NOTES

To the Essay on Political Economy.

P. 296. "Happiness is the end." That the good of the whole is the object, of government was a maxim acknowledged by all political writers in the free states of antiquity, yet never practically applied to the lower ranks. So far as it related to them, it rested merely in theory; their liberty was a vain shew, which consisted only in tumult and noise; and the idea of having a share in the government seemed to compensate for the want of all the substantial blessings of society. Xenophon describes them as in the lowest state of degradation; "In every country," says he, "the better sort of people are the enemies of the democracy, or lower ranks, for in the former there is the least intemperance and iniquity, but in the latter there is ignorance, disorder, and iniquity; their poverty drives them to every thing that is base, and their ignorance is the consequence of their poverty." Vide Libellus de Repub. Ath. in the Opuscula Politica, ed. Zeunii. The whole of this chapter is filled with expressions of contempt towards the lower ranks. The great desideratum in politics is to civilize the mob.

P. 300. "Has a right to expect from." Le peuple est admirable pour choisir ceux à qui il doit confier quel

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que partie de son autoritè. Comme la plupart des citoyens, qui ont assez de suffisance pour elire, n'en ont pas assez pour être elûs, de même le peuple qui a assez de capacite pour se faire rendre compte de la gestion des autres, n'est pas propre a gerer par lui même.

Montesquieu, lib. 2, cap. 2. P. 305. "He listened." The greater part of these insinuations were listened to by the monarch with heedless credulity, and he was on the point of stopping the virtuous progress of the only man qualified to save himself and the nation from utter ruin. The courtiers represented Sully as unequal to the task he had undertaken, and vaunted of their own superficial knowledge in a jargon, which was intelligible only to themselves.Vide Memoires, French edit. 4to. p. 450. But when they found that argument was of no longer avail, they resorted to calumny, and invented stories to the disgrace of Sully, which were indeed too gross to deceive the most credulous. One of the stories was, that he had seized upon, and constantly carried about with him as prisoners, those discarded peculators who had ruined the nation; the king, however, gave credit to the rumor, and on his first meeting with Sully afterwards, received him with coldness and distance; but at the same time taxed him with his supposed cruelty, and called on him to explain his conduct. The surprise of the minister, on so ridiculous an accusation, was a sufficient proof to the king that he was innocent, and the whole had the effect of overwhelming his enemies with disgrace, and placing him irrevoc ably in the king's favor, thereby affording a strong instance how far truth and honesty will prevail over in

trigue and deceit. The coffers of the king were empty, the country was impoverished, and every thing was in a manner to begin afresh; yet Sully, by his prudence and œconomy, in a few years, caused every thing to revive and flourish. P. 484. He forbad the manufacture of gold and silver stuffs, and every article of luxury. This, perhaps, was an excess of œconomy, but the means which he took to stop the accumulation of money in the hands of public peculators, and his reflections on that species of wealth, deserve to be remembered in all ages, and at all times. Nothing," says he, "has contributed so much to pervert among us the idea of probity, simplicity, and independence, and to bring those virtues into contempt; nothing has more strongly fortified that unfortunate propensity to effeminacy and luxury so common among men; nothing has so much degraded the ancient French nobility, as those rapid and brilliant fortunes amassed by farmers of the revenue, and other public plunderers, by the opinion which they have propagated, that money is the only road to honor and dignity, and that with money every thing may be forgotten and forgiven.”— Vide p. 67, vol. ii. The means which he took to suppress duelling were perhaps too violent for the times in which he lived. The practice is founded on mistaken notions of honor, which, at a time when mankind had few better principles to direct them, (tho' it cannot be defended on the principles of justice and reason,) may at least be pardoned, as having tended to promote civilization, and preserve the weak from the rudeness and insults of the strong. P. 149.

P. 305.

"But time and perseverance." For an account

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of Sully's life and conduct, I refer to his interesting memoirs, and to his panegyric, by the French philosopher, Thomas.

P. 305. "" Frugality and economy." The love of pleasure and the love of power are the two most forcible motives of human action; in the present state of society, money is power, and, therefore, the pursuit of money, by those who have it not, is both natural and justifiable, and the pursuit of pleasure, by those who have it, is equally blameless, provided their pleasures be moderate, rational, and beneficient: nothing but stoicism, or romantic ignorance, can deny the truth of these positions. Money is the most powerful incentive to industry, and without it no state can subsist; whoever, therefore, condemns the moderate pursuit of gain, or affects to despise money, as beneath his notice, shews his extreme ignorance of the principles of human nature, and will probably suffer for it, by contempt and poverty. As money is the representative of wealth, so paper is the representative of money, and a poor one it is; yet such is the force of custom, that it is now almost of equal value with the reality. For my own part, I almost blush for shame when I offer a man a piece of dirty paper as the price of his labor or ingenuity; and yet money, whatever form it may take, is the great cement of society; it binds the whole together, tho' it sets individuals at variance.

P. 308. "Richlieu." This minister, whose whole life was a scene of intrigue, of artifice, and cruelty, set out in the world with a lie, for in order to be consecrated a bishop by Paul V. he pretended he was twenty-four years of age, when he was only twenty-two. He was

His

a man of extensive talents, of the most profound subtlety, and the most complete profligacy of principle. intrigues tended in some degree to the aggrandisement of his country, and that single circumstance has, with many people, been sufficient to atone for all his faults and vices; yet he was a tissue of every thing that was base and contemptible. Cruel, revengeful, suspicious, implacable, artful, and ostentatious; he squandered the treasures of the nation to gratify his own vanity, and heaped together immense wealth, which, to satisfy his conscience, he left to the king. The people were nothing with him; himself and the court were every thing. The particulars of his administration present too horrid a picture of human nature, in the extremes of oppressors and oppressed, to be considered with complacency; and it were well if a veil could be for ever thrown over such history, which affords neither instruction nor amusement, and can only excite pity and contempt. For a further account of this artful intriguer, see Hume's History of England, vol. vi. p. 232.

P. 308. "Mazarin." The character of this man was in some degree opposite to that of his predecessor, for, tho' a subtle politician, he had more boldness, more openness, and more dignity; yet, their schemes of policy were the same, tho' their means were different: Το humble the nobles and the people, and to exalt the power of the crown, as the means of exalting themselves, were their great objects. Under the authority of Mazarin, the internal administration was more shamefully neglected, tho' the power of Austria was more completely humbled; his own coffers were filled, while those of

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