hours, than before for the work of eight. They support the burthen; but they come in for no share of the fruit. If a rich man employ the poor in breaking up land and cultivating its useful productions, he may be their benefactor. But, if he employ them in erecting palaces, in sinking canals, in laying out his parks, and modelling his pleasure-grounds, he will be found, when rightly considered, their enemy. He is adding to the weight of oppression, and the vast accumulation of labour, by which they are already sunk beneath the level of the brutes. His mistaken mu-` nificence spreads its baleful effects on every side; and he is entailing curses on men he never saw, and posterity yet unborn.

Such is the real tendency of the conduct of that so frequently applauded character, the rich man who lives up to his fortune. His houses, his gardens, his equipages, his horses, the luxury of his table, and the number of his servants, are so many articles that may assume the name of munificence, but that in reality are but added expedients for grinding the poor, and filling up the measure of human calamity. Let us see what is the tendency of the conduct of the avaricious man in this respect.

He recognises, in his proceedings at least, if not as an article of his creed, that great principle of austere and immutable justice, that the claims

of the rich man are no more extensive than those of the poor, to the sumptuousness and pamperings of human existence. He watches over his expenditure with unintermitted scrupulosity; and, though enabled to indulge himself in luxuries, he has the courage to practise an entire self-denial.

It may be alleged indeed that, if he do not consume his wealth upon himself, neither does he impart it to another; he carefully locks it up, and pertinaciously withholds it from general use. But this point does not seem to have been rightly understood. The true development and definition of the nature of wealth have not been applied to illustrate it. Wealth consists in this only, the commodities raised and fostered by human labour. But he locks up neither corn, nor oxen, nor clothes, nor houses. These things are used and consumed by his contemporaries, as truly and to as great an extent, as if he were a beggar. He is the lineal successor of those religious fanatics of former ages, who conveyed to their heirs all that they had, and took themselves an oath of voluntary poverty. If he mean to act as the enemy of mankind, he is wretchedly deceived. Like the dotard in Esop's fables, when he examines his hoard, he will find that he has locked up nothing. but pebbles and dirt.

His conduct is much less pernicious to mankind, and much more nearly conformable to the

unalterable principles of justice, than that of the man who disburses his income in what has been termed, a liberal and spirited style. It remains to compare their motives, and to consider which of them has familiarised himself most truly with the principles of morality.

It is not to be supposed, when a man, like the person of splendour and magnificence, is found continually offending against the rights, and adding to the miseries, of mankind; and when it appears, in addition to this, that all his expences are directed to the pampering his debauched appetites, or the indulging an ostentatious and arrogant temper;It is not, I say, to be supposed in this case, that the man is actuated by very virtuous and commendable motives.

It would be idle to hold up the miser as a pattern of benevolence. But it will not perhaps be found an untenable position to say, that his mind is in the habit of frequently recurring to the best principles of morality. He strips the world of its gaudy plumage, and views it in its genuine colours. He estimates splendid equipages and costly attire, exactly, or nearly, at their true value. He feels with acute sensibility the folly of wasting the wealth of a province upon a meal. He knows that a man may be as alert, as vigorous, and as happy, whose food is the roots of the earth, and whose drink the running stream. He understands.

all this in the same sense and with the same perspicuity, as the profoundest philosopher.

It is true indeed that he exaggerates his principles, and applies them to points to which upon better examination they would not be found applicable. His system would not only drive out of the world that luxury, which unnerves and debases the men that practise it, and is the principal source of all the oppression, ignorance and guilt which infest the face of the earth: it is also hostile to those arts, by which life is improved, the understanding cultivated, and the taste refined. It would destroy painting, and music, and the splendour of public exhibitions. Literature itself would languish under its frigid empire. But our censure would be extensive indeed, if we condemned every enthusiast of any science or principle, who exaggerated its maxims.

After every deduction, it will still be found that the miser considers himself as a man, entitled to expend upon himself only what the wants of man require. He sees, and truly sees, the folly of profusion. It is this perception of the genuine principles of morality, it is this consciousness of unassailable truth, that support him in the system of conduct he has chosen. He perceives, when you endeavour to persuade him to alter his system, that your arguments are the arguments of sophistry and misrepresentation, Were it not for

this, he would not be able constantly to resist the force of expostulation and the shafts of ridicule. Were it not for this, he could not submit to the uniform practice of self-denial, and the general obloquy he encounters from a world of which he is comparatively the benefactor.

Such appears to be the genuine result of the comparison between the votary of avarice and the man of profusion. It by no means follows from the preference we feel compelled to cede to the former, that he is not fairly chargeable with enormous mistakes. Money, though in itself destitute of any real value, is an engine enabling us to vest the actual commodities of life in such persons and objects, as our understandings may point out to us. This engine, which might be applied to most admirable purposes, the miser constantly refuses to employ. The use of wealth is no doubt a science attended with uncommon difficulties. But it is not less evident that, by a master in the science, it might be applied, to chear the miserable, to relieve the oppressed, to assist the manly adventurer, to advance science, and to encourage art. A rich man, guided by the genuine principles of virtue, would be munificent, though not with that spurious munificence that has so often usurped the name. It may however almost be doubted whether the conduct of the miser, who wholly abstains from the use of riches, be not