general mass of mankind, but to the inhabitants of every country which should have good sense enough to adopt them. -8.

EVEN in company he was apt to be engrossed with his studies; and appeared at times, by the motion of his lips, as well as by his looks and gestures, to be in the fervour of composition. I have often, however, been struck, at the distance of years, with his accurate memory of the most trifling particulars; and am inclined to believe, from this and some other circumstances, that he possessed a power, not perhaps uncommon among absent men, of recollecting, in consequence of subsequent efforts of reflection, many occurrences which, at the time when they happened, did not seem to have sensibly attracted his notice. To the defect now mentioned it was probably owing, in part, that he did not fall in easily with the common dialogue of conversation; and that he was somewhat apt to convey his own ideas in the form of a lecture. When he did so, however, it never proceeded from a wish to engross the discourse or to gratify his vanity. His own inclination disposed him so strongly to enjoy in silence the gaiety of those around him, that his friends were often led to concert little schemes in order to engage him in the discussions most likely to interest him. Nor do I think I shall be accused of going too far when I say, that he was scarcely ever known to start a new topic himself, or to appear unprepared upon those topics that were introduced by others. The opinions he formed of men, upon a slight acquaintance, were frequently erroneous; but the tendency of his nature inclined him much more to blind partiality than to ill-founded prejudice. The enlarged views of human affairs on which his mind habitually dwelt, left him neither time nor inclination to study in detail the uninteresting peculiarities of ordinary characters; and, accordingly, though intimately acquainted with the capacities of the intellect and the workings of the heart, and accustomed in his theories to mark with the most delicate hand the nicest shades both of genius and of the passions; yet, in judging of individuals, it sometimes happened that his estimates were in a surprising degree wide of the truth. In his external form and appearance there was nothing uncommon. When perfectly at ease, and when warmed with conversation, his gestures were animated, and not ungraceful; and, in the society of those he loved, his features were oftened brightened with a smile of inexpressible benignity. In the company of strangers, his tendency to absence, and, perhaps still more, his consciousness

of this tendency, rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed -an effect which was probably not a little heightened by those speculative ideas of propriety which his recluse habits tended at once to perfect in his conception and to diminish his power of realising. He never sat for his picture; but the medallion of Tassie conveys an exact idea of his profile, and of the general expression of his countenance.-Stewart, 11.

NEITHER is wealth necessary only because it affords the means of subsistence. Where it has not been amassed, the care of providing for their immediate wants engrosses the undivided attention of all, and the views, sentiments, and feelings of the people are alike contracted and illiberal. The possession of a decent competence, or the ability to indulge in other pursuits than those that directly tend to satisfy our animal wants and desires, is necessary to soften the selfish passions, to improve the moral and intellectual character, and to insure any considerable proficiency in liberal studies and pursuits. The barbarism and refinement of nations depend more on their wealth than on any other circumstance. No people have ever made any distinguished figure in philosophy or the fine arts, without having been, at the same time, celebrated for their riches and industry.-M'Culloch. Introductory Discourse, 15.

THE citizens of Greece and Rome considered it degrading to engage in those branches of manufacture and commercial industry which form, perhaps, the principal business of the inhabitants of modern Europe; and these employments being regarded as unworthy of freemen, were, in consequence, wholly carried on either by slaves or by the very dregs of the populace. Even Cicero, who had mastered all the philosophy of the ancient world, and raised himself above many of the prejudices of his age and country, does not scruple to affirm, that there can be nothing ingenuous in a workshop; that commerce, when conducted on a small scale, is mean and despicable, and, when most extended, barely tolerable!—16.

THEIR philosophy was also extremely unfavourable to the cultivation of political economy. The luxury of the rich, or their more refined mode of living, was regarded by the ancient moralists as an evil of the first magnitude. They considered it as subversive of those warlike virtues which they principally admired, and they consequently denounced the passion for accumulation as fraught with the most injurious consequences. It was impossible that this science should become an object of attention to minds imbued with such prejudices, or that it should be studied by those who contemned the objects about

which it it conversant, and vilified the labour by which wealth is produced.-17.

THE first cultivators of almost every science begin by framing their theories on a very narrow and insecure basis. Nor is it really in their power to go to work differently. Observations are scarcely ever made, or particulars noted, for their own sakes. It is not until they begin to be sought after, as furnishing the only test by which to ascertain the truth or falsehood of some popular theory, that they are made in sufficient numbers and with sufficient accuracy. The once prevalent opinion that wealth consists exclusively of gold and silver, naturally grew out of the circumstance of the money of civilised countries consisting principally of these metals. And hence the policy, as obvious as it was universal, of attempting to increase national wealth by forbidding the exportation of gold and silver, and encouraging their importation. It is said to have been interdicted by the law of England previously to the Conquest; and several statutes were subsequently passed to the same effect; one of which, the 3rd Henry VIII., c. 1, enacted so late as 1512, declares, that all persons carrying over sea any coins, plate, or jewels, shall, on detection, forfeit double their value.-19.

It was ordered by an act passed in 1678, for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture, that all dead bodies should be wrapped in woollen shrouds !-23.

IN 1678, the importation of French commodities was prohibited for three years. This prohibition, after being repealed, was re-enacted and made perpetual in the reign of William III., when the legislature declared that the trade with France was a nuisance-a principle, if it may be so called, which was acted upon down to a very late epoch, with the exception of the short period during which the Commercial Treaty negociated in 1786 had effect.-28.

NATURE is not niggard or parsimonious. Her rude products, powers, and capacities are all offered gratuitously to man. She neither demands nor receives an equivalent for her favours. An object which may be appropriated or adapted to our use, without any voluntary labour on our part, may be of the highest utility; but, as it is the free gift of nature, it is quite impossible it can have the smallest value. Sir William Petty was one of the first to lay down, though only incidentally, the doctrine, that the value of commodities is determined by the labour required for their production.-32.

THE greatest improvement in the productive powers of

labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effect of the division of labour.-Smith, 2.

Of all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt seems to have been the first in which either agriculture or manufactures were cultivated and improved to any considerable degree. It is remarkable that neither the ancient Egyptians, nor the Indians, nor the Chinese, encouraged foreign commerce, but seem all to have derived their great opulence from inland navigation. All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian Seas, the ancient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem, in all ages of the world, to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilised state in which we find them at present.-10.

In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the common instrument of commerce, and, though they must have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common instrument of commerce and exchange in Abyssinia; a species of shells in some parts of the coast of India; dried cod at Newfoundland; tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies; hides or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am told, for workman to carry nails, instead of money, to the baker's shop or the alehouse. In all countries, however, men seem at least to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity. Different metals have been made use of by different nations for this purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce among the ancient Spartans; copper among the ancient Romans; and gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations. Those metals seem originally to have been made use of for this purpose in rude bars, without any stamp or coinage. The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been paid, not in money, but in kind, that is, in victuals and provisions of all sorts. William the Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them in money. This money, however, was, for a long time, received at the exchequer by weight, and not by tale. The denominations of coins seem originally to have expressed the weight or

quantity of metal contained in them. In the time of Servius Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the Roman as or pondo contained a Roman pound of good copper. The English pound sterling, in the time of Edward I., contained a pound, Tower weight, of silver of a known fineness. The French livre contained, in the time of Charlemagne, a pound, Troyes weight, of silver of a known fineness. The fair of Troyes in Champagne was at that time frequented by all the nations of Europe, and the weights and measures of so famous a market were generally known and esteemed. From the time of Charlemagne among the French, and from that of William the Conqueror among the English, the proportion between the pound, the shilling, and the penny, seems to have been uniformly the same as at present, though the value of each has been very different. The English pound and penny contain at present about a third only, the Scots pound and penny about a thirty-sixth, and the French pound and penny about a sixty-sixth part of their original value.-11.

LABOUR, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only.-15.

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THERE were silver coins in England in the time of the Saxons; but there was little gold coined till the time of Edward III., nor any copper till that of James I. of Great Britain. Commercial nations have always considered one of those metals as more peculiarly the measure of value than any of the other two; and this preference seems generally to have been given to the metal which they happened first to make use of as the instrument of commerce. Having once begun to use it as their standard, which they must have done when they had no other money, they have generally continued to do so, even when the necessity was not the same. Romans are said to have had nothing but copper money till within five years before the first Punic war, when they first began to coin silver. Copper, therefore, appears to have continued always the measure of value in that republic. Rome, one who owed a great deal of money was said to have a great deal of other people's copper. In England, therefore, and for the same reason, I believe, in all other modern nations of Europe, all accounts are kept and the value of all goods and of all estates is generally computed in silver; and, when we mean to express the amount of a person's fortune, we seldom mention the number of guineas, but the number of

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