90 



Reviewers Reviewed, Feb. 



under circumstances more favourable : Nor are pK-actlccs the 

 less or more instructive, whether carried on upon a larger or 

 lesser scale. 



But, as I have already observ^cd, the statement of the exist- 

 ing facts constitute a very small part indeed of the merit and 

 usefulness of this survey. It is, in the luminous and compre- 

 hensive elucidation given of the general principles of moral 

 excitement to agricultural industry, that its chief merit con- 

 ;si3ts ; and I should be extremely soriy to h^d, that the public 

 attention was diverted from, the examination and discussion o£ 

 the interesting topics therein contained, from its importance 

 being thus insidiously or inadvertently confounded with the lit- 

 tleness of the subject, to which, from its title, it might be 

 supposed to be confined. 



Perhaps tlie reviewer's iilence may be accounted for, from his 

 not finding himfelf at home in regard to fubjects of general rea- 

 foning, 01 from being verfant in them, folely in regard to other 

 fubjcdts of political economy, to which they are more in cuftom 

 of being applied, fuch as, commerce, manufactures, commodities, 

 and their circulating medium, &ic. or, perhaps, under certain cir- 

 cumftances, the application of fuch general reafonings to agricul- 

 ture, may become a fubjedt of peculiar delicacy to an Engliih 

 critic. 



He has obferved, upon the ftatement of the feverity of the 

 Feeble s-lliire climate. By this tiiew of the climate^ the Etig^ 

 iish farmer will not be tempted to migrate to the North, 

 Though an EngliPaman myfelf, 1 mui^ confeis I am afraid, that 

 even few of your Scots Peebles-fnire lairds would call for an e- 

 migration of our Engliih tetiants to occupy their farms, as in too 

 many inilances their faculties of felf-exertion would be found be- 

 numbed fo as to unat them for any fuccefsful ftruggle againil 

 difadvantages of foil and climate, from their being habituated to 

 aft as mere mechanical drudges^ turning round without reflec- 

 tion, (like blind horfes in a bark mill) in the fame beaten circle 

 of prefcribed modes of management, invented in the days of ig- 

 norance, and perpetuated through abfurd, and blind, but obftinate 

 prejudice ; prevented, too, even had they any liberty of a6fipn, 

 from opportunity of acquiring a h.ibit of liberal outlay, in prof- 

 peft of dillant leturn, fiom their accuUomed, unpermanent, and 

 precarious tenures of the foil. The liberal fpirit difplaycd by 

 Mr Findiater, in his various difcuiiions of the leafe and iimilar 

 topics, render his work, in my opiiiion, peculiarl}' proper to be 

 well known in England ; and for this leafon particularly, 

 I have flcpped forward to vindicate it from that obli- 

 vion to which it is poflible to fnppofe, that an Engliih critic, 



under 



