While I these thoughts within myself pursued, He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed. And soon with this he other matter blended, 66 God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!" 322.-A WORD TO THE WISE. BISHOP BERKELEY. [THE following is an extract from 'An Exhortation to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland,' addressed to them, under the title of 'A Word to the Wise,' by George Berkeley, the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne. To a dispassionate observer of the miseries of Ireland it would appear, either that the good bishop was a century before his time, or that the experience and lessons of a century had produced no social change. We leave this exhortation to speak for itself. Berkeley, the metaphysician, the theologian, the patriot-one of the few really great men whose fame increases with age, was born in the county of Kilkenny in 1684; died at Oxford in 1753. Be not startled, reverend sirs, to find yourselves addressed to by one of a different communion. We are indeed (to our shame be it spoken) more inclined to hate for those articles wherein we differ, than to love one another for those wherein we agree. But if we cannot extinguish, let us at least suspend our animosities, and, forgetting our religious feuds, consider ourselves in the amiable light of countrymen and neighbours. Let us for once turn our eyes on those things in which we have one common interest. Why should disputes about faith interrupt the duties of civil life? or the different roads we take to heaven prevent our taking the same steps on earth? Do we not inhabit the same spot of ground, breathe the same air, and live under the same government? Why then should we not conspire in one and the same design to promote the common good of our country? We are all agreed about the usefulness of meat, drink, and clothes, and, without doubt, we all sincerely wish our poor neighbours were better supplied with them. Providence and nature have done their part; no country is better qualified to furnish the necessaries of life, and yet no people are worse provided. In vain is the earth fertile, and the climate benign, if human labour be wanting. Nature supplies the materials, which art and industry improve to the use of man, and it is the want of this industry that occasions all our other wants. The public hath endeavoured to excite and encourage this most useful virtue. Much hath been done; but whether it be from the heaviness of the climate, or from the Spanish or Scythian blood that runs in their veins, or whatever else may be the cause, there still remains in the natives of this island a remarkable antipathy to labour. You, gentlemen, can alone conquer their innate hereditary sloth. Do you then, as you love your country, exert yourselves. You are known to have great influence on the minds of your people, be so good as to use this influence for their benefit. Since other methods fail, try what you can do. "Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort." Make them thoroughly sensible of the sin and folly of sloth. Show your charity in clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry, which you may do by the mere breath of your mouths. Give me leave to tell you, that no set of men upon earth have it in their power to do good on easier terms, with more advantage to others, and less pains or loss to themselves. Your flock are of all others most disposed to follow directions, and of all others want them most; and indeed what do they not want? The house of an Irish peasant is the cave of poverty; within, you see a pot and a little straw; without, a heap of children tumbling on the dunghill. Their fields and gardens are a lively counterpart of Solomon's description in the Proverbs; "I went," saith that wise king, " by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." In every road the ragged ensigns of poverty are displayed; you often meet caravans of poor, whole families in a drove, without clothes to cover, or bread to feed them, both which might be easily procured by moderate labour. They are encouraged in this vagabond life by the miserable hospitality they meet with in every cottage, whose inhabitants expect the same kind reception in their turn, when they become beggars themselves; beggary being the last refuge of these improvident creatures. If I seem to go out of my province, or to prescribe to those who must be supposed to know their own business, or to paint the lower inhabitants of this land in no very pleasing colours, you will candidly forgive a well meant zeal, which obligeth me to say things rather useful than agreeable, and to lay open the sore in order to heal it. But whatever is said must be so taken as not to reflect on persons of rank and education, who are no way inferior to their neighbours; nor yet to include all even of the lowest sort, though it may well extend to the generality, of those especially in the western and southern parts of the kingdom, where the British manners have less prevailed. We take our notions from what we see, mine are a faithful transcript> from originals about me, The Scythians were noted for wandering, and the Spaniards for sloth and pride our Irish are behind neither of these nations from which they descend, in their respective characteristics. "Better is he that laboureth and aboundeth in all things, than he that boasteth himself and wanteth bread," saith the son of Sirach, but so saith not the Irishman. In my own family a kitchen-wench refused to carry out cinders, because she was descended from an old Irish stock. Never was there a more monstrous conjunction than that of pride with beggary; and yet this prodigy is seen every day in almost every part of this kingdom. At the same time these proud people are more destitute than savages, and more abject than negroes. The negroes in our plantations have a saying, "If negro was not negro, Irishman would be negro." And it may be affirmed with truth, that the very savages of America are better clad and better lodged than the Irish cottagers throughout the fine fertile counties of Limerick and Tipperary. Having long observed and bewailed this wretched state of my countrymen, and the insufficiency of several methods set on foot to reclaim them, I have recourse to your Reverences, as the dernier ressort. Make them to understand that you have their interest at heart, that you persuade them to work for their own sakes, and that God hath ordered matters so as that they who will not work for themselves, must work VOL. IV. A A for others. The terrors of debt, slavery, and famine should, one would think, drive the most slothful to labour. Make them sensible of these things, and that the ends of Providence and order of the world require industry in human creatures. “Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening," saith the psalmist, where he is describing the beauty, order, and perfection of the works of God. But what saith the slothful person? “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding the hands to sleep." But what saith the wise man? “So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." All nature will furnish you with arguments and examples against sloth: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," cries Solomon. The ant, the bee, the beetle, and every insect but the drone, reads a lesson of industry to man. But the shortest and most effectual lesson is that of St. Paul: “If any man will not work, neither should he eat.” This command was enjoined the Thessalonians, and equally respects all Christians, and indeed all mankind; it being evident by the light of nature that the whole creation works together for good, and that no part was designed to be useless; as therefore the idle man is of no use, it follows that he hath no right to a subsistence. "Let them work,' saith the apostle, "and eat their own bread;" not bread got by begging, not bread earned by the sweat of other men; but their own bread, that which is got by their own labour." Then shalt thou eat the labour of thine hands," saith the psalmist, to which he adds, Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee;” intimating that to work and enjoy the fruits thereof is a great blessing. 66 39 A slothful man's imagination is apt to dress up labour in a horrible mask; but, horrible as it is, idleness is more to be dreaded, and a life of poverty (its necessary consequence) is far more painful. It was the advice of Pythagoras to choose the best kind of life; for that use would render it agreeable, reconciling men even to the roughest exercise. By practice pains become at first easy, and in the progress pleasant; and this is so true, that whoever examines things will find there can be no such thing as a happy life without labour, and that whoever doth not labour with his hands must in his own defence labour with his brains. Certainly, planting and tilling the earth is an exercise not less pleasing than useful: it takes the peasant from his smoky cabin into the fresh air and the open field, rendering his lot far more desirable than that of the sluggard, who lies in the straw, or sits whole days by the fire. Convince your people that not only pleasure invites, but necessity also drives them to labour. If you have any compassion for these poor creatures, put them in mind how many of them perished in a late memorable distress, through want of that provident care against a hard season, observable not only in all other men, but even in irrational animals. Set before their eyes in lively colours, their own indigent and sordid lives, compared with those of other people, whose industry hath procured them hearty food, warm clothes, and decent dwellings. Make them sensible what a reproach it is that a nation which makes so great pretensions to antiquity, and is said to have flourished many years ago in arts and learning, should in these our days turn out a lazy, destitute, and degenerate race. Raise your voices, reverend sirs, exert your influence, show your authority over the multitude, by engaging them to the practice of an honest industry, a duty necessary to all, and required in all, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, whether Christians, Jews, or Pagans. Be so good among other points to find room for this, than which none is of more concern to the souls and bodies of your hearers, nor consequently deserves to be more amply or frequently insisted on. Many and obvious are the motives that recommend this duty. Upon a subject so copious you can never be at a loss for something to say. And while by these means you rescue your countrymen from want and misery, you will have the satisfaction to behold your country itself improved. What pleasure must it give you to see these wastes and wild scenes, these naked ditches and miserable hovels, exchanged for fine plantations, rich meadows, well tilled fields, and neat dwellings; to see people well fed and well clad, instead of famished ragged scarecrows, and those very persons tilling the fields that used to beg in the streets. Neither ought the difficulty of the enterprise to frighten you from attempting it. It must be confessed a habit of industry is not at once introduced; neighbour, nevertheless, will emulate neighbour, and the contagion of good example will spread as surely as of bad, though perhaps not so speedily. It may be hoped there are many that would be allured by a plentiful and decent manner of life to take pains, espe |