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money to Grand Cairo*; but as I am not versed in the modern Coptic, our conferences go no further than a bow and a grimace.

This grand scene of business gives me an infinite variety of folid and fubftantial entertainments. As I am a great lover of mankind, my heart naturally overflows with pleasure at the fight of a profperous and happy multitude, infomuch that at many public folemnities I cannot forbear expreffing my joy with tears that have ftolen down my cheeks. For this reason I am wonderfully delighted to fee fuch a body of men thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the fame time promoting the public stock; or in other words, raifing eftates for their own families, by bringing into their country whatever is wanting, and carrying out of it whatever is fuperfluous.

Nature feems to have taken a particular care to diffeminate her bleffings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common intereft. Almost every degree produces fomething peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the fauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infufion of a China plant is sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippic iflands give a flavour to our See N° 1. paragr. 4.

European

European bowls. The fingle dress of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is fent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rifes out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indoftan.

If we confider our own country in its natural profpect, without any of the benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! Natural hiftorians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, befides hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicacies of the like nature; that our climate of itself, and without the affiftance of art, can make no farther advances towards a plumb than to a floe, and carries an apple to no greater a perfection than a crab that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots, and cherries, are ftrangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our English gardens; and that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our fun and foil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our fhips are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines. Our rooms are filled with pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan. Our morning's

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morning's draught comes to us from the remoteft corners of the earth. We repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourfelves under Indian canopies. My friend Sir ANDREW calls the vineyards of France our gardens; the fpice-iflands, our hot-beds; the Perfians our filk-weavers, and the Chinese our potters. Nature indeed furnishes us with the bare neceffaries of life, but traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful, and at the fame time fupplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the leaft part of this our happiness, that whilst we enjoy the remoteft products of the north and fouth, we are free from thofe extremities of weather which give them birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, at the fame time that our palates are feafted with fruits that rise between the tropics.

For thefe reafons there are not more ufeful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourfe of good offices, diftribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our Englifh merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges its wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our fheep.

When I have been upon the change, I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in perfon, where he is reprefented in effigy, and

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looking

looking down upon the wealthy concourfe of people with which that place is every day filled. In this cafe, how would he be furprised to hear all the languages of Europe fpoken in this little fpot of his former dominions, and to fee fo many private men, who in his time would have been the vaffals of fome powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater fums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treafury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed eftates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an acceffion of other eftates as valuable as the lands themselves. C*.

By ADDISON, dated it feems from Chelsea. See Note to N° 7 ad finem, and No 121, final Note.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

This Day [May 15] is published, “An Efiay on Criticifm." Printed for W. Lewis in Ruffel Street, Covent Garden, and fold by W. Taylor, at the Ship in Paternofter Row; T. Ofborn in Gray's Inn, near the Walks; J. Graves in St. James's Street; and J. Morphew, near Stationer's Hall. Price 1s. SPECT. in folio, N° 65.

*.* Compleat fets of this Paper for the month of April, are to be fold by Mr. Graves, St. James's Street; Mr. Lewis, at Tom's Coffee-Houfe; Mr. Lillie, at the corner of Beaufort Buildings; Mr. Sanger, at the Temple Gate; Mr. Lloyd, near the Church in the Temple; Mr. Knapton, in St. Paul's Church Yard; Mr. Round, in Exchange Alley; and Mr. Baldwin, in Warwick Lane; where alfo may be had those for the month of March. Ibidem.

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N° 70. Monday, May 21, 1711.

Interdum vulgus rectum videt.

HOR. I Ep. ii. 63.

Sometimes the vulgar fee and judge aright.

WH

HEN I travelled, I took a particular delight in hearing the fongs and fables that are come from father to fon, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries through which I paffed; for it is impoffible that any thing fhould be univerfally tafted and approved by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it fome peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the fame in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it, will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by Monfieur Boileau, ufed to read all his comedies to an old woman who was his housekeeper, as fhe fat with him at her work by the chimney-corner; and could foretel the fuccefs of his play in the theatre, from the reception it met at his fire-fide: for he tells us the audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the fame place.

I know nothing which more fhews the effential and inherent perfection of fimplicity of thought,

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