Preface 3 



Some singularly enlightened districts merit such attention; 

 but the number of them^ in any country, is inconsiderable; 

 and the practices that deserve such a study^ perhaps, still fewer: 

 to know that unenlightened practices exist, and want improve- 

 ment, is the chief knowledge that is of use to convey; and this 

 rather for the statesman than the farmer. No reader, if he 

 knows anything of my situation, will expect, in this work, what 

 the advantages of rank and fortune are necessary to produce — 

 of such I had none to exert, and could combat diflficulties with 

 no other arms than unremitted attention and unabating industry. 

 Had my aims been seconded by that success in life which gives 

 energy to effort and vigour to pursuit, the work v/ould have 

 been more worthy of the public eye; but such success must, 

 in this kingdom, be sooner looked for in any other path than in 

 that of the plough; the -non ullus arairo dignus honos was not 

 more applicable to a period of confusion and bloodshed at 

 Rome than to one of peace and luxury in England. 



One circumstance I m?iy be allowed to mention, because it 

 will show that, whatever faults the ensuing pages contain, they 

 do not flow from any presumptive expectation of success: a 

 feeling that belongs to writers only, much more popular than 

 myself : when the publisher agreed to run the hazard of printing 

 these papers, and some progress being made in the journal, the 

 whole MS. was put into the compositor's hand to be examined 

 if there were a sufficiency for a volume of sixty sheets, he found 

 enough prepared for the press to fill one hundred and forty: 

 and I assure the reader that the successive emplo^Tnent of 

 striking out and mutilating more than the half of what I had 

 written was executed with more indifference than regret, even 

 though it obliged me to exclude several chapters upon which 

 I had taken considerable pains. The publisher would have 

 printed the whole; but whatever faults may be found with 

 the author, he ought at least to be exempted from the imputa- 

 tion of an undue confidence in the public favour, since to expunge 

 was undertaken as readily as to compose. — So much depended 

 in the second part of the work on accurate figures that I did 

 not care to trust to myself, but employed a schoolmaster, who 

 has the reputation of being a good arithmetician, for examining 

 the calculations, and I hope he has not let any material errors 

 escape him. 



The re\-olution in France jvas^ haz ardous and c ritical subje ct, 

 but too important to be neglected; the details I have given, and 

 the^reflecTions I have ventured, will, I trust, be received with 



