muft feel an honeft indignation, if a man were raised to the chancellorship of England, in whofe difpofal are fo many ecclefiaftical preferments, were a bully in his profeffion, and in private life a whoremafter? Who can wonder that a thousand little imitators of him fhould think it a mark of fpirit, wisdom and abilities, to follow his steps in the paths of vice, and, if poffible, to exceed his enormities? What muft the common people think when profligate men are advanced to the head of a profeffion? They cannot but believe, that thofe who are reputed to be fo much wifer than themselves, and who are evidently greater, in a worldly fenfe of the epithet, muft have chofen that fyftem of opinions, and that plan of conduct which are moft likely to be juft and rational, fafe and pleasant. "If my Lord, or his Grace," fays the mechanic, "of whofe wifdom liftening fenates "ftand in awe, is a debauchee and an infidel, I muft "conclude, that my parish preacher, an obfcure "and homely man, is a hypocrite, religion a farce,

morality a useless restraint on the liberty of nature. "Welcome then, univerfal libertinifm! and let us "haften to the houfe of the harlot; let us drink the "fweet cup of intoxication; let us fcorn the creeping manners of vulgar induftry, and, like men of fpirit, "feek our fortune with a piftol on the highway."

We will fuppofe the cafe of a great officer of state, but of an abandoned character, refiding at a great houfe in a populous ftreet of the metropolis. His confpicuous ftation draws the eyes of all the neighbours on every part of his private as well as his public conduct. His neighbours, we will proceed to fuppofe, are honeft men, bred, in what he calls the prejudices, but which they really believed the virtues, of their forefathers. They are faithful husbands, they are conftant churchmen. They are temperate and economical. They are industrious in their occupations, and juft in the payment of their debts. But the great man produces on them a total metamorphofis. He lives in a ftate of fashionable feparation from his wife, whom he treated cruelly and wickedly. He keeps a miftrefs. His house is a conftant scene of intemperate feftivity. His Sundays are, in a peculiar manner, devoted to jollity,

gaming,

gaming, and debauchery. He would as foon think of going to heaven as to the church; and as to paying debts, it is quite unfafhionable, and he has genteeler methods of expending his money than on the low tradefment who fupply him with nothing elfe but neceffaries. Who, that has any pretenfions to fashion, could bear to neglect a horfe-race and the gaming-table, merely to fatisfy the greafy inhabitants of Clare-market? Such is fometimes the example of the great neighbour.

Now I afk, whether the reftraints of a common education or of common principles, whether the maxims of books or the admonitions of preachers, can counterbalance the weight of fuch an example, rendered brilliant by riches and grandeur, and ftill farther recommended by the patronage of a king, and the authority of office? Vice and mifery are communicated from him, firft to his neighbourhood, and then to the public at large, like infectious and fatal diseases from the foul contagion of a putrid carcafe.

But if a king, a court, a miniftry, a parliament, were to honour and reward thofe only, or chiefly, whofe characters were unimpeached, and to brand with infamy, or at leaft to neglect, the abandoned libertine and the audacious blafphemer, however celebrated for eloquence and abilities, then would the empire be fixed on a bafis of adamant; then would faction and rebellion be no more; and the rulers of this world. would deserve to be honoured with a title to which they have ufually but little claim, that of the Reprefentatives of the Beneficent and Almighty Lord of alk Creation..

No.

No. CXLVII.

ON THE PROFLIGACY AND CONSEQUENT MISERY OF THE LOWER CLASSES, AND ON THE MEANS OF PREVENTION.

A

Contemplative and benevolent man can fcarcely look down for a moment on the lower walks of life without feeling his compaffion powerfully excited. On whatever fide he turns, he beholds human nature fadly degraded, and finking into the most deplorable wretchednefs, in proportion as it recedes from its natural and its attainable perfection. Ye philofophers, who exert your ingenuity to explode, as unneceffary, the little virtue and religion that remain among us, leave your clofets awhile, and furvey mankind as they are found in the purlieus of a great metropolis, in the haunts of Old Drury, of St. Giles's, of Duke's Place, of Hockley in the Hole, of the brothel, of the prifon-house, and then say whether your hearts do not fmite you on the recollection, that you have exercifed thofe talents which God Almighty gave you for benignant purposes, in breaking down the fences of morality! Let him who coolly controverts the diftinction between moral good and evil, and who; inftigated by vice and vanity, boldly fights against the religion of Jefus, and the comfortable doctrines of grace and redemption, repair to the cells of the convict, to the condemned hole, and fpend the midnight hour with the murderer who is doomed to fall a victim on the morrow to the justice of his country. Ah! little think the conceited fophifts who fit calmly at their desks, and teach men to laugh at all that is ferious and facred, to what an abyfs of mifery the actual practice of their fpeculative opinions will reduce the poor loft child of fallen Adam! If they thought on this, and poffeffed hearts capable of feeling, they would fhudder at the tendency of their writings, and henceforth employ their abilities in reftoring human nature to happiness and dignity.

The

The evils arifing from the poverty of the lower ranks are trifling, when compared with those occafioned by their depravity. There is, indeed, no real and fubftantial happiness of which poverty, when accompanied with health and innocence, is not capable; but wallowing in vice, involved in the perplexities of fraud, haunted by the fears of detection, and diftreffed and tormented with the diseases of intemperance, it becomes fuch a ftate of wretchedness and wickedness as can only be exceeded in the regions of infernal torture. And can the rulers of this world poffefs a plenitude of power without attempting to exert it in its fullest force in the prevention, or at leaft the mitigation, of extreme mifery among the loweft, the moft numerous, and perhaps the most useful members of the community? I have no esteem for that fpecies of politics which pretends to pursue a national good independently of the happiness of individuals; and I cannot help thinking, a fyftem of government which derives any part of its wealth from the wretchedness of the greater part of its fubjects, not only defective but diabolical. To encourage intoxication for the fake of encreafing a revenue, though it may be natural in a confederacy of fharpers, is an idea fo mean, fo bafe, fo cruel, that the statesman who entertains it, however loaded with civil honours, and renowned for his wifdom, deferves to be ftigmatized with immortal infamy. That the vices and the miseries of the lower claffes chiefly arise from the multiplication of houfes of public entertainment is a truth which none have ever controverted. And perhaps no effectual and permanent remedy can be applied, without the interpofition of the legiflature, in leffening the number of public houfes, and in exacting a ftrict fcrutiny into the characters of those to whom licences are allowed.

But in the prefent conftitution of affairs, it is greatly to be feared, that the defire of raifing a large revenue will ufually fuperfede all moral confiderations. What, indeed is the moralift to the financier ? The greatness of empire, like that of private life, is for the moft part eftimated by riches, exclufively of private virtue and of intellectual excellence. If then we vainly appeal

to the legislature, we muft feek, in other refources, for the alleviation of a disease which perhaps the legislature alone can radically cure.

Now it is certain, that much of the profligacy of the plebeian order arifes from extreme ignorance. All men pursue with ardour the poffeffion of fome good, real or imaginary. What is it which must conftitute this good, and appear fuperior to all other objects, in the mind of a wretch born in a cellar or a garret of Kent-street, or Broad St. Giles's, almoft ftarved with cold and hunger during his infancy, beaten, reviled, abused, neglected while a boy, and conducted to manhood amidst the most shocking examples of cruelty and fraud, of drunkenness and debauchery? Is it probable that, for the most part, he should have an idea of any other good out the poffeffion of money, and the indulgence of the groffeft fenfuality? Can he have any principles or habits of virtue to reftrain him from fecret fraud and open violence? His understanding is no lefs rude and uncultivated than that of the favage, and becomes at laft incapable of admitting any inftruction but in the low tricks of a thief, and the artifices of a proftitute. The world exifts not to him, but as it appears amidit the vileft, the moft degenerate, and the moft ignorant of the human race. He purfues a fummum bonum, or a chief good, which appears to him to confift in feizing the property of the incautious, and in ufing his gains as the inftrument of indulgence in brutal excefs. Poor unfortunate brother! for a brother we must acknowledge thee, deformed as thou art with rags, and loathfome to the eye of delicacy.Haplefs boy! if thou hadst known purer pleasures and better objects, thou wouldest probably have fought them with the fame eagerness which has brought thee to the gibbet. The dignified ftatefman, the venerable bishop, the authoritative judge who tries and who condemns thee to die, might probably have done as thou haft, and fuffered as thou fuffereft, had he been born as thou waft born, the child of mifery, the out-caft of fociety; friendless, homeless, unbeloved, unregarded, unknown, and unknowing of the means and motives of an honeft induftry.

Thou falleft a victim to the laws indeed, and

perhaps