f news, who, though contemptuously
overlooked by the composers of bulky volumes, are yet necessary in a
nation where much wealth produces much leisure, and one part of the
people has nothing to do but to observe the lives and fortunes of the
other.

To us, who are regaled every morning and evening with intelligence, and
are supplied from day to day with materials for conversation, it is
difficult to conceive how man can subsist without a newspaper, or to
what entertainment companies can assemble, in those wide regions of the
earth that have neither _Chronicles_ nor _Magazines_, neither _Gazettes_
nor _Advertisers_, neither _Journals_ nor _Evening Posts_.

There are never great numbers in any nation, whose reason or invention
can find employment for their tongues, who can raise a pleasing
discourse from their own stock of sentiments and images; and those few
who have qualified themselves by speculation for general disquisitions
are soon left without an audience. The common talk of men must relate to
facts in which the talkers have, or think they have, an interest; and
where such facts cannot be known, the pleasures of society will be
merely sensual. Thus the natives of the Mahometan empires, who approach
most nearly to European civility, have no higher pleasure at their
convivial assemblies than to hear a piper, or gaze upon a tumbler; and
no company can keep together longer than they are diverted by sounds or
shows.

All foreigners remark, that the knowledge of the common people of
England is greater than that of any other vulgar. This superiority we
undoubtedly owe to the rivulets of intelligence, which are continually
trickling among us, which every one may catch, and of which every one
partakes[1].

This universal diffusion of instruction is, perhaps, not wholly without
its inconveniencies; it certainly fills the nation with superficial
disputants; enables those to talk who were born to work; and affords
information sufficient to elate vanity, and stiffen obstinacy, but too
little to enlarge the mind into complete skill for full comprehension.

Whatever is found to gratify the publick, will be multiplied by the
emulation of venders beyond necessity or use. This plenty indeed
produces cheapness, but cheapness always ends in negligence and
depravation.

The compilation of newspapers is often committed to narrow and mercenary
minds, not qualified for the task of delighting or instructing; who are
content to fill