April 10. When hee cometh to his own fireside, he will be in good humour with his wife and his family, especially if they are also busy in their own respective situations.

Hee will cast a cheerful look around him wheresoever hee goeth, and bee kind to his fellows, because hee is at peace with himself. About a good man in such a state there is an atmosphere of contentment and cheerfulness that is the sweetest air a man can desire to breathe in; and women will delight in bim, for hee may give them pleasure without trouble or contradiction, and hee will say pleasing things to them, which charmeth and holdeth all the daughters of Eva.

Although their thoughts may seem too severe who think that few ill natured men goe to Heaven; yet it must be acknowledged that good na tured persons are best founded for that place; especially as it is certainly a very mistaken conceit that we shall have nothing to do in the mansions of eternity with the social vertues, since Heaven is exprefsly called the city of God.

Now a city pre-eminently exprefses what is social.

But whatever succefs they may have as to Heaven, they are the acceptable men on earth; and happy is hee who hath his quiver full of them for his friends.

These are not the dens wherein falsehood lurks, and hypocrisy hides its head; wherein frowardness makes its nest, or where malice, hard heartedness,

and opprefsion love to dwell; but such as carry their hearts in their countenances, and need not be scrutinized, who make not only the best friends, but the most generous enemies.

Of the Roman emperors and other potentates, the best were the busiest and best natured; witness Trajan, Titus, and Marcus Aurelius; those pretious elohims of the earth, whose number is so small that they might be all written in the posey of a gold ring.

I remember to have been present at the last advices and injunctions given by a wise and honourable man to his son and heir, then just entering into the tempestuous conflicts of life, and they made upon my mind so deep an imprefsion, that I fhall endeavour to set them down in this place.

The wife, the family, and servants of the good old man being present, he raised himself up upon his death bed, and he spake thus, with clear but feeble accents :

Advice of a father to his son.

66 My son, I have trained thee up in the habits of industry and vertue. Continue to live happy in the elizium of a vertuously composed mind; and let intellectual contentments still hold the first place over those that are sensual.

66

Keep a tight rein upon the wild horses of Plato, that they may not carry you aside from your celestial journey thus much to thee as a scholar. But now, as unto a poor fallible creature, I must tell thee, (with the desire of edifying all here present as well as thyself,) that without being constantly VOL. xiv.

DD

employed, it is hard, if not impofsible, to be worthy.

"Make amusements your recreations, or intermifsive relaxations, and not your life and profession. Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to avoid and appease pain is better than to invent new pleasure.

"Our hard entrance into the world, our miserable going out of it, our sicknesses, disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, doe all clamourously tell us wee come not into the world to run a race of delight, but to perform the sober acts and serious purposes of man and citizen, which to omit were foully to miscarry in the advantage of humanity, and to play away the noble stake of life which can never be renewed.

66

66

Standing upon the narrow isthmus of life look forward to the boundlefs ocean of eternity, and remember, that non mutant an mos qui trans mare currunt," that is, as the tree falls soe fhall it lye. Think not that it bee pofsible for a refined spiritual nature to bee extinct by the dissolution of the body which it animated. That which is thus once alive, will in some way be always, except it des troyeth itself; and let me warn thee, that by plunging the celestial matter, as it may be figured, of the soul, in the grofsnefs of sensuality, it may be finally and utterly destroyed, or become a vefsel (as the apostle sayeth,) fitted for destruction.

"Confirm thyself therefore my son, and may all here present confirm themselves in the habits of indus try and benevolence, and by studying the true art of life, prepare themselves for a peaceful and happy departure !"

ON REVENUE LAWS.

For the

Continued from p. 94.

HAVING already, I am afraid, availed myself too freely of the indulgence of the Editor of the Bee, in laying before the public a series of efsays, which, though on an important subject, are very uninteresting to many readers, I fhall now only beg permifsion to conclude my observations, by pointing out the manner in which high excise duties on articles of home manufacture occasion that great opprefsion of which the people so universally complain.

It is not by the amount of the money paid, that taxes can, in a nation so wealthy as this, produce any material hardship; because it ultimately comes out of the pockets of the wealthy inhabitants of the country; and the labouring people receive wages in proportion to the prices of the articles necefsarily consumed by them, which are affected by the taxes. But the evils that arise in society from high taxes are occasioned by their being injudiciously laid on ; and the numerous fiscal regulations that become necefsary for levying them.

We have examined, in my last essay, p. 91, some of the hardships that accrue to traders in consequence of the necefsary regulations for the prevention of smuggling in cases of high duties being imposed. Hardships of the same nature, as the reader will readily perceive, are felt by manufacturers in a much stronger degree; their

operations being much more numerous and complicated than those of the merchant. The general principle of this is easily seen; and it is unnecefsary here to descend to particulars, as in that case we would be obliged to treat of each manufacture separately; we shall therefore proceed to the other branch of the subject, viz. the evils arising to the community from smuggling in consequence of high excise duties.

It is almost unnecefsary to mention, that experience has proven the impofsibility of preventing smuggling when exorbitant duties are payable; and it is a curious fact that the smuggling itself brings about, in many cases, the ruin of the practitioners of it, even although they fhould never be detected nor fined, nor have goods seized. It is by smuggling alone that all the evils so loudly complained of in our end of the island are occasioned; and from it alone has arisen the ruin of so many manufactures and manufacturers since the extension of the excise laws, particularly brewers, soap boilers, and starchmakers.

The manner in which these distrefsing circumstances are brought about is as follows: two starchmakers, for example, carry on each a great business, by which they draw a handsome income, and live with their families in affluence and splendour. The duty paid on the starch is above one half of the grofs price at which it is sold, and of course, if even a small part of that duty can be evaded, it will be a very great acquisition to the person who brings that about. This is a great inducement to these manufacturers to employ all their ingenuity in contriving the means of