Volume II Part 6 (1/2)

In illustrating this argue of natural history fro a species of insects on the banks of the river Hypanis, that never outlive the day in which they are born

To pursue the thought of this elegant writer, let us suppose one of the most robust of these _Hypanians_, so famed in history, was in a an to exist at break of day, and that, froth of his constitution, he has been able to show hih the nu a series of seconds, he must have acquired vast wisdom in his way, from observation and experience

He looks upon his fellow-creatures who died about noon to be happily delivered froe; and can, perhaps, recount to his great grandson a surprising tradition of actions before any records of their nation were extant The young swarm of Hypanians, who may be advanced one hour in life, approach his person with respect, and listen to his i he says will seeeneration The compass of a day will be esteeht will, in their chronology, be styled the great era of their creation

Let us now suppose this venerable insect, this _Nestor_ of _Hypania_, should, a little before his death, and about sunset, send for all his descendants, his friends and his acquaintances, out of the desire he hts to the breath They meet, perhaps, under the spacious shelter of a e addresses hi manner:

”Friends and fellow-citizens! I perceive the longest life must, however, end: the period of mine is now at hand; neither do I repine at e has beco new to es and revolutions I have seen in my country, the manifold private misfortunes to which we are all liable, the fatal diseases incident to our race, have abundantly taughtwhich is placed in things that are out of our power Great is the uncertainty of life! A whole brood of our infants have perished in ayouth have been swept into the ocean by an unexpected breeze! What wasteful desolation have we not suffered froest holds are not proof against a storm of hail, and even a dark cloud damps the very stoutest heart

”I have lived in the first ages, and conversed with insects of a larger size and stronger reater virtue than any can boast of in the present generation I ive yet further credit to my latest words, when I assure you that yonder sun, which now appears ard, beyond the water, and seems not to be far distant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of the sky, and shot his beahtened in those ages, and the air lorious being an an his i the sky with vast heat and unparalleled brightness; but now, by his declination and a sensible decay, our, I foresee that all nature must fall in a little time, and that the creation will lie buried in darkness in less than a century of minutes

”Alas! my friends, how did I once flatter nificent are the cells which I hollowed out for myself! what confidence did I repose in the firth of h to nature, and even to glory_ Neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal satisfaction in life, in the dark declining age which I see is already begun”

Thus far this agreeable unknoriter--too agreeable, we may hope, to remain always concealed The fine allusion to the character of _Julius Caesar_, whose words he has put into the mouth of this illustrious son of _Hypanis_, is perfectly just and beautiful, and aptly points out the n of which would have been quite perverted, had a virtuous character, a _Cato_ or a _Cicero_, been made choice of to have been turned into ridicule Had this _life of a day_ been represented as enity with a life of any li to the exalted sentiments of Tully, would have been preferable to an immortality filled with all the pleasures of sense, if void of those of a higher kind: but as the views of this vainglorious insect were confined within the narrow circle of his own existence, as he only boasts the th of happiness he has enjoyed, he is the proper emblem of all such insects of the human race, whose ambition does not extend beyond the like narrow li the splendour they appear in at present, they will no ard of posterity than the butterflies of the last spring In vain has history been taken up in describing the numerous swarms of this mischievous species which has infested the earth in the successive ages: now it is worth the inquiry of the virtuous, whether the _Rhine_ or the _Adige_ may not, perhaps, sith them at present, as much as the banks of the _Hypanis_; or whether that silver rivulet, the _Thames_, may not show a specious nity and i enjoyed in the pursuit of happiness, and it is owing to their imperfect notions of it that they stop so far short in their pursuit The present prospect of pleasure seems to bound their views, and the more distant scenes of happiness, hat they now propose shall be attained, do not strike their ihtlessness not to perceive that the happiness of rational creatures is inseparably connected with immortality Creatures only endoith sensationas their sensations are pleasing; and if these pleasing sensations are commensurate with the time of their existence, this s as are endoith _thought_ and _reflection_ cannot be reat soever its duration may be The more exquisite and more valuable their enjoyht that they are to have an end; and this pain of expectation , the nearer the end approaches And if these beings are themselves immortal, and yet insecure of the continuance of their happiness, the case is far worse, since an eternal void of delight, if not to say a state of misery, must succeed It would be here of no moment, whether the time of their happiness were measured by _days_ or _hours_, by _months_ or _years_, or by _periods_ of thestreams bear no proportion to that ocean of infinity where they est duration of finite happiness avails nothing when it is past: nor can the memory of it have any other effect than to renew a perpetual pining after pleasures never to return; and since virtue is the only pledge and security of a happy i it to any tee, how ireat, and cannot but leave behind it an eternal regret

ON SMUGGLING, AND ITS VARIOUS SPECIES

Sir,--There are ht, and even think themselves, _honest_ men, who fail nevertheless in particular points of honesty; deviating from that character sometih mere inattention, so that their _honesty_ is partial only, and not _general_ or universal Thus one ould scorn to overreach you in a bargain, shallyou a little now and then at cards: another, that plays with the utreat freedom cheat you in the sale of a horse But there is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people overn when they have an opportunity, or encouraging soods

I fell into these reflections the other day, on hearing two gentle about a small estate, which one of them was inclined to sell and the other to buy; when the seller, in reco the place, reeous on this account, that, being on the seacoast in a s many of the expensive articles used in a family (such as tea, coffee, chocolate, brandy, wines, caoods) 20, 30, and, in some articles, 50 _per cent_ cheaper than they could be had in the more interior parts, of traders that paid duty The other _honest_ gentlee, but insisted that the seller, in the advanced price he dee much above its value And neither of thelers a practice that an _honest_ oods cheap) had the least reason to be ashamed of

At a time when the load of our public debt, and the heavy expense ofour fleets and armies to be ready for our defence on occasion, makes it necessary not only to continue old taxes, but often to look out for new ones, perhaps it ht that few seem to have considered it in

The people of Great Britain, under the happy constitution of this country, have a privilege few other countries enjoy, that of choosing the third branch of the legislature, which branch has alone the power of regulating their taxes Nohenever the governe, and safety of the nation, for the security of our liberties, property, religion, and everything that is dear to us, that certain sums shall be yearly raised by taxes, duties, &c, and paid into the public treasury, thence to be dispensed by governht not every _honest ly to pay his just proportion of this necessary expense? Can he possibly preserve a right to that character, if by fraud, stratagem, or contrivance, he avoids that payment in whole or in part?

What should we think of a co supped with his friends at a tavern, and partaken equally of the joys of the evening with the rest of us, would nevertheless contrive by so upon others, in order to go off scot-free? If a man who practised this would, when detected, be deeht he to be called who can enjoy all the inesti or dealing with s his just share of the expense, as settled by his own representatives in parliafully throw it upon his honest and, perhaps, hbours? He will, perhaps, be ready to tell hbours; he scorns the i a little, who is very able to bear it This, however, is a mistake The public treasure is the treasure of the nation, to be applied to national purposes And when a duty is laid for a particular public and necessary purpose, if, through s the sum required, and other duties must therefore be laid to make up the deficiency, all the additional suh it should a per head, is so much actually picked out of the pockets of those other people by the sers Are they, then, any better or other than pickpockets? and what mean, low, rascally pickpockets must those be that can pick pockets for halfpence and for farthings?

I would not, however, be supposed to allow, in what I have just said, that cheating the king is a less offence against honesty than cheating the public The king and the public, in this case, are different na distinctly it will not lessen the crime: it is no justification of a robbery, that the person robbed was rich and able to bear it The king has as ht to justice as the meanest of his subjects; and as he is truly the common _father_ of his people, those that rob hiainst the son _that robbeth his father and saith it is no sin_

Mean as this practice is, do we not daily see people of character and fortune engaged in it for trifling advantages to theentleman of her acquaintance, that, when he returns frole her hoentleman ashamed to undertake and execute the commission? Not in the least They will talk of it freely, even before others whose pockets they are thus contriving to pick by this piece of knavery

A other branches of the revenue, that of the post office is, by a late law, appropriated to the discharge of our public debt, to defray the expenses of the state None but ht to avoid, by a frank, the paye When any letter, not written by them or on their business, is franked by any of them, it is a hurt to the revenue, an injury which theythe whole superscription themselves And yet such is our insensibility to justice in this particular, that nothing is more common than to see, even in a reputable coentleman or lady declare his or her intention to cheat the nation of threepence by a frank, and, without blushi+ng, apply to one of the very legislators themselves, with a modest request that he would be pleased to become an accomplice in the crime and assist in the perpetration

There are those who, by these practices, take a great deal in a year out of the public purse, and put thethrough a room where public treasure is deposited, aand carrying off a guinea, is he not truly and properly a thief? And if another evades paying into the treasury a guinea he ought to pay in, and applies it to his own use, when he knows it belongs to the public as much as that which has been paid in, what difference is there in the nature of the cri it?

REMARKS CONCERNING THE SAVAGES OF NORTH AMERICA

Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs

Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude as to be without any rules of politeness, nor any so polite as not to have so, are hunters and warriors; when old, counsellors; for all their governes There is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to coenerally study oratory, the best speaker having the round, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions These employments of men and wo few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they estee on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless An instance of this occurred at the treaty of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the governinia and the Six Nations After the principal business was settled, the coinia acquainted the Indians, by a speech, that there was at Willia Indian youth; and that, if the chiefs of the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their sons to that college, the government would take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the learning of the white people It is one of the Indian rules of politeness not to answer a public proposition the sa it as a lighttime to consider it, as of a matter important They therefore deferred their answer till the day following, when their speaker began by expressing their deep sense of the kindness of the Virginia govern thehly esteees, and that themen, while with you, would be very expensive to you We are convinced, therefore, that you ood by your proposal; and we thank you heartily But you, who are wise, must know that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours We have had so people were fores of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they canorant of everyin the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, nor kill an enee imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counsellors; they were totally good for nothing We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentleinia will send us a dozen of their sons, ill take great care of their education, instruct the frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes, i, and communicate it to their children They are the records of the council, and they preserve the tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, e cos, ays find exact He that would speak, rises The rest observe a profound silence When he has finished and sits down, they leave him five or sixhe intended to say, or has anything to add, he ain and deliver it To interrupt another, even in cohly indecent How different this is from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where scarce a day passes without so _to order_; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it!