lowing this great model; but where goodness and justice are not essential to the ruler, I would by no means 3 put myself into his hands to be disposed of according to his particular will and pleasure.

It is odd to consider the connection between despotic government and barbarity, and how the making of one person more than man, makes the rest less. About nine parts of the world in ten are in the lowest state of slavery, and consequently sunk in the most gross and brutal ignorance. European slavery is indeed a state of liberty, if compared with that which prevails in the other three divisions of the world; and therefore it is no wonder that those who grovel under it have many tracks of light among them, of which the others are wholly destitute.

Riches and plenty are the natural fruits of liberty, and where these abound, learning and all the liberal arts will immediately lift up their heads and flourish. As a man must have no slavish fears and apprehensions hanging upon his mind, who will indulge the flights of fancy or speculation, and push his researches into all the abstruse corners of truth, so it is necessary for him to have about him a competency of all the conveniencies of life.

The first thing every one looks after, is to provide himself with necessaries. This point will engross our thoughts till it be satisfied. If this is taken care of to our hands, we look out for pleasures and amusements; and among a great number of idle people, there will be many whose pleasures will lie in reading and contemplation. These are the two great sources of knowledge, and as men grow wise they naturally love to communicate their discoveries; and others seeing the happiness of such a learned life, and improving by their conversation, emulate, imitate, and surpass one another, till a nation is filled with races of wise and understanding persons. Ease and plenty are therefore the great cherishers of, knowledge; and as most of the

despotic governments of the world have neither of them, they are naturally over-run with ignorance and barbarity. In Europe, indeed, notwithstanding seve ral of its princes are absolute, there are men famous for knowledge and learning, but the reason is because the subjects are many of them rich and wealthy, the prince not thinking fit to exert himself in his full tyranny like the princes of the eastern nations, lest his subjects should be invited to new-mould their constitution, having so many prospects of liberty within their view. But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letters, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind, as you may observe from Aagustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by degrees till they fell to an equality with the most bar. barous nations that surrounded them. Look upon Greece under its free states, and you would think its inhabitants lived in different climates, and under different heavens, from those at present; so different are the geniuses which are formed under Turkish slavery, and Grecian liberty.

Besides poverty and want, there are other reasons that debase the minds of men, who live under slavery, though I look on this as the principal. This natural tendency of despotic power to ignorance and barbarity, though not insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable argument against that form of government, as it shows how repugnant it is to the good of mankind, and the perfection of human nature, which ought to be the great ends of all civil institutions.

L.

PIN MONEY.

Prodiga non sentit pereuntem fœmina censum:
At velut exhausta redivivus pullulet arca
Nummus, & e pleno semper tollatur acervo,
Non unquam reputat, quanti sibi gaudia constent.
JUV.

But woman kind, that never knows a mean,
Down to the dregs their sinking fortunes drain,
Hourly they give, and spend, and waste and wear,
And think no pleasure can be bought too dear.
DRYDEN.

As there is no man living who is a more professed advocate for the fair sex than myself, so there is none that would be more unwilling to invade any of their ancient rights and privileges; but as the doctrine of Pin-money is of a very late date, unknown to our great-grandmothers, and not yet received by many of our modern ladies, I think it is for the interest of both sexes to keep it from spreading.

The supplying a man's wife with Pin-money, is fur. nishing her with arms against himself, and in a manner becoming accessary to his own dishonour. We may, indeed, generally observe, that in proportion as a woman is more or less beautiful, and her husband advanced in years, she stands in need of a greater or less number of Pins, and upon a treaty of marriage, rises or falls in her demands accordingly. It must likewise be owned, that high quality in a mistress does very much inflame this article in the marriage reckoning.

But where the age and circumstances of both parties are pretty much upon a level, I cannot but think the insisting upon Pin-money is very extraordinary; and yet we find several matches broken off upon this very What would a foreigner, or one who is a stranger to this practice, think of a lover that forsakes his mistress, because he is not willing to keep her in Pins; but what would he think of the mistress, should

head.

he be informed that she asks five or six bundred pounds a year for this use? Should a man unacquainted with our customs be told the sums which are allowed in Great Britain under the title of Pin-money, what a prodigious consumption of pins would he think there was in this island!

I am not ignorant that the British ladies allege they comprehend under this general term several other conveniencies of life; I could therefore wish, for the honour of my country-women, that they had rather called it Needle-money, which might have implied something of good-housewifery, and not have given the malicious world occasion to think, that dress and trifle have always the uppermost place in a woman's thoughts.

I know several of my fair readers urge, in defence of this practice, that it is but a necessary provision they make for themselves, in case their husband proves a churl or a miser; so that they consider this allowance as a kind of alimony, which they may lay their claim to without actually separating from their husbands. But with submission, I think à woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apprehension, and trust her person to one whom she will not rely on for the common necessaries of life, may very properly be accused (in the phrase of an homely proverb) of being "6 penny wise and pound foolish."

It is observed of over-cautious generals, that they never engage in a battle without securing a retreat, in case the event should not answer their expectations; on the other hand, the greatest conquerors have burnt their ships, or broke down the bridges behind them, as being determined either to succeed or die in the engagement. In the same manner I should very much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for her retreat, and contrives methods how she may live happily, without the affection of one to whom she joins herself for life. Separate purses between man and

wife are, in my opinion, as unnatural as separate beds. A marriage cannot be happy, where the pleasures, inclinations, and interests of both parties are not the same. There is no greater incitement to love in the mind of man, than the sense of a person's depending upon him for her ease and happiness; as a woman uses all her endeavours to please the person whom she looks upon as her honour, her comfort, and her support.

For this reason I am not very much surprised at the behaviour of a rough country squire, who being not a little shocked at the proceeding of a young widow that would not recede from her demands of Pinmoney, was so enraged at her mercenary temper, that he told her in great wrath, "As much as she thought him her slave, he would shew all the world he did not care a pin for her." Upon which he flew out of the room, and never saw her more.

Socrates, in Plato's Alcibiades, says, he was informed by one who had travelled through Persia, that as he passed over a great tract of land, and inquired what the name of the place was, they told him it was the Queen's Girdle; to which he adds, that another wide field which lay by it, was called the Queen's Veil; and that in the same manner there was a large portion of ground set aside for every part of her majesty's dress. These lands might not be improperly called the Queen of Persia's Pin-money.

L.