ficence, and by the same means; with Persian and Turkey carpets, with Egyptian sofas, down beds, silk curtains, china vases, services of plate, tables, chairs, stoves, glasses, mirrors, chandeliers, paper hangings, pictures, busts, ornaments, kickshaws without number, while you and I live on a mud floor, with bare walls, stuck with a penny ballad, with a joint-stool to sit upon, a tea-pot without a tea-spout to drink out of, a truckle-bed or some straw and a blanket to lie upon! Yet Mr. Burke says, that if we were suddenly converted into state-pensioners with thirty-thousand a-year, we could not furnish our houses a bit the better for it. This is like Lord Peter, in the Tale of a Tub. Then the government-man and his friend must have their train of coaches, horses, dogs, footmen dressed in blue, green, yellow, and red, lazy rascals, making work for the taylor, the hatter, the shoemaker, the button-maker, the hair-dresser, the gold and silver laceman, to powder, dress, and trick them out, that they may lounge behind their mistresses' coaches, walk before their sedan chairs, help on their master's stockings, block up his doors, and perform a variety of little nameless offices, much to the ease and satisfaction of the great, but not of the smallest benefit to any one else. With respect to the article of dogs and horses, a word in Mr. Malthus's ear. They come under the head of consumption, and a swinging item they are. They eat up the food of the children of the poor. The pleasure and coach-horses kept in this kingdom consume as much of the produce of the soil as would maintain all the paupers in it. Let a tax be laid upon them directly, to defray the expense of the poor-rates, and to suspend the operation of Mr. Malthus's geometrical and arithmetical ratios. We see no physical necessity why that ingenious divine should put a stop to the propagation of the species, that he may keep two sleek geldings in his stable. We have lately read Swift's account of the Houynhyms and Yahoos. There is some truth in it; but still it has not reconciled us to Mr. Malthus's proposal of starving the children of the poor to feed the horses of the rich. But no more of that! We have said enough at present to shew
