{105} Do not the soup-shops of late invention, and certainly well intended, bear some resemblance to these days of Roman wretchedness and magnificence.

{106} It is to be observed, these donations were not on account of scarcity, but to save the people from the trouble of working to earn the corn; they were become idle in body and degraded in mind. -=-

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The unequal division of property in France was one of the chief causes of the revolution; the intention of which was, to overturn the then existing order of things.  The ignorance of the great proprietors concerning of their true interests, and the smallness of their numbers, disabled them from protecting themselves.  The middle orders were discontented, and wished for a change; and the lower orders were so degraded, that, at the first signal, they became as mutinous and as mean as the Plebians at Rome, in the days of its splendor. {107}

That this was not alone owing to the unequal division of property is certain, there were other causes, but that was a principal one.  As a proof that this was so in England, where property is more equally divided than it was in France, the common people are more attached to government, and of a different spirit, though they are changing since the late great influx of wealth into this country, and since difficulties which have accumulated on the heads of the middle orders, while those who have large fortunes feel a greater facility of augmenting them than at any former period.

In those parts of this country, where wealth has made the least progress, the character of the people supports itself the best amongst the lower classes; and the inverse progress of that character, and of the acquisition of wealth, is sufficiently striking to be noticed by one who is neither a very near, nor a very nice observer.

Discontent and envy rise arise from comparison; and, where they become prevalent, society can never stand long.  They are enemies to fair industry.

Whatever may have been the delusive theories into which ill-intentioned, designing, and subtile men have sometimes deluded the great mass of the people, they have never been successful, except when they could fight under the appearance of justice, and thereby create discontent.  The unequal division of property has frequently served them in this case.

—–­ {107} The Parisian populace were the instruments in the hand of those who destroyed the former government, as the regular army is in the hands of him who has erected that which now exists. -=-

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[Transcriber’s note:  possible omissis—­page 128 ends as above, page 129 starts as next follows...]

while it increased the ignorance, and diminished the number of the enemies they had to encounter.

As this evil has arisen to a greater height in countries which have had less wealth in the aggregate than England, it is not the most dangerous thing we have to encounter; but, as the tendency to it increases very rapidly of late years, we must, by no means, overlook it.  A future Chapter will be dedicated to the purpose of inquiring how this may be counteracted in some cases, in others modified and disguised, so as to prevent, in some degree, the evil effects that naturally arise from it.