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fefs, I look upon High Change to be a grand council, in which all confiderable nations have their reprefentatives. Factors, in the trading world, are what ambaffadours are in the politic world. They negociate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correfpondence between thofe wealthy focieties of men that are divided from one another by feas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderinan of London, or to fee a fubject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Mulcovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these feveral minifters of commerce, as they are diftinguished by their different walks and different languages. Some times I am jostled among a body of Armenians; fometimes I am loft in a crowd of Jews; and fometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, a Swede, or Frenchman, at different times; or rather fancy myfelf like the old philofopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was, replied, That he was a citizen of the world.

Nature feems to have taken a particular care to diffeminate her bleffings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourfe and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the feveral parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interefts. Almost every degree produces fomething peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country and the fauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes; the infufion of a China plant fweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippine islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The fingle drefs of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The fcarf is fent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rifes cut of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indoftan.

If we confider our own country in its natural profpect, without any of the benefits and advantages of commerce,

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what a barren uncomfortable fpot of earth falls to our fhare! Natural hiftorians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us befides hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicacies of the like nature: that our climate, of itself, and without the affiftance of art, can make no farther advances towards a plum than a floe, and carries an apple to no greater perfection than a crab that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots, and our cherries, are ftrangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our English gardens; and that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our fun and foil.

Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our fhips are laden with the harvest of every climate; our tables are ftored with fpices, and oils, and wines; our rooms are filled with pyramids of china, and adorned with the workmanhip of Japan; our morning's draught comes to us from the remoteft corners of the earth; we repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repofe ourfelves under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of France our gardens; the fpice-iflands, our hot beds; the Perfians, our filk-weavers; and the Chinefe, our potters. Nature, indeed, furnishes us with the bare neceffaries of life; but traffic gives us a great variety of what is ufeful, and, at the fame time, fupplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor isit the leaft part of this our happiness, that, while we enjoy the remoteft products of the north and fouth, we are free from thofe extremities of weather which give them birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, at the fame time that our palates are feasted with fruits that rife between the tropics.

For these reasons, there are not more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourfe of good offices, diftribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges his wool for rubies. The Maho

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metans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our sheep.

X. On public Speaking.

MOST foreign writers who have given any character of the English nation, whatever vices they afcribe to it, allow, in general, that the people are naturally modeft. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national virtue, that our orators are obferved to make use of less gefture or action than those of other countries. Our preachers ftand ftock-ftill in the pulpit, and will not fo much as move a finger to fet off the beft fermons in the world. We meet with the fame speaking statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a fmooth continued ftream, without thofe ftrainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the hand, which are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a difcourfe which turns upon every thing that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to ftir a limb about us,

It is certain that proper geftures and exertions of the voice cannot be too much studied by a public orator. They are a kind of comment to what he utters; and enforce every thing he fays, with weak hearers, better than the ftrongest argument he can make ufe of. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to what is delivered to them; at the fame time that they show the fpeaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he fo paffionately recommends to others.

We are told, that the great Latin orator very much impaired his health by the vehemence of action with which he used to deliver himfelf. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and feeing his friends admire it, could not forbear afking them, If they were fo much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they

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would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out fuch a ftorm of eloquence.

How cold and dead a figure, in comparifon of these two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar, holding up his head with the most infipid ferenity, and ftroking the fides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle! Nothing can be more ridiculous than the geftures of moft of our English fpeakers. You fee fome of them running their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing writ ten on it you may fee many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into feveral different cocks, examining fometimes the lining of it, and fometimes the button, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember, when I was a young man, and used to frequent Weftminster-hall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of packthread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or finger all the while he was fpeaking: the wags of thofe days used to call it the thread of his discourte, for he was not able to utter a word without it. One of his clients, who was more merry than wife, ftole it from him one day in the midft of his pleading; but he had better have let it alone, for he loft his caufe by the jeíf. XI. Advantages of Hiftory.

THE advantages found in hiftory feem to be of three kinds; as it amules the fancy, as it improves the anderftanding, and as it ftrengthens virtue,

In reality, what more agreeable entertainment to the mind than to be tranfported into the remoteft ages of the world, and to obferve human fociety, in its infancy, making the firft famt effays towards the arts and fciences? To fee the policy of government and the civility of converfation refining by degrees, and every thing that is ornamental to human life advancing towards its perfection? To mark the rife, progrefs, declenfion, and final extinction of the most flourishing empires; the virtues which contributed to their greatnefs, and the vices which drew

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on their ruin? In fhort, to fee all human race, from the beginning of time, pals as it were in review before us, appearing in their true colours, without any of thofe difguifes, which, during their lifetime, fo much perplexed the judgments of the beholders? What fpectacle can be imagined fo magnificent, fo various, fo interefting? What amusement, either of the fenfes or imagination, can be compared with it? Shall thofe trifling paftimes, which engrofs fo much of our time, be preferred as more fatisfactory, and more fit to engage our attention? How perverse must that tafte be which is capable of fo wrong a choice of pleasures!

But history is a moft improving part of knowledge, as well as an agreeable amusement; and indeed a great part of what we commonly call erudition, and value fo highly, is nothing but an acquaintance with hiftorical facts. An extenfive knowledge of this kind belongs to men of letters; but I mutt think it an unpardonable ignorance in perfons, of whatever fex or condition, not to be acquainted with the hiftory of their own country a long with the hiftories of ancient Greece and Rome.

I must add, that history is not only a valuable part of knowledge, but opens the door to many other parts of knowledge, and affords materials to moft of the fciences. And indeed, if we confider the fhortness of human life, and our limited knowledge, even of what passes in our own time, we must be ferfible that we should be for ever children in understanding, were it not for this invention; which extends our experience to all past ages and to the moft distant nations, making them contribute as much to our improvement in wifdom as if they had actually lain under our obfervation. A man acquainted with history may, in fome refpect, be faid to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been ma king continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

There is alfo an advantage in that knowledge which is acquired by hiftory, above what is learned by the prac tice of the world, that it brings us acquainted with hu man affairs, without diminishing in the leaft from the moft delicate fentiments of virtue. And, to tell the truth, I fcarce know any study or occupation fo unexcep

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