and to deride them who have forsaken the paths they prescribed to others. But the ignorant scoffer should be informed, that such unfortunate authors never tried to justify or defend their own conduct, nor retracted the admonitions they have given to others, to shun therocks on which they themselves have been shipwrecked. It is well, however, for the cause of virtue and of learning, that many characters can be enumerated, whose example and precepts have equally advanced the peace and happiness of society. It is, indeed, always our duty to forget the failings, and dwell on the virtues of those who have in structed us; and when we meet with an author whose life never belied his writings, we must place him amongst those revered characters in human life,qui profecto," to use the words of Cicero, "si nihil ad perci"piendam colendamque virtutem "literis adjuvarentur, nunquam se ad 46 earum studium contulissent." is exactly worth the whole circulating medium which that nation possesses. If so, whatever diminishes the cir culating medium, depreciates the property of a nation, and, vice verse, whatever encreases the circulating medium, encreases also the value of property. If we look back to the beginning of the last century, we find the rents, almost without a single exception, paid ipso corpore, i. e. in kind. If we look a little farther back, we will find feu farms, which pay only a shil ling or merk scots, of feu duty, which at the present day would let for upwards of L,100 sterling. Even in the last valuation of the lands of Scotland, by which the cess, &c. are levied, it will be generally found, that an estate which was then valued at L.100 Scots, would at present rent at L.100 sterling, the increase in value being in the proportion of 12 to 1. From these facts it will appear, that the circulating medium was then small, and was difficult to be obtained, so that both heritor and tenant found it more eligible that Add rents should be paid in kind. to this, that, previous to the revolution, Scotland was so little engaged in trade or manufactures, that in the course of several centuries the circulating medium encreased very little, and the value of property conse quently kept nearly stationary. Posterior to the revolution, and the establishment of the funding system, an addition was made to the circulating medium, and our trade began to encrease. These effects were for a long time feeble, and produced little alteration in the value of land, and it is only within these 50 years that any considerable part of the rent of land began to be paid in money. Indeed I might with accuracy enough have dated the rapid increase of the value of land from the conclusion of the last American war. The 832 Comparative Merits of Victual and of Money-Rent. The amazing and unprecedented in. crease of the circulating medium during the late and present French war must be in the recollection of every one. Our national debt is nearly tripled, and our taxation in the same proportion. Add to this, that we have nearly engrossed the whole commerce of Europe, owing to the almost total extinction of that of France, Spain, Holland, and Flanders. That such a rapid and unprecedented increase of circulating medium should have a powerful tendency to depreciate the value of money, and enhance the value of the necessaries of life, is at once self-evident. Hence the avidity of a tenant to get rid of a victual, and a money rent. Money is every day falling in value, and the productions of his farm are in the same proportion rising in price. As long as the national debt continues to accumulate, and our commerce to extend, the said causes will uniformly produced the same effects. pay But there is in the affairs of na tions as well as individuals a certain acme which they cannot pass. This the great and sagacious Pitt wisely foresaw, and his sucsessors have with the greatest propriety trodden in his footsteps, by guarding as much as possible against the further accumu. lation of the national debt, and by means of war taxes, raising a great proportion of the supplies of the year. This is indeed a wise measure, for it is absolutely necessary that our circulating medium bear a just and relative proportion to that of the nations with whom we have commercial intercourse. For were mo. ney to sink in value, in the same proportion as it has done these 12 years past, in less than 12 years to come, our commodities would cost so much, that we could not sell a single article in any foreign market. The funding system appears there. fore to have nearly reached its acmē, and the moment it becomes station. ary, property of every description will assume a stationary and permanent value. But as soon as the funding system ceases to accumulate; owing to the operation of the sinking fund, it must begin to decrease, and this diminution must operate to depress the value of property in the same proportion that its accumulation enhanced it. The consequences of Peace seem to be anticipated by the nation in no very favourable point of view, for the rejoicings at the fupture of the negotiation cannot otherwise be ac counted for. Peace in our present situation is an undesirable object, and war is not less so; but of the two, a safe and honourable peace is surely to be preferred. Peace will however bring along with it disagreeable consequences to the farmer. It will decrease our trade, as other nations will naturally resume that share from which, during the war, they have been excluded. It will withdraw from circulation 40 millions annually spent on account of the war. It will prevent the accumulation of the national debt, and cause the sinking fund to have its full effect in dimi nishing it, &c. Peace will therefore greatly diminish the circulating medium, and consequently depretiate the value of the necessaries of life; and if we might indulge the hope of 50 years uninterrupted peace, and the gradual diminution of the national debt by the operation of the sink ing fund, property would gradually fall along with the funding system, in the same proportion that it rose with it. will From the arguments laid down, it appear that money is not the proper equivalent which a tenant ought to render a landlord for his farm. Every heritor who let a farm 20 years ago for a money rent, will readily assent to this doctrine, because he has experienced the fact ; and every farmer who pays a money rent 20 years hence will probably find as little dif. ficulty in assenting to it, however much he may doubt it at present. It is in the power of no man alive to determine what money rent a farm will be worth 3 or 4 years hence, and far less 30 or 40. Áll is mystery and conjecture. But any man versed in agriculture may form a pretty accurate estimate of the probable produce of a farm, and what part thereof he could give for rent. This is in reality the true way of estimating a rent: a rent paid in kind has this superior and exclusive advantage, that it keeps pace equally with the rise and fall of money, and is adequate to all emergencies, being the li teral produce of the farm. The man who pays a victual rent might lye down composed and easy, tho' the funding system should explode to. morrow. He might do the same tho' the value of money should decrease tenfold more than at present. None of these consequences could possibly affect him. But whilst a rent in kind is pecu liarly adapted to the interest of the tenant, it is in every respect equally in favour of the heritor. Nothing can set this matter in a clearer point of view, than adverting to the pay of Nov. 1806. of fixing his pay in money, had it been fixed in meal and beef, it would have kept pace with the rise or fall of money, and have afforded him a comfortable subsistence under every possible fluctuation of the circulating medium of the nation. Had rents in kind been still adhered to, we should not every day see heritors purchasing money leases at double the value the farm would have sold for, at the time the lease, was granted; nor should we, as probably we may at no distant period,' see the tenantry of a whole nation ruined, by their ill-judged predilection in favour of money-rents, which every day fluctuate with the increase or diminution of the circulating medium; and which, on the explosion, or extinction, of the funding system (circumstances by no means improbable), would, instead of the annual value of the farms, be found more than adequate to the complete purchase of them. Within these 20 years that the ational capital has increased so rapidly (it is only a paper capital) every thing respecting farming has been mystery and speculation, and the most seemingly disadvantagous leases have turned out great bargains in a few years. But this is owing neither to the industry nor sagacity of the tenant, but the rapid increase of the circulating medium, which, like a resistless tide, carried every thing before it, and which on its ebb will absorb and carry every thing back with it to that goal from which it originally started. But a rent payable in kind, and judiciously imposed in proportion to the actual produce of the farm, is founded on the firm basis of the unalterable laws of nature. It keeps pace pace with all times, and is adequate to all emergencies. A lease on such terms might endure from the first dawn of time, to the final extinction of it, without deranging the equilibrium of the interest of the proprie tor or tenant, and without furnish ing even a plausible ground of dissatisfaction to either. consideration. In it, we see man in every stage of society; and a view of the steps by which a savage na. tion arrives at civilization and opu. lence, and their consequent deviations into luxury and licentiousness, while it arrests the attention by the en tertainment it affords, is at the same time fraught with the most im portant instruction. It strengthens our attachment to the cause of virtue, by painting the salutary effects On the Advantages of the Study of which flow from an obedience to its HISTORY. dictates; and the horrid consequences produced to a nation, by the vicious A Desire of mental improvement, behaviour of its inhabitants as indi or a wish for present gratification, are, in general, the stimuli of such as devote a portion of their time to reading. The latter of these being the motive by which the greater part of mankind are actuated, those who aim at the benefit of their fel low creatures in the different departments of literature, find it necessary to blend entertainment with instruction. There are, indeed, some whose attention to an abstract subject may be detained by their curiosity, and whose entertainment is estimated by their progression, but the greater part, rather than submit to the incessant labour attendant on the success. ful cultivation of such arduous stu dies, relinquish, in a great measure, those habits on which the acquisition of knowledge greatly depends, and grant full indulgence to those propensities which, when they become habitual, incapacitate the mind for more strenuous exertions. To such, those writings which are not so irksome as to become a task, nor so romantic as to captivate the imagination and foster in the mind, a reluctance to the discipline of reason, are calculated to be highly beneficial. Of all the writings of this kind, history, on account of the dignity of the subject, and the advantages to be derived from a careful study of its contents, deserves our most attentive viduals. It has been justly observed, that without mixing in society, and the most attentive observation, we will have very inadequate ideas of the pas sions and affections of the human mind; that the speculations of the solitaire concerning human nature, instead of having any foundation in the constitution of man, are little better than idle dreams of imagina. tion. This remark will equally ap ply to those who are conversant with a small circle; whose observation is bounded by the limits of the king. dom in which they are placed, and whose curiosity has never prompted them to explore the history of dis tant ages. These having no idea of manners and customs different from their own, are led to discredit every account of them, or attribute them to the caprice of the inhabitants.History, however, by shewing man in every situation, under every prejudice, and under every form of go, vernment, enlarges our ideas, and renders us capable of tracing many actions to their real causes, which, to a superficial and uninformed obser ver, appear as the effects of a differ ent constitution, or the genuine con sequences of intellectual derange ment. But it is the peculiar advantage of history to add to our stock of useful knowledge, knowledge, and, at the same time, to furnish the most exquisite entertain ment. It is a generally received maxim, that instruction can never be communicated with such success as by example: we easily imbibe and readily practise those virtues, when associated with some living characters, which, when recommended merely as duties, though enforced by the most weighty considerations of interest, fail to make any impression by which our future conduct is affected. A narration of events, which are the effects of prior causes, and also the causes of events still more considerable, while it possesses the merit of initiating the mind in those habits, by which we arrive at a satisfactory and rational solution of any phenomenon, arrests our attention by the interest, it excites in us for the fate of those who are its objects. We rejoice with the hero who enjoys a triumph, and we sympathize with him, when, after every hu. man effort, he meets with discomfiture and disgrace: We follow with mingled admiration and esteem the upright statesman in his opposition to peculation and injustice, and mourn with the patriot the fall of his country. Our attention is kept awake by the varidus pieces of information, which it is the province of history to record, and by the great consequences with which every event is fraught. The variety also with which history abounds, keeps the mind from falling into that insipid listlessness, which a long continuance of the subject seldom fails to produce. But while this species of writing is a fund of entertainment and instruction to every class of readers, there are particular classes to whom a thorough knowledge of history is absolutely necessary. It will readily be perceived that I allude to the statesman and philosopher. If it be granted, that to experience we are indebted for a very valuable and useful part of our knowledge, it will naturally follow, that those writings which are the professed records of the accumulated wisdom of ages are peculiarly valuable. Now history, being a record of the transactions of men in a collective capacity, in every age of the world, is the only sure foundation on which the politician can rear those theories which have for their object the aggrandisement and happiness of his country: what happened in former times, will, in similar circumstances, still continue to happen; and, making due allowance for any difference that may subsist betwixt the circumstances which, at a remote period, affected any measure, and those which in present times influence it, he will be able to foretell its probable consequences. To the philosopher, a knowledge of history will appear equally requi site, when we consider that it contains a transcript of the human mind in various stages, from rudeness to refinement, pourtrayed in the actions of those who are its subjects. The philosopher, by a careful attention to the workings of his own mind, and a strict observation of others, may go a great way in the developement of many of the intellectual phenomena, and from a particular detail arrive at general conclusions; but from the complexity of the subject, and the different lights in which parts of it may be viewed, the certainty of them depends, in a great measure, on the number of facts by which they are supported. Besides, there are several latent principles of action which cannot be called forth but in certain situations, and others so modified by particular circumstances, that the philosopher who writes solely from an attentive observation of the opera |