One of the most celebrated cafes which have been produced as requiring fome fkill in the direction of confcience to adapt them to this great rule, is that of a criminal asking mercy of his judge, who cannot but know, that if he was in the state of the fuppliant, he should defire that pardon which he now denies. The difficulty of this fophifin will vanish, if we remember that the parties are, in reality, on one fide the criminal, and on the other the community, of which the magiftrate is only the minifter, and by which he is intrufted with the publick fafety. The magiftrate, therefore, in pardoning a man unworthy of pardon, betrays the truit with which he is invetted, gives away what is not his own, and, apparently, does to others what he would not that others fhould do to him. Even the community, whofe right is still greater to arbitrary grants of mercy, is bound by thofe laws which regard the great republick of mankind, and cannot ja tify fuch forbearance as may promote wickedness, and leffen the general confidence and fecurity in which all have an equal intereft, and which all are therefore bound to maintain. For this reafon the ftate has not a right to erect a general fanctuary for fugitives, or give protection to fuch as have forfeited their lives by crimes against the laws of common morality, equally acknowledged by all nations, because no people can, without infraction of the univerfal league of focial beings, incite, by profpects of impunity and fafety, thofe practices in another domin on which they would themselves punish in their own.

One occasion of uncertainty and hefitation, in thofe by whom this great rule has been commented and dilated, is the confufion of what the exacter cafuifts are careful to diftinguish; debts of justice, and debts of charity. The immediate and primary intention of this precept is, to eftablish a rule of juftice; and I know not whether invention or fophiftry can ftart a fingle difficulty to retard it's application, when it is thus expreffed and explained-Let every man allow the claim of right in another, which he should think himself intitled to make in the like circumstances.

The difcharge of the debts of charity, or duties which we owe to others, not merey as required by juftice, but as dictated

by benevolence, admits in it's own nature greater complication of circumftances, and greater latitude of choice. Justice is indifpenfably and univerfally neceffary, and what is neceffary must always be limited, uniform, and diftinct. But beneficence, though in general equally enjoined by our religion, and equally needful to the conciliation of the Divine favour, is yet, for the most part, with regard to it's fingle acts, elective and voluntary. We may, certainly, without injury to our fellow beings, allow in the diftribution of kindnefs fomething to our affections, and change the measure of our liberality according to our opinions and profpects, our hopes and fears. This rule, therefore, is not equally determinate and abfolute with refpect to offices of kindness and acts of liberality, becaufe liberality and kindness, abfòlutely determined, would lote their nature; for how could we be called tender, or charitable, for giving that which we are pofitively forbidden to withhold?

Yet even in adjusting the extent of our beneficence, no other measure can be taken than this precept affords us, for we can only know what others fuffer or want, by confidering how we fhould be affected in the fame ftate; nor can we proportion our affiftance by any other rule than that of doing what we fhould then expect from others. It indeed generally happens that the giver and receiver differ in their opinions of generofity; the fame partiality to his own intereft inclines one to large expectations, and the other to fparing diftributions. Perhaps the infirmity of human nature will fcarcely fuffer a man groaning under the preffure of diftrefs, to judge rightly of the kindness of his friends, or think they have done enough till his deliverance is completed; not therefore what we might wish, but what we could demand from others, we are obliged to grant, fince, though we can eafily know how much we might claim, it is impoffible to determine what we should hope.

But in all enquiries concerning the practice of voluntary and occafional virtues, it is fafelt for minds not oppreffed with fuperftitious fears to determine against their own inclinations, and fecure themselves from deficiency by dcing more than they believe ftrictly neceflary. For of this every man may be certain, that, if he were to exchange conditiors

conditions with his dependent, he fhould expect more than, with the utmott exertion of his ardour, he now will prevail upon himself to perform; and when

reafon has no fettled rule, and our paffions are ftriving to mislead us, it is furely the part of a wife man to err on the fide of fafety.

IT

SIR,

TO THE RAMBLER.

T will not be neceffary to folicit your good-will by any formal preface, when I have informed you, that I have long been known as the moft laborious and zealous vituoto that the prefent age has had the honour of producing, and that inconveniencies have been brought upon me by an unextinguishable ardour of curiofity, and an unfhaken perfeverance in the acquifition of the productions of art and nature,

It was observed from my entrance into the world, that I had fomething uncommon in my difpofition, and that there appeared in me very early tokens of fuperior genius. I was always an enemy to trifles; the playthings which my mother beftowed upon me I immediately broke, that I might difcover the method of their structure, and the causes of their motions of all the toys with which children are delighted, 1 valued only my coral; and as foon as I could fpeak, afked, like Pierefc, innumerable questions which the maids about me could not refolve. As I grew older I was more thoughtful and ferious; and inftead of amufing myfelf with puerile diverfions, made collections of natural rarities, and never walked into the fields without bringing home ftones of remarkable forms, or infects of fome uncommon fpecies. I never entered an old house, from which I did not take away the painted glafs, and often lamented that I was not one of that happy generation who demolished the convents and monafterics, and broke windows by law.

Being thus early poffeffed by a tafte for folid knowledge, I paffed my youth with very little difturbance from paffions and appetites; and having no pleasure in the company of boys and girls, who talked of plays, politicks, fashions, or love, I carried on my enquiries with inceffant diligence, and had amaffed more

MART.

ftones, moffes, and fhells, than are to be found in many celebrated collections, at an age in which the greatest part of young men are ftudying under tutors, or endeavouring to recommend themfelves to notice by their drefs, their air, and their levities.

When I was two and twenty years old, I became, by the death of my father, poffeffed of a small eftate in land, with a very large fum of money in the publick funds; and muft confefs that I did not much lament him, for he was a man of mean parts, bent rather upon growing rich than wife. He once fretted at the expence of only ten fhillings, which he happened to overhear me offering for the fting of a hornet, though it was a cold moift fummer, in which very few hornets had been feen. He often recommended to me the ftudy of phyfick; In which,' faid he, you may at once fatisfy your curiofity after natural history, and increase your fortune by benefiting mankind." I heard him, Mr. Rambler, with pity; and as there was no profpect of elevating a mind formed to grovel, fuffered him to please himself with hoping that I fhould fome time follow his advice. For you know that there are men with whom, when they have once fettled a notion in their heads, it is to very little pur pofe to difpute.

Being now left wholly to my own inclinations, I very foon enlarged the bounds of my curiofity, and contented myfelf no longer with fuch rarities as required only judgment and induftry, and when once found, might be had for nothing. I now turned my thoughts to exoticks and antiques; and became fo well known for my generous patronage of ingenious men, that my levee was crowded with vifitants, fome to see my mufeum, and others to encrease it's treafures, by felling me whatever they had brought from other countries.

I had always a contempt for that narrowness

lownefs of conception, which contents itself with cultivating fome fingle corner of the field of fcience; I took the whole, region into my view, and wifhed it of yet greater extent. But no man's power can be equal to his will. I was forced to proceed by flow degrees, and to purchafe what chance or kindness happened to prefent. I did not however proceed without fome defign, or imitate the indifcretion of thofe who begin a thoufand collections, and finish none. Having been always a lover of geography, I determined to collect the maps drawn in the rude and barbarous times, before any regular furveys, or juft obfervations; and have, at a great expence, brought together a volume, in which, perhaps, not a fingle country is laid down according to it's true fituation, and by which, he that defires to know the errors of the ancient geographers may be amply informed.

But my ruling paffion is patriotifm: my chief care has been to procure the products of our own country; and as Alfred received the tribute of the Welch in wolves heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhaufted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed them to the purfuit of other ammals; and obtained, by this eafy method, most of the grubs and infects which land, air, or water, can fupply. I have three fpecies of earthworms not known to the naturalifts, have difcovered a new ephemera, and can fhew four wafps that were taken torpid in their winter quarters. I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grafs upon record; and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear containing more grains than had been feen before upon a fingle ftem.

One of my tenants to much neglected his own intereft, as to fupply me, in a whole fummer, with only two horfeflies, and thofe of little more than the common fize; and I was upon the brink of feizing for arrears, when his good fortune threw a white mole in his way, for which he was not only forgiven but rewarded.

Thefe, however, were petty acquifitions, and made at a small expence; nor hould I have ventured to rank mylelf among the virtuoli without better claims. I have fuffered nothing worthy the regard of a wife man to escape my notice; I have rantacked the old and the new

world; and been equally attentive to past ages and the prefent. For the illuftration of ancient hiftory, I can fhew a marble, of which the infcription, though it is not now legible, appears, from fome broken remains of the letters, to have been Tufcan, and therefore probably engraved before the foundation of Rome. I have two pieces of porphyry found among the ruins of Ephefus, and three letters broken off by a learned traveller from the monuments of Persepolis; a piece of ftone which paved the Areopagus of Athens; and a plate, without figures or characters, which was found at Corinth, and which I therefore believe to be that metal which was once valued before gold. I have fand gathered out of the Granicus; a fragment of Trajan's bridge over the Danube; fome of the mortar which cemented the watercourfe of Tarquin; a horfefhoe broken on the Flaminian way; and a turf with five daifies dug from the field of Pharfalia.

I do not wish to raise the envy of unfuccefsful collectors, by too pompous a difplay of my fcientifick wealth; but cannot forbear to obferve, that there are few regions of the globe which are not honoured with forme memorial in my cabinets. The Pertian monarchs are faid to have boafted the greatnefs of their empire, by being ferved at their tables with drink from the Ganges and the Danube: I can fhew one vial, of which the water was formerly an icicle on the crags of Caucafus, and another that contains what once was flow on the top of Atlas; in a third is dew brushed from a banana in the gardens of Ifpahan; and; in another, brine that has rolled in the Pacifick Ocean. I flatter myself that I am writing to a man who will rejoice at the honour which my labours have procured to my country; and therefore I fhall tell you that Britain can, by my care, boat of a fail that has crawled upon the wall of China; a hummingbird which an American princefs wore in her ear; the tooth of an elephant who carried the Queen of Siam; the fkin of an ape that was kept in the palace of the Great Mogul; a ribbon that adorned one of the maids of a Turkish fultana; and a feymitar once wielded by a foldier of Abas the Great.

In collecting antiquities of every country, I have been careful to chufe only by intrinfick worth, and real ufefulness, A a without

ignorance. Yet it is dangerous to difcourage well-intended labours, or innocent curiofity: for he who is employed in fearches, which by any deduction of confequences tend to the benefit of life, is furely laudable, in comparison of thofe who fpend their time in counteracting happiness, and filling the world with wrong and danger, confufion and remorfe. No man can perform fo little as not to have reafon to congratulate himfelf on his merits, when he beholds the multitudes that live in total idleneis, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.

It is impoffible to determine the limits of enquiry, or to foresee what confequences a new difcovery may produce. He who suffers not his faculties to lie torpid, has a chance, whatever be his employment, of doing good to his fellow-creatures. The man that firft ranged the woods in fearch of medicinal fprings, or climbed the mountains for falutary plants, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of pofterity, how much foever his frequent mifcarriages might excite the fcorn of his cotemporaries. If what appears little be univerfally defpifed, nothing greater can be attained, for all that is great was at firft little, and rofe to it's prefent bulk by gradual acceffions, and accumulated labours.

Those who lay out time or money in affembling matter for contemplation, are doubtless entitled to fome degree of refpect, though in a flight of gaiety it be eafy to ridicule their treafure, or in a fit of fullennefs to despise it. A man who thinks only on the particular object before him, goes not away much illuminated by having enjoyed the privilege of handling the tooth of a fhark, or the paw of a white bear; yet there is nothing more worthy of admiration to a philofophical eye, than the structure of animals, by which they are qualified to fupport life in the elements or climates to which they are appropriated; and of all natural bodies it must be generally confeffed, that they exhibit evidences of infinite wisdom, bear their teftimony to the fupreme reason, and excite in the mind new raptures of gratitude, and new incentives to piety.

To collect the productions of art, and examples of mechanical science or manual ability, is unquestionably ufeful, even when the things themfelves are of mall importance, because it is always

advantageous to know how far the human powers have proceeded, and how much experience has found to be within the reach of diligence. Idlenefs and timidity often defpair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated; and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavours, by fhewing what has been already performed. It may fometimes happen that the greatest efforts of ingenuity have been exerted in trifles; yet the fame principles and expedients may be applied to more valuable purposes, and the movements, which put into action machines of no ufe but to raise the wonder of ignorance, may be employed to drain fens, or manufacture metals, to affift the architect, or preferve the failor.

For the utensils, arms, or dreffes of foreign nations, which make the greateft part of many collections, I have little regard when they are valued only becaufe they are foreign, and can fuggeft no improvement of our own practice. Yet they are not all equally ufelefs; nor can it be always fafely determined, which fhould be rejected or retained: for they may fometimes unexpectedly contribute to the illuftration of history, and to the knowledge of the natural commodities of the country, or of the genius and cuftoms of it's inhabitants.

Rarities there are of yet a lower rank, which owe their worth merely to accident, and which can convey no information, nor fatisfy any rational defire. Such are many fragments of antiquity, as urns and pieces of pavement; and things held in veneration only for having been once the property of fome eminent perfon, as the armour of King Henry; or, for having been used on fome remarkable occafion, as the lin tern of Guy Faux. The lofs or prefervation of thefe feems to be a thing indifferent; nor can I perceive why the poffeflion of them fhould be coveted. Yet, perhaps, even this curiofity is implanted by nature: and when I find Tully confefling of himself, that he could not forbear, at Athens, to visit the walks and houfes which the old philofophers had frequented or inhabited, and recollect the reverence which every nation, civil and barbarous, has paid to the ground where merit has been buried, I am afraid to declare against the general voice of mankind, and an inclined to believe, that this regard, which we Aaz

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