professed brandy shops, and are as little to be envied as the former; and among the middling people, I know not a more miserable shift for a livelihood than their calling; whoever would thrive in it must, in the first place, be of a watchful and suspicious, as well as a bold and resolute temper, that he may not be imposed upon by cheats and sharpers, nor out-bullied by the oaths and imprecations of hackney coachmen and foot soldiers: in the second, he ought to be a dabster at gross jokes and loud laughter, and have all the winning ways to allure customers and draw out their money, and be well versed in the low jests and raileries the mob make use of to banter prudence and frugality. He must be affable and obsequious to the most despicable; always ready and officious to help a porter down with his load, shake hands with a basket woman, pull off his hat to an oyster wench, and be familiar with a beggar; with patience and good humour he must be able to endure the filthy actions and viler language of nasty drabs, and the lewdest rakehells, and without a frown, or the least aversion, bear with all the stench and squalor, noise and impertinence, that the utmost indigence, laziness, and ebriety, can produce in the most shameless and abandoned vulgar.

The vast number of the shops I speak of throughout the city and suburbs, are an astonishing evidence of the many seducers, that, in a lawful occupation, are accessary to the introduction and increase of all the sloth, sottishness, want, and misery, which the abuse of strong waters is the immediate cause of, to lift above mediocrity perhaps half a score men that deal in the same commodity by wholesale, while, among the retailers, though qualified as I required, a much greater number are broke and ruined, for not abstaining from the Circean cup they hold out to others, and the more fortunate are their whole lifetime obliged to take the uncommon pains, endure the hardships, and swallow all the ungrateful and shocking things I named, for little or nothing beyond a bare sustenance, and their daily bread.

The short-sighted vulgar in the chain of causes seldom can see further than one link; but those who can enlarge their view, and will give themselves the leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated events, may, in a hundred places, see good spring up and pullulate from evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs. The money that arises from the duties upon malt is a considerable part of the national revenue, and should no spirits be distilled from it, the public treasure would prodigiously suffer on that head. But if we would set in a true light the many advantages, and large catalogue of solid blessings that accrue from, and are owing to the evil I treat of, we are to consider the rents that are received, the ground that is tilled, the tools that are made, the cattle that are employed, and above all, the multitude of poor that are maintained, by the variety of labour, requited in husbandry, in malting, in carriage and distillation, before we can have the product of malt, which we call low wines, and is but the beginning from which the various spirits are afterwards to be made.

Besides this, a sharp-sighted good-humoured man might pick up abundance of good from the rubbish, which I have all flung away for evil. He would tell me, that whatever sloth and sottishness might be occasioned by the abuse of malt-spirits, the moderate use of it was of inestimable benefit to the poor, who could purchase no cordials of higher prices, that it was an universal comfort, not only in cold and weariness, but most of the afflictions that are peculiar to the necessitous, and had often to the most destitute supplied the places of meat, drink, clothes, and lodging. That the stupid indolence in the most wretched condition occasioned by those composing draughts, which I complained of, was a blessing to thousands, for that certainly those were the happiest, who felt the least pain. As to diseases, he would say, that, as it caused some, so it cured others, and that if the excess in those liquors had been sudden death to some few, the habit of drinking them daily prolonged the lives of many, whom once it agreed with; that for the loss sustained from the insignificant quarrels it created at home, we were overpaid in the advantage we received from it abroad, by upholding the courage of soldiers, and animating the sailors to the combat; and that in the two last wars no considerable victory had been obtained without.

To the dismal account I have given of the retailers, and what they are forced to submit to, he would answer, that not many acquired more than middling riches in any trade, and that what I had counted so offensive and intolerable in the calling, was trifling to those who were used to it; that what seemed irksome and calamitous to some, was delightful and often ravishing to others; as men differed in circumstances and education. He would put me in mind, that the profit of an employment ever made amends for the toil and labour that belonged to it, nor forget, Dulcis odor lucri e re qualibet; or to tell me, that the smell of gain was fragrant even to night-workers.

If I should ever urge to him, that to have here and there one great and eminent distiller, was a poor equivalent for the vile means, the certain want, and lasting misery of so many thousand wretches, as were necessary to raise them, he would answer, that of this I could be no judge, because I do not know what vast benefit they might afterwards be of to the commonwealth. Perhaps, would he say, the man thus raised will exert himself in the commission of the peace, or other station, with vigilance and zeal against the dissolute and disaffected, and retaining his stirring temper, be as industrious in spreading loyalty, and the reformation of manners, throughout every cranny of the wide populous town, as once he was in filling it with spirits; till he becomes at last the scourge of whores, of vagabonds and beggars, the terror of rioters and discontented rabbles, and constant plague to sabbath-breaking butchers. Here my good-humoured antagonist would exult and triumph over me, especially if he could instance to me such a bright example, what an uncommon blessing, would he cry out, is this man to his country! how shining and illustrious his virtue!

To justify his exclamation, he would demonstrate to me, that it was impossible to give a fuller evidence of self-denial in a grateful mind, than to see him at the expence of his quiet and hazard of his life and limbs, be always harassing, and even for trifles, persecuting that very class of men to whom he owes his fortune, from no other motive than his aversion to idleness, and great concern for religion and the public welfare.

Line 173. Parties directly opposite,
Assist each other, as 'twere for spite.

Nothing was more instrumental in forwarding the Reformation, than the sloth and stupidity of the Roman clergy; yet the same reformation has roused them from the laziness and ignorance they then laboured under; and the followers of Luther, Calvin, and others, may be said to have reformed not only those whom they drew into their sentiment, but likewise those who remained their greatest opposers. The clergy of England, by being severe upon the Schismatics, and upbraiding them with want of learning, have raised themselves such formidable enemies as are not easily answered; and again, the Dissenters by prying into the lives, and diligently watching all the actions of their powerful antagonists, render those of the Established Church more cautious of giving offence, than in all probability they would, if they had no malicious over-lookers to fear. It is very much owing to the great number of Huguenots that have always been in France, since the late utter extirpation of them, that that kingdom has a less dissolute and more learned clergy to boast of than any other Roman Catholic country. The clergy of that church are no where more sovereign than in Italy, and therefore no where more debauched; nor any where more ignorant than they are in Spain, because their doctrine is nowhere less opposed.

Who would imagine, that virtuous women, unknowingly, should be instrumental in promoting the advantage of prostitutes? Or (what still seems the greater paradox) that incontinence should be made serviceable to the preservation of chastity? and yet nothing is more true. A vicious young fellow, after having been an hour or two at church, a ball, or any other assembly, where there is a great parcel of handsome women dressed to the best advantage, will have his imagination more fired, than if he had the same time been poling at Guildhall, or walking in the country among a flock of sheep. The consequence of this is, that he will strive to satisfy the appetite that is raised in him; and when he finds honest women obstinate and uncomatable, it is very natural to think, that he will hasten to others that are more compliable. Who would so much as surmise, that this is the fault of the virtuous women? They have no thoughts of men in dressing themselves, poor souls, and endeavour only to appear clean and decent, every one according to her quality.

I am far from encouraging vice, and think it would be an unspeakable felicity to a state, if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly banished from it; but I am afraid it is impossible: The passions of some people are too violent to be curbed by any law or precept; and it is wisdom in all governments to bear with lesser inconveniencies to prevent greater. If courtezans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigour as some silly people would have it, what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honour of our wives and daughters? For it is not only that the women in general would meet with far greater temptations, and the attempts to ensnare the innocence of virgins would seem more excusable, even to the sober part of mankind, than they do now: but some men would grow outrageous, and ravishing would become a common crime. Where six or seven thousand sailors arrive at once, as it often happens, at Amsterdam, that have seen none but their own sex for many months together, how is it to be supposed that honest women should walk the streets unmolested, if there were no harlots to be had at reasonable prices? for which reason, the wise rulers of that well-ordered city always tolerate an uncertain number of houses, in which women are hired as publicly as horses at a livery stable; and there being in this toleration a great deal of prudence and economy to be seen, a short account of it will be no tiresome digression.

In the first place, the houses I speak of are allowed to be no where but in the most slovenly and unpolished part of the town, where seamen and strangers of no repute chiefly lodge and resort. The street in which most of them stand is counted scandalous, and the infamy is extended to all the neighbourhood round it. In the second, they are only places to meet and bargain in, to make appointments in order to promote interviews of greater secrecy, and no manner of lewdness is ever suffered to be transacted in them: which order is so strictly observed, that bar the ill manners and noise of the company that frequent them, you will meet with no more indecency, and generally less lasciviousness there, than with us are to be seen at a playhouse.

Thirdly, the female traders that come to these evening exchanges are always the scum of the people, and generally such as in the day time carry fruit and other eatables about in wheel-barrows. The habits, indeed, they appear in at night are very different from their ordinary ones; yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay, that they look more like the Roman dresses of strolling actresses than gentlewomen's clothes: if to this you add the awkwardness, the hard hands, and coarse breeding of the damsels that wear them, there is no great reason to fear, that many of the better sort of people will be tempted by them.

The music in these temples of Venus is performed by organs, not out of respect to the deity that is worshipped in them, but the frugality of the owners, whose business it is to procure as much sound for as little money as they can, and the policy of the government, who endeavour, as little as is possible to encourage the breed of pipers and scrapers. All seafaring men, especially the Dutch, are like the element they belong to, much given to loudness and roaring, and the noise of half-a-dozen of them, when they call themselves merry, is sufficient to drown twice the number of flutes or violins; whereas, with one pair of organs, they can make the whole house ring, and are at no other charge than the keeping of one scurvy musician, which can cost them but little: yet notwithstanding the good rules and strict discipline that are observed in these markets of love, the schout and his officers are always vexing, mulcting, and, upon the least complaint, removing the miserable keepers of them: which policy is of two great uses; first, it gives an opportunity to a large parcel of officers, the magistrates make use of on many occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a living out of the immoderate gains accruing from the worst of employments, and, at the same time, punish those necessary profligates, the bawds and panders, which, though they abominate, they desire yet not wholly to destroy. Secondly, as on several accounts it might be dangerous to let the multitude into the secret, that those houses and the trade that is drove in them are connived at, so by this means appearing unblameable, the wary magistrates preserve themselves in the good opinion of the weaker sort of people, who imagine that the government is always endeavouring, though unable, to suppress what it actually tolerates: whereas, if they had a mind to root them out, their power in the administration of justice is so sovereign and extensive, and they know so well how to have it executed, that one week, nay, one night might send them all a packing.

In Italy, the toleration of strumpets is yet more barefaced, as is evident from their public stews. At Venice and Naples, impurity is a kind of merchandise and traffic; the courtezans at Rome, and the cantoneras in Spain, compose a body in the state, and are under a legal tax and impost. It is well known, that the reason why so many good politicians as these tolerate lewd houses, is not their irreligion, but to prevent a worse evil, an impurity of a more execrable kind, and to provide for the safety of women of honour. "About two hundred and fifty years ago," says Monsieur de St. Didier, "Venice being in want of courtezans, the republic was obliged to procure a great number from foreign parts." Doglioni, who has written the memorable affairs of Venice, highly extols the wisdom of the republic in this point, which secured the chastity of women of honour, daily exposed to public violences, the churches and consecrated places not being a sufficient asylum for their chastity.

Our universities in England are much belied, if in some colleges there was not a monthly allowance ad expurgandos renes: and time was when monks and priests in Germany were allowed concubines on paying a certain yearly duty to their prelate. "It is generally believed" says Monsieur Bayle, (to whom I owe the last paragraph) "that avarice was the cause of this shameful indulgence; but it is more probable their design was to prevent their tempting modest women, and to quiet the uneasiness of husbands, whose resentments the clergy do well to avoid." From what has been said, it is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature. From whence I think I may justly conclude (what was the seeming paradox I went about to prove) that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices.

Line 177. The root of evil, avarice,
That damn'd ill-natur'd baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality.

I have joined so many odious epithets to the word avarice, in compliance to the vogue of mankind, who generally bestow more ill language upon this than upon any other vice, and indeed not undeservedly; for there is hardly a mischief to be named which it has not produced at one time or other: but the true reason why every body exclaims so much against it, is, that almost every body suffers by it; for the more the money is hoarded up by some, the scarcer it must grow among the rest, and therefore when men rail very much at misers, there is generally self-interest at bottom.

As there is no living without money, so those that are unprovided, and have nobody to give them any, are obliged to do some service or other to the society, before they can come at it; but every body esteeming his labour as he does himself, which is generally not under the value, most people that want money only to spend it again presently, imagine they do more for it than it is worth. Men cannot forbear looking upon the necessaries of life as their due, whether they work or not; because they find that nature, without consulting whether they have victuals or not, bids them eat whenever they are hungry; for which reason, every body endeavours to get what he wants with as much ease as he can; and therefore when men find that the trouble they are put to in getting money is either more or less, according as those they would have it from are more or less tenacious, it is very natural for them to be angry at covetousness in general; for it obliges them either to go without what they have occasion for, or else to take greater pains for it than they are willing.

Avarice, notwithstanding it is the occasion of so many evils, is yet very necessary to the society, to glean and gather what has been dropt and scattered by the contrary vice. Was it not for avarice, spendthrifts would soon want materials; and if none would lay up and get faster than they spend, very few could spend faster than they get. That it is a slave to prodigality, as I have called it, is evident from so many misers as we daily see toil and labour, pinch and starve themselves, to enrich a lavish heir. Though these two vices appear very opposite, yet they often assist each other. Florio is an extravagant young blade, of a very profuse temper; as he is the only son of a very rich father, he wants to live high, keep horses and dogs, and throw his money about, as he sees some of his companions do; but the old hunks will part with no money, and hardly allows him necessaries. Florio would have borrowed money upon his own credit long ago; but as all would be lost, if he died before his father, no prudent man would lend him any. At last he has met with the greedy Cornaro, who lets him have money at thirty per cent. and now Florio thinks himself happy, and spends a thousand a-year. Where would Cornaro ever have got such a prodigious interest, if it was not for such a fool as Florio, who will give so great a price for money to fling it away? And how would Florio get it to spend, if he had not lit of such a greedy usurer as Cornaro, whose excessive covetousness makes him overlook the great risk he runs in venturing such great sums upon the life of a wild debauchee.

Avarice is no longer the reverse of profuseness, than while it signifies that sordid love of money, and narrowness of soul that hinders misers from parting with what they have, and makes them covet it only to hoard up. But there is a sort of avarice which consists in a greedy desire of riches, in order to spend them, and this often meets with prodigality in the same persons, as is evident in most courtiers and great officers, both civil and military. In their buildings and furniture, equipages and entertainments, their gallantry is displayed with the greatest profusion; while the base actions they submit to for lucre, and the many frauds and impositions they are guilty of, discover the utmost avarice. This mixture of contrary vices, comes up exactly to the character of Catiline, of whom it is said, that he was appetens alieni & sui profusus, greedy after the goods of others, and lavish of his own.

Line 180. That noble sin----

The prodigality, I call a noble sin, is not that which has avarice for its companion, and makes men unreasonably profuse to some of what they unjustly extort from others, but that agreeable good-natured vice that makes the chimney smoke, and all the tradesmen smile; I mean the unmixed prodigality of heedless and voluptuous men, that being educated in plenty, abhor the vile thoughts of lucre, and lavish away only what others took pains to scrape together; such as indulge their inclinations at their own expence, that have the continual satisfaction of bartering old gold for new pleasures, and from the excessive largeness of a diffusive soul, are made guilty of despising too much what most people overvalue.

When I speak thus honourably of this vice, and treat it with so much tenderness and good manners as I do, I have the same thing at heart that made me give so many ill names to the reverse of it, viz. the interest of the public; for as the avaricious does no good to himself, and is injurious to all the world besides, except his heir, so the prodigal is a blessing to the whole society, and injures no body but himself. It is true, that as most of the first are knaves, so the latter are all fools; yet they are delicious morsels for the public to feast on, and may with as much justice, as the French call the monks the patridges of the women, be styled the woodcocks of the society. Was it not for prodigality, nothing could make us amends for the rapine and extortion of avarice in power. When a covetous statesman is gone, who spent his whole life in fattening himself with the spoils of the nation, and had by pinching and plundering heaped up an immense treasure, it ought to fill every good member of the society with joy, to behold the uncommon profuseness of his son. This is refunding to the public what was robbed from it. Resuming of grants is a barbarous way of stripping, and it is ignoble to ruin a man faster than he does it himself, when he sets about it in such good earnest. Does he not feed an infinite number of dogs of all sorts and sizes, though he never hunts; keep more horses than any nobleman in the kingdom, though he never rides them; and give as large an allowance to an ill-favoured whore as would keep a dutchess, though he never lies with her? Is he not still more extravagant in those things he makes use of? Therefore let him alone, or praise him, call him public-spirited lord, nobly bountiful and magnificently generous, and in a few years he will suffer himself to be stript his own way. As long as the nation has its own back again, we ought not to quarrel with the manner in which the plunder is repaid.

Abundance of moderate men, I know, that are enemies to extremes, will tell me, that frugality might happily supply the place of the two vices I speak of, that if men had not so many profuse ways of spending wealth, they would not be tempted to so many evil practices to scrape it together, and consequently that the same number of men, by equally avoiding both extremes, might render themselves more happy, and be less vicious without, than they could with them. Whoever argues thus, shows himself a better man than he is a politician. Frugality is like honesty, a mean starving virtue, that is only fit for small societies of good peaceable men, who are contented to be poor, so they may be easy; but, in a large stirring nation, you may have soon enough of it. It is an idle dreaming virtue that employs no hands, and therefore very useless in a trading country, where there are vast numbers that one way or other must be all set to work. Prodigality has a thousand inventions to keep people from sitting still, that frugality would never think of; and as this must consume a prodigious wealth, so avarice again knows innumerable tricks to raise it together, which frugality would scorn to make use of.

Authors are always allowed to compare small things to great ones, especially if they ask leave first. Si licit exemplis, &c. but to compare great things to mean trivial ones, is unsufferable, unless it be in burlesque; otherwise I would compare the body politic (I confess the simile is very low) to a bowl of punch. Avarice should be the souring, and prodigality the sweetening of it. The water I would call the ignorance, folly, and credulity of the floating insipid multitude; while wisdom, honour, fortitude, and the rest of the sublime qualities of men, which separated by art from the dregs of nature, the fire of glory has exalted and refined into a spiritual essence, should be an equivalent to brandy. I do not doubt but a Westphalian, Laplander, or any other dull stranger that is unacquainted with the wholesome composition, if he was to sell the several ingredients apart, would think it impossible they should make any tolerable liquor. The lemons would be too sour, the sugar too luscious, the brandy he will say is too strong ever to be drank in any quantity, and the water he will call a tasteless liquor, only fit for cows and horses: yet experience teaches us, that the ingredients I named, judiciously mixed, will make an excellent liquor, liked of, and admired by men of exquisite palates.

As to our vices in particular, I could compare avarice, that causes so much mischief, and is complained of by every body who is not a miser, to a griping acid that sets our teeth on edge, and is unpleasant to every palate that is not debauched: I could compare the gaudy trimming and splendid equipage of a profuse beau, to the glistening brightness of the finest loaf sugar; for as the one, by correcting the sharpness, prevent the injuries which a gnawing sour might do to the bowels, so the other is a pleasing balsam that heals and makes amends for the smart, which the multitude always suffers from the gripes of the avaricious; while the substances of both melt away alike, and they consume themselves by being beneficial to the several compositions they belong to. I could carry on the simile as to proportions, and the exact nicety to be observed in them, which would make it appear how little any of the ingredients could be spared in either of the mixtures; but I will not tire my reader by pursuing too far a ludicrous comparison, when I have other matters to entertain him with of greater importance; and to sum up what I have said in this and the foregoing remark, shall only add, that I look upon avarice and prodigality in the society, as I do upon two contrary poisons in physic, of which it is certain that the noxious qualities being by mutual mischief corrected in both, they may assist each other, and often make a good medicine between them.

Line 180. --------Whilst luxury
Employ'd a million of the poor, &c.

If every thing is to be luxury (as in strictness it ought) that is not immediately necessary to make man subsist as he is a living creature, there is nothing else to be found in the world, no not even among the naked savages; of which it is not probable that there are any but what by this time have made some improvements upon their former manner of living; and either in the preparation of their eatables, the ordering of their huts, or otherwise, added something to what once sufficed them. This definition every body will say is too rigorous: I am of the same opinion; but if we are to abate one inch of this severity, I am afraid we shall not know where to stop. When people tell us they only desire to keep themselves sweet and clean, there is no understanding what they would be at: if they made use of these words in their genuine proper literal sense, they might be soon satisfied without much cost or trouble, if they did not want water: but these two little adjectives are so comprehensive, especially in the dialect of some ladies, that nobody can guess how far they may be stretched. The comforts of life are likewise so various and extensive, that nobody can tell what people mean by them, except he knows what sort of life they lead. The same obscurity I observe in the words decency and conveniency, and I never understand them, unless I am acquainted with the quality of the persons that make use of them. People may go to church together, and be all of one mind as much as they please, I am apt to believe that when they pray for their daily bread, the bishop includes several things in that petition which the sexton does not think on.

By what I have said hitherto I would only show, that if once we depart from calling every thing luxury that is not absolutely necessary to keep a man alive, that then there is no luxury at all; for if the wants of men are innumerable, then what ought to supply them has no bounds; what is called superfluous, to some degree of people, will be thought requisite to those of higher quality; and neither the world, nor the skill of man can produce any thing so curious or extravagant, but some most gracious sovereign or other, if it either eases or diverts him, will reckon it among the necessaries of life; not meaning every body's life, but that of his sacred person.

It is a received notion, that luxury is as destructive to the wealth of the whole body politic, as it is to that of every individual person who is guilty of it, and that a national frugality enriches a country in the same manner, as that which is less general increases the estates of private families. I confess, that though I have found men of much better understanding than myself of this opinion, I cannot help dissenting from them in this point. They argue thus: We send, say they, for example, to Turkey of woollen manufactury, and other things of our own growth, a million's worth every year; for this we bring back silk, mohair, drugs, &c. to the value of twelve hundred thousand pounds, that are all spent in our own country. By this, say they, we get nothing; but if most of us would be content with our own growth, and so consume but half the quantity of those foreign commodities, then those in Turkey, who would still want the same quantity of our manufactures, would be forced to pay ready money for the rest, and so by the balance of that trade only, the nation should get six hundred thousand pounds per annum.

To examine the force of this argument, we will suppose (what they would have) that but half the silk, &c. shall be consumed in England of what there is now; we will suppose likewise, that those in Turkey, though we refuse to buy above half as much of their commodities as we used to do, either can or will not be without the same quantity of our manufactures they had before, and that they will pay the balance in money; that is to say, that they shall give us as much gold or silver, as the value of what they buy from us, exceeds the value of what we buy from them. Though what we suppose might perhaps be done for one year, it is impossible it should last: Buying is bartering; and no nation can buy goods of others, that has none of her own to purchase them with. Spain and Portugal, that are yearly supplied with new gold and silver from their mines, may for ever buy for ready money, as long as their yearly increase of gold or silver continues; but then money is their growth, and the commodity of the country. We know that we could not continue long to purchase the goods of other nations, if they would not take our manufactures in payment for them; and why should we judge otherwise of other nations? If those in Turkey, then, had no more money fall from the skies than we, let us see what would be the consequence of what we supposed. The six hundred thousand pounds in silk, mohair, &c. that are left upon their hands the first year, must make those commodities fall considerably: Of this the Dutch and French will reap the benefit as much as ourselves; and if we continue to refuse taking their commodities in payment for our manufactures, they can trade no longer with us, but must content themselves with buying what they want of such nations as are willing to take what we refuse, though their goods are much worse than ours; and thus our commerce with Turkey must in few years be infallibly lost.

But they will say, perhaps, that to prevent the ill consequence I have showed, we shall take the Turkish merchandise as formerly, and only be so frugal as to consume but half the quantity of them ourselves, and send the rest abroad to be sold to others. Let us see what this will do, and whether it will enrich the nation by the balance of that trade with six hundred thousand pounds. In the first place, I will grant them that our people at home making use of so much more of our own manufactures, those who were employed in silk, mohair, &c. will get a living by the various preparations of woollen goods. But, in the second, I cannot allow that the goods can be sold as formerly; for suppose the half that is wore at home to be sold at the same rate as before, certainly the other half that is sent abroad will want very much of it: For we must send those goods to markets already supplied; and besides that, there must be freight, insurance, provision, and all other charges deducted, and the merchants in general must lose much more by this half that is reshipped, than they got by the half that is consumed here. For, though the woollen manufactures are our own product, yet they stand the merchant that ships them off to foreign countries, in as much as they do the shopkeeper here that retails them: so that if the returns for what he sends abroad repay him not what his goods cost him here, with all other charges, till he has the money and a good interest for it in cash, the merchant must run out, and the upshot would be, that the merchants in general, finding they lost by the Turkish commodities they sent abroad, would ship no more of our manufactures, than what would pay for as much silk, mohair, &c. as would be consumed here. Other nations would soon find ways to supply them with as much as we should send short, and some where or other to dispose of the goods we should refuse: So that all we should get by this frugality, would be, that those in Turkey would take but half the quantity of our manufactures of what they do now, while we encourage and wear their merchandises, without which they are not able to purchase ours.

As I have had the mortification, for several years, to meet with abundance of sensible people against this opinion, and who always thought me wrong in this calculation, so I had the pleasure at last to see the wisdom of the nation fall into the same sentiments, as is so manifest from an act of parliament made in the year 1721, where the legislature disobliges a powerful and valuable company, and overlooks very weighty inconveniences at home, to promote the interest of the Turkey trade, and not only encourages the consumption of silk and mohair, but forces the subjects, on penalties, to make use of them whether they will or not.

What is laid to the charge of luxury besides, is, that it increases avarice and rapine: And where they are reigning vices, offices of the greatest trust are bought and sold; the ministers that should serve the public, both great and small, corrupted, and the countries every moment in danger of being betrayed to the highest bidders: And, lastly, that it effeminates and enervates the people, by which the nations become an easy prey to the first invaders. These are indeed terrible things; but what is put to the account of luxury belongs to male-administration, and is the fault of bad politics. Every government ought to be thoroughly acquainted with, and stedfastly to pursue the interest of the country. Good politicians, by dexterous management, laying heavy impositions on some goods, or totally prohibiting them, and lowering the duties on others, may always turn and divert the course of trade which way they please; and as they will ever prefer, if it be equally considerable, the commerce with such countries as can pay with money as well as goods, to those that can make no returns for what they buy, but in the commodities of their own growth and manufactures, so they will always carefully prevent the traffic with such nations as refuse the goods of others, and will take nothing but money for their own. But, above all, they will keep a watchful eye over the balance of trade in general, and never suffer that all the foreign commodities together, that are imported in one year, shall exceed in value what of their own growth or manufacture is in the same imported to others. Note, That I speak now of the interest of those nations that have no gold or silver of their own growth, otherwise this maxim need not to be so much insisted on.

If what I urged last, be but diligently looked after, and the imports are never allowed to be superior to the exports, no nation can ever be impoverished by foreign luxury; and they may improve it as much as they please, if they can but in proportion raise the fund of their own that is to purchase it.

Trade is the principal, but not the only requisite to aggrandize a nation: there are other things to be taken care of besides. The meum and tuum must be secured, crimes punished, and all other laws concerning the administration of justice, wisely contrived, and strictly executed. Foreign affairs must be likewise prudently managed, and the ministry of every nation ought to have a good intelligence abroad, and be well acquainted with the public transactions of all those countries, that either by their neighbourhood, strength, or interest, may be hurtful or beneficial to them, to take the necessary measures accordingly, of crossing some, and assisting others, as policy, and the balance of power direct. The multitude must be awed, no man's conscience forced, and the clergy allowed no greater share in state affairs, than our Saviour has bequeathed in his testament. These are the arts that lead to worldly greatness: What sovereign power soever makes a good use of them, that has any considerable nation to govern, whether it be a monarchy, a commonwealth, or a mixture of both, can never fail of making it flourish in spite of all the other powers upon earth, and no luxury, or other vice, is ever able to shake their constitution.----But here I expect a full-mouthed cry against me; What! has God never punished and destroyed great nations for their sins? Yes, but not without means, by infatuating their governors, and suffering them to depart from either all or some of those general maxims I have mentioned; and of all the famous states and empires the world has had to boast of hitherto, none ever came to ruin, whose destruction was not principally owing to the bad politics, neglects, or mismanagements of the rulers.

There is no doubt, but more health and vigour is expected among the people, and their offspring, from temperance and sobriety, than there is from gluttony and drunkenness; yet I confess, that as to luxury's effeminating and enervating a nation, I have not such frightful notions now, as I have had formerly. When we hear or read of things which we are altogether strangers to, they commonly bring to our imagination such ideas of what we have seen, as (according to our apprehension) must come the nearest to them: And I remember, that when I have read of the luxury of Persia, Egypt, and other countries where it has been a reigning vice, and that were effeminated and enervated by it, it has sometimes put me in mind of the cramming and swilling of ordinary tradesmen at a city feast, and the beastliness their overgorging themselves is often attended with; at other times, it has made me think on the distraction of dissolute sailors, as I had seen them in company of half a dozen lewd women, roaring along with fiddles before them; and was I to have been carried into any of their great cities, I would have expected to have found one third of the people sick a-bed with surfeits; another laid up with the gout, or crippled by a more ignominious distemper; and the rest, that could go without leading, walk along the streets in petticoats.

It is happy for us to have fear for a keeper, as long as our reason is not strong enough to govern our appetites: And I believe, that the great dread I had more particularly against the word, to enervate, and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it, did me abundance of good when I was a school boy: But since I have seen something in the world, the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so dreadful to me as they did. As long as men have the same appetites, the same vices will remain. In all large societies, some will love whoring, and others drinking. The lustful that can get no handsome clean women, will content themselves with dirty drabs: and those that cannot purchase true Hermitage or Pontack, will be glad of more ordinary French claret. Those that cannot reach wine, take up with most liquors, and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits, as a lord with Burgundy, Champaign, or Tockay. The cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging our passions, does as much mischief to a man's constitution, as the most elegant and expensive.

The greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings, furniture, equipages, and clothes: Clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel; tapestry, fine painting, or good wainscot, are no more unwholesome than bare walls; and a rich couch, or a gilt chariot, are no more enervating than the cold floor, or a country cart. The refined pleasures of men of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution, and there are many great epicures that will refuse to eat or drink more than their heads or stomachs can bear. Sensual people may take as great care of themselves as any: and the errors of the most viciously luxurious, do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness, and their eating and drinking too much (which are the things which would most enervate them), as they do in the operose contrivances, the profuseness and nicety they are served with, and the vast expence they are at in their tables and amours.

But let us once suppose, that the ease and pleasures, the grandees, and the rich people of every nation live in, render them unfit to endure hardships, and undergo the toils of war. I will allow that most of the common council of the city would make but very indifferent foot soldiers; and I believe heartily, that if your horse was to be composed of aldermen, and such as most of them are, a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to route them. But what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation, the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground tilled. Such a variety of labours in every great nation, require a vast multitude, in which there are always loose, idle, extravagant fellows enough to spare for an army; and those that are robust enough to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash, or else not too much enervated to be smiths, carpenters, sawyers, cloth-workers, porters or carmen, will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make good soldiers, who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much plenty and superfluity come to their share, as to do them any hurt.