society, or which are warranted by a modest regard to personal comfort or convenience. To enumerate the employments which fall under the description here given, would be equally invidious and

sary.

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The same mixed character in human affairs, which often makes it doubtful whether the good or the evil predominates, is also discernable in occupations which relate more immediately to the intellectual part of our nature. As a specimen, let us take the business of a bookseller. It is far from my purpose to depreciate a calling which, on the whole, I believe has been of great use to the world; though, in the present state of literature, to conduct it with such circumspection as that the balance shall turn in favour of truth and virtue, is evidently a matter of no small difficulty. Among the numerous volumes which are. now in ordinary circulation, there is a large proportion which deserves to be branded with infamy, many of them powerfully

tending to promote lewdness, dissipation, and public disorder, and many others no less subservient to the cause of infidelity and profaneness. The shelves of our libraries groan under loads of error and impiety, the incentives of vice, and the pleas of anarchy. When such is the demand for works, whose direct object is to sap the principles, and vitiate the manners of the present age, and of posterity, it obviously requires no common degree of virtue and vigilance in a bookseller to preserve himself from being an instrument of public mischief. And the difficulty is still greater, when the evil (which frequently happens) is more vertly conveyed; when an artful writer, otherwise, perhaps, of undoubted merit, through the vehicle of history or fiction, or some pretended metaphysical disquisition, insinuates the same false and dangerous principles, which, for want of suf ficient leisure or sagacity, may easily escape a man of business. And even among those writings which we ought to

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consider as honestly dedicated to the present and future welfare of mankind, such often are either their inherent defects, or their want of due reception, that few of them appear to answer, in any considerable degree, the end for which they were laudably intended. When all this is fairly taken into the account, the most respectable bibliopolist will find little reason to boast himself on the score of utility.

So far concerning the less dignified occupations of society. Of the learned professions of law and physic, I wish to speak in terms of the highest respect, on account of the relation they bear to two of the greatest blessings we can enjoy, peace and health. A lawyer, who, instead of encouraging a spirit of litigation, endeavours to prevent it, who will undertake no cause but upon probable grounds of equity, and, when undertaken, will exert all his diligence, with the least possible expence or trouble to his

client, to bring it to a fair conclusion ;such a lawyer (and many such I trust there are) sustains a part in society, in a high degree both useful and honourable. Again, the physician, whose sentiments of humanity and justice carry him above every mercenary consideration, who is anxious not to trifle with his patient, not to detain him under the dubious trials of art, when he should remit him to the more sure guidance of nature, nor to flatter him with hopes of recovery at the risque of his most important interests, possesses an equal title to the gratitude and respect of his fellow-citizens. Men such as these may, with a good grace, call the votary of solitude to account, and demand of what use he is to the world. On the other hand, should their conduct be dictated by the temptations instead of the duties of their profession, they are too deeply responsible themselves, to exercise an authority of this nature over the most indolent recluse,

There are other descriptions of men, who, without any particular profession, act a considerable part in society. Among these may be ranked the founders of families, the promoters of charitable and other practical institutions, and, lastly, the patrons of learning and genius. Upon the utility of these several classes, I would offer a few brief remarks.

I. The founders of families. We see men who, after they have raised themselves by their own genius and industry to a state of opulence, transplant themselves from the city into some more elegant situation at the west end of the town, where, still in the midst of noise and competition, and in preference to a quiet and unambitious country life, they set themselves to cultivate an acquaintance with people of rank or fashion, till, by dint of interest or money, or by a courtly servility, their ultimate wishes are at length accomplished; their sons are provided with distinguished situations at