undone by the economy and frugality of this gentleman.

Mr. Charwell was sensible their fears were but too just; and that, if neither their goods could be carried off to distant markets, nor the markets brought home to their goods, his tenants must run away from their farms. He had no hopes of making the river navigable, which was a point that could not be obtained by all the interest of his predecessor, and was therefore not likely to be yielded up to a man who was not yet known in the country. All that was left for him was to bring the market home to his tenants, which was the very thing he intended before he ventured upon his purchase. He had even then projected in his thoughts the plan of a great town just below the old house; he therefore presently set himself about the execution of his project.

The thing has succeeded to his wish. In the space of twenty years he is so fortunate as to see 1000 new houses upon his estate, and at least 5000 new people, men, women and children, inhabitants of those houses, who are comfortably subsisted by their own labour, without charge to Mr. Charwell, and to the great profit of his te

nants.

It cannot be imagined that such a body of people can be subsisted at less than 51. per head, or 250001. per annum, the greatest part of which sum is annually expended for provisions among the farmers of the next adjacent lands. And as the tenants of Mr. Charwell are nearest of all others to the market, they have the best prices for their goods by all that is saved in the carriage.

But some provisions are of that nature, that they will not bear a much longer carriage than from

the extreme parts of his lands; and I think I have been told, that for the single article of milk, at a pint every day for every house, his tenants take from this town not much less than 5001. per an

num.

The soil of all kinds, which is made every year by the consumption of so great a town, I have heard has been valued at 2001. per annum. If this be true, the estate of Mr. Charwell is so much improved in this very article, since all this is carried out upon his lands by the back carriage of those very carts which were loaden by his tenants with provisions and other necessaries for the people.

A hundred thousand bushels of coal are necessary to supply so great a multitude with yearly fuel. And as these are taken out of the coal-pits of Mr. Charwell, he receives a penny for every bushel; so that this very article is an addition of 4001. per annum to his revenues. And as the town and people are every year increasing, the revenues in the abovementioned, and many other articles, are increasing in proportion.

There is now no longer any want of the family of the predecessor. The consumption of 5000 people is greater than can be made by any fifty of the greatest families in Great Britain. The tenants stand in no need of distant markets, to take off the product of their farms. The people near their own doors are already more than they are able to supply; and what is wanting at home for this purpose is supplied from places at greater distance, at whatsoever price of carriage.

All the farmers every where near the river are now, in their turn, for an act of parliament to make it navigable, that they may have an easy carriage for their corn. to so good a market. The

tenants of Mr. Charwell, that they may have the whole market to themselves, are almost the only persons against it. But they will not be long able to oppose it their leases are near expiring: and as they are grown very rich, there are many other persons ready to take their farms at more than double the present rents, even though the river should be made navigable, and distant people let in to sell their provisions together with these farmers. As for Mr. Charwell himself, he is in no manner of pain lest his lands should fall in their value by the cheap carriage of provisions from distant places to his town. He knows very well that cheapness of provisions was one great means of bringing together so great numbers, and that they must be held together by the same means. He seems to have nothing more in his thoughts, than to increase his town to such an extent, that all the country for ten miles round about shall be little enough to supply it. He considers that at how great a distance soever provisions shall be brought thither, they must end at last in so much soil for his estate, and that the farmers of other lands will by this means contribute to the improvement of his own.

But by what encouragements and rewards, by what arts and policies, and what sort of people he has invited to live upon his estate, and how he has enabled them to subsist by their own labour, to the great improvement of his lands, will be the subjects of some of my future precautions.

By your paper of Saturday last, you

give the town hopes that you will dedicate that day

to religion. You could not begin it better than by warning your pupils of the poison vented under a pretence to free-thinking. If you can spare room in your next Saturday's paper for a few lines on the same subject, these are at your disposal.

'I happened to be present at a public conversation of some of the defenders of this discourse of free-thinking, and others that differed from them; where I had the diversion of hearing the same man in one breath persuade us to freedom of thought, and in the next offer to demonstrate that we had no freedom in any thing. One would think men should blush to find themselves entangled in a greater contradiction than any the discourse ridicules. This principle of free fatality or necessary liberty is a worthy fundamental of the new sect; and indeed this opinion is an evidence and clearness so nearly related to transubstantiation, that the same genius seems requisite for either. It is fit the world should know how far reason abandons men that would employ it against religion; which intention, I hope, justifies this trouble from, Sir,

Your hearty well-wisher,

MISATHEUS."

N° 10. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1712-13.

Venit ad me sæpe clamitans·

Vestitu nimiùm indulges, nimiùm ineptus es.

Nimiùm ipse est durus præter æquumque et bonum.

TER. Adelph. Act i. Sc. 1.

He is perpetually coming to me, and ringing in my ears, that I do wrong to indulge him so much in the article of dress: but the fault lies in his own excessive and unreasonable severity.

WHEN I am in deep meditation in order to give my wards proper precautions, I have a principal regard to the prevalence of things which people of merit neglect, and from which those of no merit raise to themselves an esteem: of this nature is the business of dress. It is weak in a man of thought and reflection to be either depressed or exalted from the perfections or disadvantages of his person. However there is a respective conduct to be observed in the habit, according to the eminent distinction of the body, either way. A gay youth in the possession of an ample fortune could not recommend his understanding to those who are not of his acquaintance more suddenly, than by sobriety in his habit; as this is winning at first sight, so a person gorgeously fine, which in itself should avoid the attraction of the beholders eyes, gives as immediate offence.

I make it my business when my Lady Lizard's youngest daughter, Miss Molly, is making cloaths, to consider her from head to foot, and cannot be