Printed for and fold by DANIEL ISAAC EATON, Printer and Bookfeller to the Supreme Majefty of the People, at the Cock and SWINE, No. 74, Newgate ftreet.

1795..

PRICE ONE PENNY.

"I would make you think well of yourself; I would raise your hope; I would roufe your ambition; I would shake off your national ENNUI; and develope the germs of genius, of virtue, and of public glory. There is not a tenant of the meanest hovel, in whom I do not recognize the capability, and fovereignty of his nature through all its degradation; and the veriest wretch over whom I ftumble in the streets, I deplore as the remote, but well connected confequence, of an abfurd political constitution."

DRENNAN'S Letter to EARL FITZWILLIAM.

TALENT

ALENT was conferred on mankind, undoubtedly, for the promotion of public virtue, and the enlargement of human felicity. It never could have been the divine intention that its energies should be coerced, its exertions impeded, or that its radiance should be obfcured in darknefs, and in night. 'No. So fublime a bleffing must have been bestowed on man for purposes more exalted in their object, and more confoling to human reafon itself. It must have been bestowed on him, to inspire him with a sense of the dignity which he sustained in A the

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the creation, to teach him the duties which were due from him to his God, to himself, and to his fpeeies, and thus, by awakening within him all those benevolent fympathies, and affections, which animate to philanthropy, and to generous action, to bind him to his fellow-creatures in focial charities, and in endearing intercourse.

Such can we discover, from his defigns, and difpofitions, to have been the will of our common PARENT; and happy would it have been for the felicity, as well as for the character, of human nature, if that merciful inelination had never been counteracted! But experience obliges us to acknowledge the melancholy truth, that we ourselves have often times defeated it. By neglecting to cherish one bleffing-we have loft every other that could beautify, and endear to us the poffeffion of life. For, directing our eyes back to a review of past events, and beholding human existence at different periods in its diverfified forms and appearances, what do we contemplate, but one crouded picture of the most frightful groups, and difgufting affemblages, that the most lively imagination can conceive! what, but a most lamentable, yet a real, exhibition of our fellow-creatures funken almoft beneath the loweft condition of degradation, and abasement! alternately the victim of the craft of princes, and of priests, and frequently of both of them together! at one time terrified by the anathemas of a perfecuting superstition into the most abject submiffion; at another, scourged almost beyond the patience of the meaneft fervitude, by the fcorpion thong of imperious, and unrelenting, defpotifm!--What a gloomy portrait too is presented to us of the human mind!—We behold the understanding, the genius and 'the intellect of man proftrated, as it were, before the shrine of the most abominable idols! We behold every faculty of the foul enchained, its beft powers either totally annihilated, or perverted to promote the despicable views of power, rapacity, and ambition!—a night of ignorance overwhelming her empire, and chafing away every ray of wifdom, of science, of public, or

of private virtue. When I read of the infults, and indignities, man has dared to heap on man, only because fortune' had placed him on a throne-when I read of the enormities, the cool deliberate enormities, which have been perpetrated against the peace, and tranquillity, of fociety-when I read of the innocent blood, that has been spilled to fatiate the thirst of restless, and fanguinary ambition, and when, worst, and most dreadful of! I read of the tyrannies, which have been exercifed over the human mind itself- -I vow to God, I know not, whether I ought the more to commiferate the fortune of a people depreffed, and enflaved, beneath the fetters of Ignorance, or to execrate the remorfelefs authors of their afflictions, their sufferings, and their perfecutions!

It must be acknowledged, however, that from thefe gloomy pages of our hiftory one important inftruction is to be collected. From every evil fomething to our advantage is to be extracted; and this inftruction has furely been purchased at too high a price, not to be attended to with earneftness, and is of itself too valuable, not to be engraved on the heart of every Englishman, who neveres the independence of his country. The inftruction is, that tyranny is ever the infeparable attendant of ignorance, and that a Nation, which aspires to the enjoyment of that charter, which heaven has given it, in all the perfections of Liberty, muft be enlightened, and informed.

Impreffed fincerely, and deeply as I am with a conviction of this eternal, and immutable truth, it is impoffible that I can advert to a favourite fentiment, which, I know, obtains among a number of perfons, without abhorrence, and without indignation. There are many who perfuade themselves, and who wish to perfuade others, that the majefty of fcience should never condescend to vifit the house of the poor man. They tell us, that learning has a natural tendency to make the mind difcontented with its fituation, and that it inspires defires incompatable with the low habits of hard, and laborious industry: that to give the lower claffes of the community a

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