Postscript.

I should watch the conduct of such men more narrowly than that of the Nobles. Indeed, the history of Parliament will show that the Gentry have not been the most venal part of the House. The Illumination which now dazzles the world aims directly at multiplying the number of venal members, by filling the senates of Europe with men who may be bought at a low price. Ministerial corruption is the fruit of Liberty, and freedom dawned in this nation in Queen Elizabeth's time, when her minister bribed Wentworth.—A wise and free Legislation will endeavour to make this as expensive and troublesome as possible, and therefore will neither admit universal suffrage nor a very extensive eligibility. These two circumstances, besides opening a wider door to corruption, tend to destroy the very intention of all civil constitutions. The great object in them is, to make a great number of people happy. Some men place their chief enjoyment in measuring their strength with others, and love to be continually employed in canvassing, intriguing, and carrying on some little pieces of a sort of public business; to such men universal suffrage and eligibility would be paradise—but it is to be hoped that the number of such is not very great: for this occupation must be accompanied by much disquiet among their neighbours, much dissension, and mutual offence and ill-will—and the peaceable, the indolent, the studious, and the half of the nation, the women, will be great sufferers by all this. In a nation possessing many of the comforts and pleasures of life, the happiest government is that which will leave the greatest number possible totally unoccupied with national affairs, and at full liberty to enjoy all their domestic and social pleasures, and to do this with security and permanency. Great limitations in the right of electing seems therefore a circumstance necessary for this purpose; and limitations are equally necessary on the eligibility. When the offices of power and emolument are open to all, the scramble becomes universal, and the nation is never at peace.