have less than Ten after having paid but Two and a Half.

But there is yet another circumstance, which we dare not pass by unnoticed. In the best of times-or what the world calls such the spirit of commerce will occasion great fluctuations, some falling while others rise, and therefore in all times there will be a large sum of individual distress. Trades likewise have their seasons, and at all times there is a very considerable number of artificers who are not employed on the average more than seven or eight months in the year : and the distress from this cause is great or small in proportion to the greater or less degree of dissipation and improvidence prevailing among them. But besides this, that artificial life and vigor of Trade and Agriculture, which was produced or occasioned by the direct or indirect influences of the late War, proved by no means innoxious in its effects. Habit and the familiarity with outward advantages, which takes off their dazzle; sense of character; and above all, the counterpoise of intellectual pursuits and resources; are all necessary preventives and antidotes to the dangerous properties of wealth and power with the great majority of mankind.

It is a painful subject: and I leave to your own experience and recollection the assemblage of folly, presumption, and extravagance, that followed in the procession of our late unprecedented prosperity; the blind practices and blending passions of speculation in the commercial world, with the shoal of ostentatious fooleries and sensual vices which the sudden influx of wealth let in on our farmers and yeomanry. Now though the whole mass of calamity consequent on these aberrations from prudence should in all fairness be attributed to the sufferer's own conduct; yet when there supervenes some one common cause or occasion of distress which pressing hard on many furnishes a pretext to all, this too will pass muster among its actual effects, and assume the semblance and dignity of national calamity. Each unfortunate individual shares during the hard times in the immunities of a privileged order, as the most tottering and ruinous houses equally with those in best repair are included in the same brief after an extensive fire. The change of the moon will not produce a change of weather, except in places where the atmosphere has from local and particular causes been predisposed to its influence. But the former is one, placed

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aloft and conspicuous to all men; the latter are many and intricate, and known to few. Of course it is the moon that must bear the entire blame of wet summers and scanty crops. All these, however, whether they are distresses common to all times alike, or though occasioned by the general revolution and stagnation, yet really caused by personal improvidence or misconduct, combine with its peculiar and inevitable effects in making the cup overflow. The latter class especially, as being in such cases always the most clamorous sufferers, increase the evil by swelling the alarm.

The principal part of the preceding explication, the main causes of the present exigencies are so obvious, and lay so open to the common sense of mankind, that the labouring classes saw the connection of the change in the times with the suddenness of the peace, as clearly as their superiors, and being less heated with speculation, were in the first instance less surprized at the results. To a public event of universal concern there will often be more attributed than belongs to it; but never in the natural course of human feelings will there be less. That the depression began with the Peace would have been

of itself a sufficient proof with the Many, that it arose from the Peace. But this opinion suited ill with the purposes of sedition. The truth, that could not be precluded, must be removed; and "when the needy speaketh aright" the more urgent occasion is there for the "wicked device" and the "lying words.” Where distress is felt, tales of wrong and oppression are readily believed, to the sufferer's own disquiet. Rage and Revenge make the cheek pale and the hand tremble, worse than even want itself: and the cup of sorrow overflows by being held unsteadily. On the other hand nothing calms the mind in the hour of bitterness so efficaciously as the conviction that it was not within the means of those above us, or around us, to have prevented it. An influence, mightier than fascination, dwells in the stern eye of Necessity, when it is fixed steadily on a man: for together with the power of resistance it takes away its agitations likewise. This is one mercy that always accompanies the visitations of the Almighty when they are received as such. If therefore the sufferings of the lower classes are to supply air and fuel to their passions, and are to be perverted into instruments of mischief, they must be attributed to

causes that can be represented as removeable ; either to individuals who had been previously rendered unpopular, or to whole classes of men, according as the immediate object of their seducers may require. What, though nothing should be more remote from the true cause? What though the invidious charge should be not only without proof, but in the face of strong proof to the contrary? What though the pretended remedy should have no possible end but that of exasperating the disease? All will be of little or no avail, if these truths have not been administered beforehand. When the wrath is gone forth, the plague is already begun: (Numbers, xvi. 46.) Wrath is cruel, and where is there a deafness like that of an outrageous multitude? For as the matter of the fire is, so it burneth. Let the demagogue but succeed in maddening the crowd, he may bid defiance to demonstration, and direct the madness against whom it pleaseth him. A slanderous tongue has disquieted many, and driven them from nation to nation; strong cities hath it pulled down and overthrown the houses of great men. (Ecclesiasticus, xxviii. 14.)

We see in every promiscuous public meeting the effect produced by the bold assertion