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85.

neighbours. The natives of Lombardy might easily resolve to retain their silk at home, and employ workmen of their own to weave it. And this will certainly be done when they grow wise and industrious, when they have sagacity to discern their true interest, and vigour to pursue it.

Mines are generally considered as the great sources of wealth, and superficial observers have thought the possession of great quantities of precious metals the first national happiness. But Europe has long seen, with wonder and contempt, the poverty of Spain, who thought himself exempted from the abour of tilling the ground, by the conquest of Peru, with its veins of silver. Time, however, has aught even this obstinate and haughty nation, hat without Agriculture they may indeed be the ransmitters of money, but can never be the posBessors. They may dig it out of the earth, but nust immediately send it away to purchase cloth or bread, and it must at last remain with some Deople wise enough to sell much, and to buy little; o live upon their own lands, without a wish for hose things which nature has denied them.

Mines are themselves of no use, without some ind of Agriculture. We have, in our own counry, inexhaustible stores of iron, which lie useless 1 the ore for want of wood. It was never the esign of Providence to feed man without his own oncurrence: we have from nature only what we annot provide for ourselves; she gives us wild uits which art must meliorate, and drossy metals, hich labour must refine.

Particular metals are valuable, because they are

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yield them are emptied in time. But the surf of the earth is more liberal than its caverns. T field, which is this autumn laid naked by the sick will be covered, in the succeeding summer, by new harvest; the grass, which the cattle are vouring, shoots up again when they have pass

over it.

Agriculture, therefore, and Agriculture alon can support us without the help of others, in certa plenty and genuine dignity. Whatever we b from without, the sellers may refuse; whatever sell, manufactured by art, the purchasers may r ject; but, while our ground is covered with co and cattle, we can want nothing, and if imagin tion should grow sick of native plenty, and ca for delicacies or embellishments from other cou tries, there is nothing which corn and cattle w not purchase.

Our country is, perhaps, beyond all others, pr ductive of things necessary to life. The pin apple thrives better between the tropicks, and be ter furs are found in the northern regions. B let us not envy these unnecessary privileges. Man kind cannot subsist upon the indulgencies of na ture, but must be supported by her more commo gifts. They must feed upon bread, and be clothe with wool; and the nation that can furnish the universal commodities, may have her ships we comed at a thousand ports, or sit at home and re ceive the tribute of foreign countries, enjoy the arts, or treasure up their gold.

It is well known to those who have examine the state of other countries, that the vineyards France are more than equivalent to the mines c

THOUGHTS ON AGRICULTURE.

37

America; and that one great use of Indian gold, and Peruvian silver, is to procure the wines of Champaigne and Burgundy. The advantage is indeed always rising on the side of France, who will certainly have wines, when Spain, by a thou sand natural or accidental causes, may want silver. But surely the vallies of England have more certain stores of wealth. Wines are chosen by caprice; the products of France have not always been equally esteemed; but there never was any age, or people, that reckoned bread among superfluities, when once it was known. The price of wheat and barley suffers not any variation, but what is caused by the uncertainty of seasons.

I am far from intending to persuade my countrymen to quit all other employments for that of manuring the ground. I mean only to prove, that we have, at home, all that we can want, and that therefore we need feel no great anxiety about the schemes of other nations for improving their arts, or extending their traffick. But there is no necessity to infer, that we should cease from commerce, before the revolution of things shall transfer it to ome other regions! Such vicissitudes the world as often seen; and therefore such we have reason o expect. We hear many clamours of declining rade, which are not, in my opinion, always true; nd many imputations of that decline to governors nd ministers, which may be sometimes just, and Ometimes calumnious. But it is foolish to ima

1

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OL

There are some danger, lest our neglect o Agriculture should hasten its departure. industry has for many ages been employed in de stroying the woods which our ancestors hav planted. It is well known that commerce is ca ried on by ships, and that ships are built out c trees; and therefore, when I travel over nake plains, to which tradition has preserved the nan of forests, or see hills arising on either hand, ba ren and useless, I cannot forbear to wonder, ho that commerce, of which we promise ourselves th perpetuity, shall be continued by our descendants nor can restrain a sigh, when I think on the tim a time at no great distance, when our neighbour may deprive us of our naval influence, by refusin us their timber.

By Agriculture only can commerce be perpe tuated; and by Agriculture alone can we live plenty without intercourse with other nation This, therefore, is the great art, which government ought to protect, every proprietor lands to practise, and every inquirer into nature 1 improve.

THE

VISION OF THEODORE,

THE HERMIT OF TENERIFFE,

FOUND IN HIS CELL.

SON of Perseverance, whoever thou art, whose curiosity has led thee hither, read and be wise. He that now calls upon thee is Theodore, the Hermit of Teneriffe, who in the fifty-seventh year of his retreat left this instruction to mankind, lest his solitary hours should be spent in vain.

I was once what thou art now, a groveller on the earth, and a gazer at the sky; I trafficked and heaped wealth together; I loved and was favoured; I wore the robe of honour, and heard the musick of adulation; I was ambitious, and rose to greatness; I was unhappy, and retired. I sought for some time what I at length found here, a place where all real wants might be easily supplied, and where I might not be under the necessity of purchasing the assistance of men by the toleration of their follies. Here I saw fruits, and herbs, and water, and here determined to wait the hand of death, which I hope, when at last it comes, will fall lightly upon me.

Forty-eight years had I now passed in forget