house once a week for literary tattle, is ready, on the strength of such services, to applaud himself, and to challenge the applause of others, as a very Mecanas. Let us hope, however, that among his other claims to public favour, he will not plead his merits as a useful citizen.

The last character I shall consider under the head of public utility is of a higher order, its influence is far more extensive and commanding, and, according as it is well or ill directed, is productive of the greatest benefit or injury to society; I mean the character of a statesman.

A man placed at the head of public affairs, who estimates national prosperity by the diffusion of virtuous happiness, and, agreeably to this maxim, employs every lawful measure to prevent idleness, to encourage industry, to restrain licentiousness, and to protect and cherish true liberty, is undoubtedly to be ranked among the greatest of human benefactors, has a just

claim to the warmest gratitude of his fellow-citizens, and to the general esteem of mankind. To such a patriot minister the pious recluse will look up as to a tutelary angel, and attend him with emotions of veneration in all his endeavours to promote the virtue and ameliorate the state of his country.

The statesman who proceeds upon lower principles, and who looks no farther than to the outward splendour of affairs, is entitled to no such reverence. Though he may pompously harangue in the senate, and may be ardent in his schemes to advance the wealth, and power, and renown, of his country, his soul is vulgar, and wants true moral elevation; he wants a just sense wherein the real prosperity and glory of a state consists, and of what is necessary to secure its permanence and stability. Every age has experienced, what every age is disposed to forget, and the statesman no less than any other individual, that national wealth and power, without the strong cor

rective of virtue, can only produce a transient glory, and are sure to terminate in national shame and ruin.

Still, it should always be considered, in order to strengthen the regard we owe to our rulers, that such is the dignity of publie virtue, as to render every appearance of it respectable; and therefore, that a degree of honour is due to the statesman, who, in a candid construction, may be supposed to act, though upon false or defective principles, with a view to the general good. But when, from a well-meaning patriot, he degenerates into the mercenary head of a party, and it becomes evidently the great object of his ministry to decorate himself and his friends with the spoils of the commonwealth, his name and memory then deserve to be loaded with infamy. Far better had it been for such a man to have dwelt in a wilderness, or to have consumed his days amidst the gloom of a cloister with beads and relics, than to have stood forth on the public

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stage, basely to sacrifice the welfare of his country to the idol of private interest or ambition.

All this may serve to show, that to contribute really to the public benefit is no ordinary felicity. To add indeed to the general misery easy to any man, down from a minister of state to the meanest peasant; so susceptible is human life of evil, that, sown by whatever hand, it naturally takes root, and spreads itself without limit. On the contrary, to do good is difficult: and, without wisdom to direct as well as benevolence to intend, the effect will commonly be inconsiderable; wealth may lavish her benefactions with little relief of virtuous indigence, and power may widely extend her patronage while modest merit lies neglected; and all the political resources of a people may be called forth without any material accession to human happiness. Even after the utmost exertions of wisdom and virtue in conjunction, their end is seldom or

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never perfectly attained, and oftentimes is entirely defeated, through the perverseness and obstinacy of those who set themselves in opposition to their own interest. though the little success of his attempts to be of service, ought not to sink a good citizen in discouragement, or tempt him to desert his station, but rather should incite his more strenuous endeavours; it ought, however, to repress any vain opinion of his own usefulness, and dispose him to regard with more allowance those whose life is devoted to retirement: or who, after a number of years spent in the bustle of the world, withdraw from it under a conviction, that the good which they do is small and uncertain, and that the evil which they suffer is great and unavoidable. Besides, it by no means always follows, as a necessary consequence, that a man is rendered useless, or even less useful, by an abstraction from from public life, as perhaps may appear from the remarks we have next to offer.