174 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Our rich people entertain no doubt that the good 

 things of the lower orders will reach them, as they 

 enjoy the productions of the arts which the poor 

 cultivate ; but they participate equally in the ills 

 which the poor fufFer, let them take what precau- 

 tions they will to fecure themfelves. Not only do 

 they become the viftims of their epidemical mala- 

 dies, and of their pillage, but of their moral opi- 

 nions, which are ever in a progrefs of depravation 

 in the breafts of the wretched. They ftart up, 

 like the plagues which iflued from the box of 

 Pandora^ and, in defiance of armed guards, force 

 their way through fortrefles and cadle-walls, and 

 fix their refidence in the heart of tyrants. In vain 

 do they dream of perfonal exemption, from the ills 

 of the vulgar ; their neighbours catch the infec- 

 tion, their fervants, their children, their wives, and 

 impofe the neceflity of abRinence from every thing, 

 in the very midft of their enjoyments. 



But when, in a Society, particular bodies are 

 conftantly converting to their own profit the dif- 

 treffes of others, they perpetuate thefe very dif- 

 trefles, and multiply them to infinity. It is a faâ; 

 eafily afcertained, that wherever advocates and phy- 

 ficians peculiarly abound, law-fuits and difeafes 

 there likewife are found in uncommon abundance, 

 Though there be among them men of the beft dif- 



pofitions 



