more cautious; he should ground his speculation rather on the lowest mediums because all new schemes are known to be subject to some defect or failure not foreseen; and which therefore every prudent proposer will be ready to allow for, in order to lay his foundation as low and as solid as possible.  Quite contrary is the practice of some politicians.  They first propose savings, which they well know cannot be made, in order to get a reputation for economy.  In due time they assume another, but a different method, by providing for the service they had before cut off or straitened, and which they can then very easily prove to be necessary.  In the same spirit they raise magnificent ideas of revenue on funds which they know to be insufficient.  Afterwards, who can blame them, if they do not satisfy the public desires?  They are great artificers but they cannot work without materials.

These are some of the little arts of great statesmen.  To such we leave them, and follow where the author leads us, to his next resource, the Foundling Hospital.  Whatever particular virtue there is in the mode of this saving, there seems to be nothing at all new, and indeed nothing wonderfully important in it.  The sum annually voted for the support of the Foundling Hospital has been in a former Parliament limited to the establishment of the children then in the hospital.  When they are apprenticed, this provision will cease.  It will therefore fall in more or less at different times; and will at length cease entirely.  But, until it does, we cannot reckon upon it as the saving on the establishment of any given year:  nor can any one conceive how the author comes to mention this, any more than some other articles, as a part of a new plan of economy which is to retrieve our affairs.  This charge will indeed cease in its own time.  But will no other succeed to it?  Has he ever known the public free from some contingent charge, either for the just support of royal dignity or for national magnificence, or for public charity, or for public service? does he choose to flatter his readers that no such will ever return? or does he in good earnest declare, that let the reason, or necessity, be what they will, he is resolved not to provide for such services?

Another resource of economy yet remains, for he gleans the field very closely,—­1800_l._ for the American surveys.  Why, what signifies a dispute about trifles? he shall have it.  But while he is carrying it off, I shall just whisper in his ear, that neither the saving that is allowed, nor that which is doubted of, can at all belong to that future proposed administration, whose touch is to cure all our evils.  Both the one and the other belong equally (as indeed all the rest do) to the present administration, to any administration; because they are the gift of time, and not the bounty of the exchequer.