The form of government in England is different from that of any of those countries.  It is also different in its nature, though not in its form, from what it was under the Plantagenets and Tudors.  Court favour cannot enrich a family in this country, and the operation of the law is tolerably equal.  As neither protection, nor rank, in this country, raise a man above the rest of society, so the richest subject is obliged to obtain, by his expenditure, that consideration which he would ob-

—–­ {109} Two centuries ago, land was sold for twelve years purchase, and the rents are five times as great as they were then; 10,000 L. employed in buying land then would now produce 5000 L. a year.  Had the same money been lent, at interest, it would but produce 500 L. The land, too, would sell for 140,000 L. The monied capital would remain what it was. -=-

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tain by other means, under another form of government, {110} and he is as much compelled to pay his debts as any other man.

It is not, however, the great wealth of one individual, or even of a few individuals, that is an object of consideration.  It will be found that the great number of persons, who live upon revenues, sufficiently abundant to exempt them from care and attention, and to enable them to injure the manners of the people, (being above the necessity of economy, feeling none of its wants, and contributing nothing by their own exertion to its wealth or strength,) is a very great evil, and one that tends constantly to increase.

But if this progress goes on, while a nation is acquiring wealth, how much faster does it not proceed when it approaches towards its decline?  It is, then, indeed, that the extremes of poverty and riches are to be seen in the most striking degree.

The higher classes can never be made to contribute their share towards the prosperity of a state; where there are no middling classes to connect the higher and lower orders, and to protect the lower orders from the power of the higher, a state must gradually decline.

It is in the middling classes that the freedom, the intelligence, and the industry of a country reside.  The higher class may be very intelligent, but can never be very numerous; and being above the feeling of want, except in a few instances, (where nature has endowed the wealthy with innate good qualities,) there is nothing to be expected or obtained of them, {111} towards the general good.

From the working and laborious classes, again, little is to be expected.  They fill the part assigned to them when they perform their duty to themselves and families; and they have neither leisure, nor other means of contributing to general prosperity as public men;

—–­ {110} In France, the richest subject under the crown was a prince of the blood, &c.

{111} In this case, the English form of government is good, because, it not only hinders any man from forgetting that he is a man, but whenever there is any ambition, no one in this country can rise above the necessity of acting with, and feeling for, their inferiors, of whom they sometimes have to ask favours, which they never do under a pure monarchy. -=-