to the ends and purposes of life, he that is commonly styled a very learned man, is the greatest fool in the world. This we shall see verified in you, before the year's end; and notwithstanding you are so great a lord, and such a profound man, you and your family will be in want of necessaries, while I, who can scarce keep my own accounts, have a fair prospect of living warm and in plenty. Our father owed his happiness and length of life, to his being a plain downright man; if you followed his example, you would prefer moderate labour, though it were not necessary to the sup port of your family, merely because it is wholesome to the body, and amusing to the mind.

Syngenes. Brother, if you had learning, you would never confound toil and pleasure together, nor talk so weakly as you do, about the wholesomeness of straining and harassing your body, and the amusements of working. If rest is both wholesome and pleasant, how can its opposite, toil, be so too? But, it is in vain to argue with one, who knows not the first rules of disputation.

Tycherus. I know no occasion for disputing, and therefore I do not trouble my head, either about the first or second rules of it; but this I know by observations made on others, that all your idle folks, are the most splenetic and uneasy wretches in the world, while those who take pains, and are busy, appear to be cheerful and healthful. I find by myself too, that I have great pleasure, in the work of my own hands; and that I am not easy when I have nothing to do; nay, I perceive that, unless I fatigue myself a little, I can have no pleasure in rest, that condition in which you place your happiness. I should think, as all men partake of the same nature, that you must perceive the same thing in yourself: but, perhaps it may be otherwise. I am unlearned, and cannot dispute. All my knowledge, dear brother, consists in a little experience and common sense.

Syngenes. Yes, both the kind and degree of your sense, is very common, your amusements are those of the vulgar, which I fancy neither you, nor the rest of them would care to divert yourselves withal, if you thought you could help it.

Tycherus. It is no matter whether we would or not; but believe me, the solid and rational entertainment, or engagement, they give my thoughts, is what I could never find

in the little idle games, with which polite people commonly amuse themselves. The latter seem to be fit only for chil-· dren, and indeed your fine folks, at least, in this part of the world, seem to be as little in earnest about this life; while the entertainments of me, and my neighbouring farmers, are serious and manly. We support and enjoy life at once, while those who call themselves our betters, seem only to act a part, and please themselves with a very childish representation of reality, that is found by none, but such as are industrious about things necessary. Is it not very absurd, brother, to shun the true business of life out of sloth, and then seek for forced invented business, for want of something to do?

Syngenes. Yes, but it is not at all absurd, to spare unnecessary pains, and such are the labours of mankind, which are so much the more ridiculous, than their mere diversions, as they are more serious.

Tycherus. How! are all the labours of mankind, absurd and ridiculous? Not excepting even those that are necessary for our support?

Syngenes. Ay, but there are none such. They are all inventions of our own, to plague ourselves, who live as it were, in a miserable world of our own contriving, and subject to innumerable wants of our own making, for which we must also make artificial supplies. Our natural wants are few, and those nature itself, without any other help, can sufficiently provide for.

Tycherus. For instance now. Should you neglect to plough and sow those fields before us, would you expect to have the necessaries of life spring spontaneously out of them? Syngenes. Yes.

Tycherus. What, corn, wine, and oil?

Syngenes. Yes, why not? Do you imagine those are less natural to the earth than grass and weeds, and a thousand other things, not so useful, that grow unbid; nay, that are produced in greatest abundance, where the ground is least disturbed, or, in your way of speaking, manured?

Tycherus. I do not know; this doctrine is new to me, and I am sure, it is very different, not only from the practice of our father, but from that of mankind in general Syngenes. Why so it is; and what then?

Tycherus. Nothing; only I thought, that in cases of this kind, the experience of the oldest husbandmen and indeed of all men, might afford some foundation for an argument. Syngenes. This is an experience that the world buys very dear.

Tycherus. I do not; for my father gave it to me for nothing, and I needed only to open my eyelids, and confirm it to myself by continual observations.

Syngenes. You had a little more trouble with it than barely lifting up your eyelid. It has cost you all those labours, that raise you so soon in the morning, and keep you so late up at night; and, helieve me, that is no small purchase. Had you known that our bountiful mother, earth, bestows all things, needful for our support, without asking or pressing, I believe you would have spared the continual and earnest solicitation of the plough and harrow.

Tycherus. Yes, that I should, and have found something else to employ me. But I would gladly know what arguments you can have for an opinion so singular and surprising.

Syngenes. The arguments are very good, but I will not say they will convince you. That tree is a very large and plain one, and yet I do not think a blind man could see it at noonday.

Tycherus. Well, but I will rub away the prejudices from my reason, as well as I can, and try to apprehend you. Syngenes. Tell me, then, do you think the works of nature discover a perfect wisdom in their contrivance? Tycherus. I do.

Syngenes. And that in them there is unstinted goodness shewn to us by their author?

Tycherus. I do.

Syngenes. Since, then, the whole world is so full of the wisdom and goodness of its Author, why should you accuse him of providing so ill for the happiness of man, on whose account the whole was made, that man is obliged to provide for himself, and that in the most laborious and painful manner. If those materials that are necessary for the nourishment of the human body, and the support of life, require so much pains to produce and prepare them, then our Maker, instead of bestowing freely, has, along with his gifts, im

posed such hard conditions, that I really think man, who by his reason is lord, by his wants and labours, is rendered the very slave of the whole creation; and yet this must be the case, if the earth does not send forth our food, as it does that of all other creatures, unless by mere dint of labour: but, our Creator has not dealt so with us; corn, and olives, and vines, are no more aliens to the earth, than other plants less useful. The ground is the common parent of them all, and as they must have sprung from thence at first, so they must be supposed as much the favourites of their mild mother, and on as good a footing with her, as the rest of her offspring; unless, indeed, you think her like those foolish mothers, that indulge the most froward of their children, while they treat the good-natured with severity. Do you think she is partial to thorns and brambles?

Tycherus. I know nothing of her sentiments, with respect to her children, but as they are discoverable by matter of fact. It is certain that thorns, and brambles, and other noxious weeds grow apace in my grounds, in spite of all I can do to hinder them; and were it not for a great deal of ploughing, sowing, digging, planting, pruning, hedging, &c. I find I and my family might starve, for any thing the earth would afford us gratis.

Syngenes. How do you find that? Did you ever make the experiment?

Tycherus. No, nor do I intend it, in your way; but those fields that have lain, since Hannibal foraged in these parts, without affording one morsel of bread, or one drop of wine, or oil, but, on the contrary, abundance of wild shrubs and useless plants of all kinds, give me reason enough to fear these would let me starve, if I did not cultivate them.

Syngenes. All parts of the world do not produce all kinds of plants, though every country or climate is naturally fruitful in such things, as are necessary for the support of its own inhabitants. Plants grow spontaneous in their own native soil, and not without cultivation in others. Corn, and wines, and such like, are not natives of our climate, or else they would grow as familiarly here, as those brambles you complain of.

Tycherus. How, then, are we of this barren country to be supported, if we do not cultivate the ground?

Syngenes. By feeding on such things as our soil affords us, without mangling it with ploughs and spades.

Tycherus. Observe those fields overrun with briers and thorns: do you think you could live comfortably on what they produce in their present natural condition?

Syngenes. Why not? It is only prejudice makes us despise their fruits, and disuse that renders them disagreeable or unwholesome to us. Besides, they furnish shelter for wild beasts, whose flesh is excellent food.

Tycherus. But not to be had, without the labour of hunting them, which so great a lord as you, could never stoop to. Again, the killing them is attended with great danger, and that I believe you would care as little for as the labour. As for corn, and olives, and vines, I take them to be natives of no country, in your sense; for since they do not grow here without labour and manure, where can they grow? There is not a more fruitful spot of ground on earth, than this we inhabit. Its produce is brought to maturity, by the united influence of both solar and subterraneous heat, operating on a soil strongly impregnated with oil, and sulphur, and nitre, which you naturalists allow to be principles of fertility; and accordingly our fruits are equal, at least, to those of any other country, the Roman eagle has yet visited.

Syngenes. Why you talk as if the seeds of these more useful plants had been dropped down like the Ancile out of heaven, and not produced by the earth. Whence do you suppose we had them?

Tycherus. I think it is plain the earth does not produce them of itself, even when kept clear of other plants, that might obstruct their growth; and therefore I conclude they were formed by the hand of our Maker at the same time with ourselves, and delivered to us, as both the support of our lives, and the pledges of our industry. To this, agrees the story of the goddess Ceres's teaching Triptolemus the art of Agriculture, and sending him from nation to nation to propagate that art, and dispense the seed she had given him. Perhaps there may be something of fable and allegory in this story; but if there is any thing to be gathered from it at all (and there is none of those ancient tales without a meaning), it is, that the world neither knew the seed,