f the Nile, and the laborious industry of the
inhabitants.

It will be always so with every kingdom whose governors direct all their
actions to the public welfare. The culture of lands, and the breeding of
cattle, will be an inexhaustible fund of wealth in all countries, where,
as in Egypt, these profitable callings are supported and encouraged by
maxims of state and policy: and we may consider it as a misfortune, that
they are at present fallen into so general a disesteem; though it is from
them that the most elevated ranks (as we esteem them) are furnished, not
only with the necessaries, but even the luxuries of life. "For," says Abbe
Fleury, in his admirable work, _Of the manners of the Israelites_, where
the subject I am upon is thoroughly examined, "it is the peasant who feeds
the citizen, the magistrate, the gentleman, the ecclesiastic: and whatever
artifice and craft may be used to convert money into commodities, and
these back again into money; yet all must ultimately be owned to be
received from the products of the earth, and the animals which it sustains
and nourishes. Nevertheless, when we compare men's different stations of
life together, we give the lowest place to the husbandman: and with many
people a wealthy citizen, enervated with sloth, useless to the public, and
void of all merit, has the preference, merely because he has more money,
and lives a more easy and delightful life.

"But let us imagine to ourselves a country where so great a difference is
not made between the several conditions; where the life of a nobleman is
not made to consist in idleness and doing nothing, but in a careful
preservation of his liberty; that is, in a due subjection to the laws and
the constitution; by a man's subsisting upon his estate without a
dependence on any one, and being contented to enjoy a little with liberty,
rather than a great deal at the price of mean and base compliances: a
country, where sloth, effeminacy, and the ignorance of things necessary
for life, are held in just contempt; and where pleasure is less valued
than health and bodily strength: in such a country, it will be much more
for a man's reputation to plough, and keep flocks, than to waste all his
hours in sauntering from place to place, in gaming and expensive
diversions."

But we need not have recourse to Plato's commonwealth, for instances of
men who have led these useful lives. It was thus that the greatest part of
mankind lived during near f