“O mentis gratissimus error!”—and wish for
“Tribus Anticyris caput insanabile nusquam.”
Yours, &c.
PETRARCH.
POLITICS.
“Politics,” says the elegant and ingenious Mr. Grenville, in his Maxims, “are the food of sense exposed to the hunger of folly.” And indeed they seem to be devoured with so voracious an appetite, that no good assimilation or chylification of them takes place in the body politic in consequence of it. The appetite is great, the digestion imperfect.
ANECDOTE.
No object can be more pleasing to a virtuous mind, than to behold a well-directed benevolence, productive of a grateful and happy heart; while the smiling scenes of cultivation and society succeed to the solitary wastes of savage nature. Mr. Wood, a free merchant of Decca, coming thence to Calcutta, where the Ganges flows thro’ vast tracks of uncultivated and marshy woods, which render the navigation peculiarly difficult and dangerous, happened to fall in with a poor native wood-cutter. In the course of conversation, the latter said, that if he had but fifty rupees (5l.) he could make a comfortable settlement. The fifty rupees Mr. Wood lent him. When this worthy man, after staying some time at Calcutta, returned to Decca, he saw the pleasing effects of his bounty in an advanced settlement, on a small eminence newly cleared from standing trees. Unsolicited, he lent the wood-cutter fifty rupees more. The next voyage, Mr. Wood was delighted to behold the rapid progress of the settlement, and astonished to meet the wood-cutter offering to pay half the small, but generous loan. Mr. Wood refused to receive it at that time, and lent him 100 rupees more. About eighteen months after the commencement of the settlement, he had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing his industrious wood-cutter at the head of five populous villages, and a spacious tract of fine land under cultivation, drained and cleared of swamps and woods. The woodcutter now repaid the principal he had borrowed, and tendered the interest, while tears of gratitude and humble affection stole down his venerable, his happy and expressive countenance. But how inexpressible the feelings of the benevolent merchant! Let those plunderers, who return with the wealth of nations sinking under their cruelty and oppression, while they wanton in all the luxuries of life---let them still