duction of the prices of our manufactures by the addition of so many new hands, would be no inconvenience to any man; but observing I was something startled at the assertion, he made a short pause, and then resumed the discourse. It may seem,' says he, ' paradox, that the price of labour should be reduced without an abatement of wages, or that wages can be abated without an inconvenience to the labourer, and yet nothing is more certain than that both these things may happen. The wages of the labourers make the greatest part of the price of every thing that is useful; and if in proportion with the wages the price of all other things should be abated, every labourer with less wages would still be able to purchase as many necessaries of life; where then would be the inconvenience? But the price of labour may be reduced by the addition of more hands to a manufacture, and yet the wages of persons remain as high as ever. The admirable Sir William Petty has given examples of this in some of his writings: one of them, as I remember, is that of a watch, which I shall endeavour to explain so as shall suit my present purpose. It is certain that a single watch could not be made so cheap in proportion by one only inan, as a hundred watches by a hundred; for as there is vast variety in the work, no one person could equally suit himself to all the parts of it: the manufacture would be tedious, and at last but clumsily performed. But if a hundred watches were to be made by a hundred men, the cases may be assigned to one, the dials to another, the wheels to another, the springs to another, and every other part to a proper artist. As there would be no need of perplexing any one person with too much variety, every one would be able to perform his single part with greater skill and expedition; and the hundred watches would be finished in one-fourth part of the

time of the first one, and every one of them at onefourth part of the cost, though the wages of every man were equal. The reduction of the price of the manufacture would increase the demand of it, all the same hands would be still employed, and as well paid. The same rule will hold in the clothing, the shipping, and all other trades whatsoever. And thus an addition of hands to our manufactures will only reduce the price of them; the labourer will still have as much wages, and will consequently be enabled to purchase more conveniencies of life; so that every interest in the nation would receive a benefit from the increase of our working people.

'Besides I see no occasion for this charity to common beggars, since every beggar is an inhabitant of a parish, and every parish is taxed to the maintenance of their own poor. For my own part I cannot be mightily pleased with the laws which have done this, which have provided better to feed than employ the poor. We have a tradition from our forefathers, that after the first of those laws was made, they were insulted with that famous song;

Hang sorrow and cast away care,

The parish is bound to find us, &c.

And if we will be so good-natured as to maintain them without work, they can do no less in return than sing us "The merry Beggars."

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What then? Am I against all acts of charity? God forbid! I know of no virtue in the gospel that is in more pathetic expressions recommended to our practice. I was hungry and ye gave me no meat, thirsty and ye gave me no drink, naked and ye clothed me not, a stranger and ye took me not in, sick and in prison and ye visited me not." Our blessed Saviour treats the exercise and neglect of charity towards a poor man, as the performance or breach of this duty

towards himself. I shall endeavour to obey the will of my lord and master: and therefore if an industrious man shall submit to the hardest labour and coarsest fare, rather than endure the shame of taking relief from the parish, or asking it in the street, this is the hungry, the thirsty, the naked; and I ought to believe, if any man is come hither for shelter against persecution or oppression, this is the stranger, and I ought to take him in. If any countryman of our own is fallen into the hands of infidels, and lives in a state of miserable captivity, this is the man in prison, and I should contribute to his ransom. I ought to give to an hospital of invalids, to recover as many useful subjects as I can; but I shall bestow none of my bounties upon an alms-house of idle people; and for the same reason I should not think it a reproach to me if I had withheld my charity from those common beggars. But we prescribe better rules than we are able to practise; we are ashamed not to give into the mistaken manners of our country: but at the same time, I cannot but think it a reproach worse than that of common swearing, that the idle and the abandoned are suffered in the name of heaven and all that is sacred to extort from christian and tender minds a supply to a profligate way of life, that is always to be supported, but never relieved.'

Z.

N° 233. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1711.

Tanquam hæc sint nostri medicina furoris,
Aut deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat.

VIRG. Ecl. x. v. 60/

As if by these, my sufferings I could ease;
Or by my pains the god of love appease.

DRYDEN.

I SHALL in this paper discharge myself of the promise I have made to the public, by obliging them with a translation of the little Greek manuscript, which is, said to have been a piece of those records that were preserved in the temple of Apollo, upon the promóntory of Leucate. It is a short history of the Lover's Leap, and is inscribed, An account of persons, male and female, who offered up their vows in the temple of the Pythian Apollo in the forty-sixth Olympiad, and leaped from the promontory of Leucate into the Ionian Sea, in order to cure themselves of the passion of love.

This account is very dry in many parts, as only mentioning the name of the lover who leaped, the person he leaped for, and relating in short, that he was either cured, or killed, or maimed by the fall. It indeed gives the names of so many who died by it, that it would have looked like a bill of mortality, had I translated it at full length; I have therefore made an abridgment of it, and only extracted such particular passages as have something extraordinary, either in the case or in the cure, or in the fate of the person who is mentioned in it. After this short preface take the account as follows:

Battus, the son of Menalcas the Sicilian, leaped

for Bombyca the musician: got rid of his passion with the loss of his right leg and arm, which were broken in the fall.

Melissa, in love with Daphnis, very much bruised, but escaped with life.

Cynisca, the wife of Eschines, being in love with Lycus; and Eschines her husband being in love with Eurilla; (which had made this married couple very uneasy to one another for several years) both the husband and the wife took the leap by consent; they both of them escaped, and have lived very happily together ever since.

Larissa, a virgin of Thessaly, deserted by Plexippus, after a courtship of three years; she stood upon the brow of the promontory for some time, and after having thrown down a ring, a bracelet, and a little picture, with other presents which she had received from Plexippus, she threw herself into the sea, and was taken up alive.

N. B. Larissa, before she leaped, made an offering of a silver Cupid in the temple of Apollo. Simætha, in love with Daphnis the Myndian, perished in the fall.

Charixus, the brother of Sappho, in love with Rhodope the courtesan, having spent his whole estate upon her, was advised by his sister to leap in the beginning of his amour, but would not hearken to her until he was reduced to his last talent; being forsaken by Rhodope, at length resolved to take the leap. Perished in it.

Aridæus, a beautiful youth of Epirus, in love with Praxinoe, the wife of Thespis; escaped without damage, saving only that two of his fore-teeth were struck out and his nose a little flatted.

Cleora, a widow of Ephesus, being inconsolable for the death of her husband, was resolved to take this leap in order to get rid of her passion for his