Lacon; Or, Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those Who Think Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 edition. Excerpt: ... kingdom, and I the plainnest. But I would give your lordship half an hour's start, and yet come up with you in the affections of any woman we both wished to win; because all those attentions which you would omit on tl.e score of your fine exterior, I should be obliged to pay, owing to the deficiencies of mine." CCLXX. AGRICULTURE is the most certain source of strength, and wealth, and independence. Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, contingent, transitory, almost as liable to change, as the winds and waves that waft it to our shores. She may well be termed the younger sister, fo: -, in all emergencies, she looks to agriculture, both for defei ce and for supply. The earth, inaeed, is doubly grateful, inasmuch as she not only repays forty fold to the cultivator, but reciprocally improves its improver, rewarding him with strength, and health, and vigour. Agriculture, therefore, is the true " officina militumand in her brave and hardy peasantry, she offers a legitimate and trusty sword to those rulers that duly appreciate her value, and 3ourt her alliance. It. is, however, more easy to convert hut Landmen into excellent soldiers, than to imitate Romulus, who could at will reconvert them again. He first moulded those materials that conquered the world;--a peasantry victorious in war, laborious in peace, despisers of sloth, prepared to reap the bloodless harvest of the sickle, after having secured that of the sword. The only employments, saysDion, that Romulus left to freemen, were agriculture and warfare; for he observed that men so employed are more temperate, less entangled in the pursuits of forbidden love, and subject to that kind of avarice only which leads them not to injure one another, but to enrich themselves at the...