As usefully even as those who fing upon the stage. They are as ufefully employed as if they worked from dawn to dark in the innumerable fervile, degrading, unfeemly, unmanly, and often most unwholesome and peftiferous occupations, to which by the focialœconomy so many wretches are inevitably doomed. If it were not generally pernicious to disturb the natural courfe of things, and to impede, in any degree, the great wheel of circulation which is turned by the ftrangely directed labour of these unhappy people, I should be infinitely more inclined forcibly to rescue them from their miserable industry, than violently to disturb the tranquil repofe of monaftic quietude. Humanity, and perhaps policy, might better juftify me in the one than in the other. It is a fubject on which I have often reflected, and never reflected without feeling from it. I am fure that no confideration, except the neceffity of fubmitting to the yoke of luxury, and the defpotifm of fancy, who in their own imperious way will diftribute the furplus product of the foil, can justify the toleration of fuch trades and employments in a well-regulated state. But, for this purpose of diftribution, it seems to me, that the idle expences of monks are quite as well directed as the idle expences of us lay-loiterers.

When the advantages of the poffeffion, and of the project, are on a par, there is no motive for a change. But in the prefent cafe, perhaps they are not upon a par, and the difference is in favour of the poffeffion. It does not appear to me, that the expences of those whom you are going to expel, do, in fact, take a course fo directly and fo generally leading to vitiate and degrade

degrade and render miserable those through whom they pass, as the expences of thofe favourites whom you are intruding into their houses. Why fhould the expenditure of a great landed property, which is a difperfion of the furplus product of the foil, appear intolerable to you or to me, when it takes its courfe through the accumulation of vaft libraries, which are the history of the force and weakness of the human mind; through great collections of antient records, medals, and coins, which attest and explain laws and customs; through paintings and ftatues, that, by imitating nature, feem to extend the limits of creation; through grand monuments of the dead, which continue the regards and connexions of life beyond the grave; through collections of the fpecimens of nature, which become a representative affembly of all the claffes and families of the world, that by difpofition facilitate, and, by exciting curiofity, open the avenues to fcience? If, by great permanent establishments, all these objects of expence are better fecured from the inconftant fport of perfonal caprice and personal extravagance, are they worse than if the fame taftes prevailed in scattered individuals? Does not the fweat of the mason and carpenter, who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as pleasantly and as falubriously, in the conftruction and repair of the majestic edifices of religion, as in the painted booths and fordid sties of vice and luxury; as honourably and as profitably in repairing those facred works, which grow hoary with innumerable years, as on the momentary receptacles of tranfient voluptuousnefs; in opera-houses, and brothels, and gaming

8

houses,

houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the Champ de Mars? Is the furplus product of the olive and the vine worse employed in the frugal fuftenance of perfons, whom the fictions of a pious imagination raises to dignity by conftruing in the fervice of God, than in pampering the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by being made ufelefs domeftics fubfervient to the pride of man? Are the decorations of temples an expenditure less worthy a wife man than ribbons, and laces, and national cockades, and petits maisons, and petit foupers, and all the innumerable fopperies and follies in which opulence fports away the burthen of its fuperfluity?

We tolerate even thefe; not from love of them, but for fear of worse. We tolerate them, because property and liberty, to a degree, require that toleration. But why profcribe the other, and furely, in every point of view, the more laudable use of estates? Why, through the violation of all property, through an outrage upon every principle of liberty, forcibly carry them from the better to the worse?

This comparison between the new individuals. and the old corps is made upon a fuppofition that no reform could be made in the latter. But in a question of reformation, I always confider corporate bodies, whether sole or consisting of many, to be much more susceptible of a public direction by the power of the state, in the use of their property, and in the regulation of modes and habits of life in their members, than private citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to be; and this

feems

feems to me a very material confideration for those who undertake any thing which merits the name of a politic enterprize.-So far as to the eftates of monafteries.

With regard to the eftates poffeffed by bishops and canons, and commendatory abbots, I cannot find out for what reafon fome landed eftates may not be held otherwife than by inheritance. Can any philofophic fpoiler undertake to demonftrate the pofitive or the comparative evil, of having a certain, and that too a large portion of landed pro perty, paffing in fucceffion thro' perfons whofe title to it is, always in theory, and often in fact, an eminent degree of piety, morals, and learning; a property which, by its deftination, in their turn, and on the score of merit, gives to the nobleft families renovation and fupport, to the lowest the means of dignity and elevation; a property, the tenure of which is the performance of fome duty, (whatever value you may choose to fet upon that duty) and the character of whofe proprietors demands at least an exterior decorum and gravity of manners; who are to exercise a generous but temperate hofpitality; part of whofe income they are to confider as a truft for charity; and who, even when they fail in their truft, when they flide from their character, and degenerate into a mere common fecular nobleman or gentleman, are in no refpect worse than those who may fucceed them in their forfeited poffeffions? Is it better that eftates fhould be held by those who have no duty than by those who have one?-by thofe whofe character and deftination point to virtues, than by those who have no

rule

rule and direction in the expenditure of their ef tates but their own will and appetite? Nor are thefe eftates held altogether in the character or with the evils fuppofed inherent in mortmain. They pass from hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any other. No excefs is good; and therefore too great a proportion of landed property may be held officially for life; but it does not feem to me of material injury to any commonwealth, that there fhould exift fome eftates that have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous acquifition of money.

This letter is grown to a great length, though it is indeed fhort with regard to the infinite extent of the fubject. Various avocations have from time to time called my mind from the fubject. I was not forry to give myself leisure to obferve whether, in the proceedings of the national affembly, I might not find reafons to change or to qualify fome of my first fentiments. Every thing has confirmed me more ftrongly in my firft opinions. It was my original purpose to take a view of the principles of the national affembly with regard to the great and fundamental establishments; and to compare the whole of what you have fubftituted in the place of what you have destroyed, with the feveral members of our British constitution. But this plan is of greater extent than at first I computed, and I find that you have little defire to take the advantage of any examples. At present I must content myself with fome remarks upon your establishments; referving for another time what I R

propofed