THE house where we were to be entertained lying at a small distance from the village, our inviter observed that as the coach
was not ready, he would conduct us on foot, and we soon arrived at one of the most magnificent mansions I had seen in that
part of the country. The apartment into which we were shown was perfectly elegant and modern; he went to give orders for
supper, while the player, with a wink, observed that we were perfectly in luck. Our entertainer soon returned, an elegant supper
was brought in, two or three ladies in easy dishabille were introduced, and the conversation began with some sprightliness.
Politics, however, were the subject on which our entertainer chiefly expatiated; for he asserted that liberty was at once his boast
and his terror. After the cloth was removed, he asked me if I had seen the last Monitor, to which replying in the negative,
"What! nor the Auditor, I suppose?" cried he.-"Neither, sir," returned I."That's strange, very strange," replied my entertainer.

"Now, I read all the politics that come out. The Daily, the Public, the Ledger, the Chronicle, the London Evening, the Whitehall
Evening, the seventeen magazines, and the two reviews; and though they hate each other, I love them all. Liberty, sir, liberty is
the Briton's boast, and by all my coal-mines in Cornwall, I reverence its guardians."-"Then it is to be hoped," cried I, "you
reverence the king."-"Yes," returned my entertainer, "when he does what we would have him; but if he goes on, as he has done
of late, I'll never trouble myself more with his matters. I say nothing. I think only. I could have directed some things better. I
don't think there has been a sufficient number of advisers: he should advise with every person willing to give him advice, and
then we should have things done in another guess manner."

   "I wish," cried I, "that such intruding advisers were fixed in the pillory. It should be the duty of honest men to assist the
weaker side of our constitution, that sacred power that has for some years been every day declining, and losing its due share of
influence in the state. But these ignorants still continue the same cry of liberty, and if they had any weight, basely throw it into the
subsiding scale."

   "How," cried one of the ladies, "do I live to see one so base, so sordid, as to be an enemy to liberty, and a defender of
tyrants? Liberty, that sacred gift of Heaven, that glorious privilege of Britons!"

   "Can it be possible," cried our entertainer, "that there should be any found at present advocates for slavery? Any who are for
meanly giving up the privileges of Britons? Can any, sir, be so abject?"

   "No, sir," replied I, "I am for liberty, that attribute of God! Glorious liberty! that theme of modern declamation. I would have
all men kings. I would be a king myself. We have all naturally an equal right to the throne; we are all originally equal. This is my
opinion, and was once the opinion of a set of honest men who were called Levellers. They tried to erect themselves into a
community, where all should be equally free. But, alas! it would never answer; for there were some among them stronger, and
some more cunning than others, and these became masters of the rest; for as sure as your groom rides your horses, because he
is a cunninger animal than they, so surely will the animal that is cunninger or stronger than he, sit upon his shoulders in turn.
Since, then, it is entailed upon humanity to submit, and some are born to command and others to obey, the question is, as there
must be tyrants, whether it is better to have them in the same house with us, or in the same village, or still farther off, in the
metropolis. Now, sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me, the better
pleased am I. The generality of mankind are also of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election

at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people. Now,
the great who were tyrants themselves before the election of one tyrant, are naturally averse to a power raised over them, and
whose weight must ever lean heaviest on the subordinate orders. It is the interest of the great, therefore, to diminish kingly
power as much as possible; because whatever they take from that is naturally restored to themselves; and all they have to do in
the state is to undermine the single tyrant, by which they resume their primeval authority. Now the state may be so
circumstanced, or its laws may be so disposed, or its men of opulence so minded, as all to conspire in carrying on this business
of undermining monarchy. For, in the first place, if the circumstances of our state be such as to favor the accumulation of
wealth, and make the opulent still more rich, this will increase their ambition. An accumulation of wealth, however, must
necessarily be the consequence when, as at present, more riches flow in from external commerce than arise from internal
industry; for external commerce can only be managed to advantage by the rich, and they have also at the same time all the
emoluments arising from internal industry; so that the rich, with us, have two sources of wealth, whereas the poor have but one.
For this reason, wealth in all commercial states is

found to accumulate, and all such have hitherto in time become aristocratical.

   "Again, the very laws also of this country may contribute to the accumulation of wealth, as when by their means the natural
ties that bind the rich and poor together are broken, and it is ordained that the rich shall only marry with the rich; or when the
learned are held unqualified to serve their country as counsellors merely from a defect of opulence, and wealth is thus made the
object of a wise man's ambition; by these means, I say, and such means as these, riches will accumulate. Now the possessor of
accumulated wealth, when furnished with the necessaries and pleasures of life, has no other method to employ the superfluity of
his fortune but in purchasing power. That is, differently speaking, in making dependents, by purchasing the liberty of the needy
or the venal, of men who are willing to bear the mortification of contiguous tyranny for bread. Thus each very opulent man
generally gathers round him a circle of the poorest of the people: and the polity, abounding in accumulated wealth, may be
compared to a Cartesian system, each orb with a vortex of its own. Those, however, who are willing to move in a great man's
vortex are only such as must be slaves-the rabble of mankind, whose souls and whose education are adapted to servitude, and
who know nothing of liberty except the name.

   "But there must still be a large number of people

without the sphere of the opulent man's influence; namely, that order of men which subsists between the very rich and the very
rabble; those men who are possessed of too large fortunes to submit to the neighboring man in power, and yet are too poor to
set up for tyranny themselves. In this middle order of mankind are generally to be found all the arts, wisdom, and virtues of
society. This order alone is known to be the true preserver of freedom, and may be called THE PEOPLE. Now it may happen
that this middle order of mankind may lose all its influence in a state and its voice be in a manner drowned in that of the rabble;
for if the fortune sufficient for qualifying a person at present to give his voice in state affairs, be ten times less than was judged
sufficient upon forming the constitution, it is evident that great numbers of the rabble will thus be introduced into the political
system, and they ever moving in the vortex of the great, will follow where greatness shall direct. In such a state, therefore, all
that the middle order has left, is to preserve the prerogative and privileges of the one principal governor with the most sacred
circumspection. For he divides the power of the rich, and calls off the great from falling with tenfold weight on the middle order
placed beneath them. The middle order may be compared to a town of which the opulent are forming the siege, and to which
the governor from without is hastening the relief. While the besiegers are in dread

of an enemy over them, it is but natural to offer the townsmen the most specious terms; to flatter them with sounds, and amuse
them with privileges; but if they once defeat the governor from behind, the walls of the town will be but a small defence to its
inhabitants. What they may then expect, may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern
the poor, and the rich govern the laws. I am, then, for, and would die for, monarchy, sacred monarchy; for if there be any thing
sacred amongst men, it must be the anointed sovereign of his people, and every diminution of his power, in war or in peace, is
an infringement upon the real liberties of the subject. The sounds of liberty, patriotism, and Britons, have already done much; it
is to be hoped that the true sons of freedom will prevent their ever doing more. I have known many of those pretended
champions for liberty in my time, yet I do not remember one that was not in his heart and in his family a tyrant."

   My warmth I found had lengthened this harangue beyond the rules of good breeding; but the impatience of my entertainer,
who often strove to interrupt it, could be restrained no longer. "What!" cried he, "then I have been all this while entertaining a
Jesuit in parson's clothes; but by all the coal-mines of Cornwall, out he shall pack, if my name be Wilkinson." I now found I had
gone too far, and asked pardon for the warmth with which I had spoken. "Pardon!" returned

he in a fury; "I think such principles demand ten thousand pardons. What, give up liberty, property, and, as the Gazetteer says,
lie down to be saddled with wooden shoes! Sir, I insist upon your marching out of this house immediately, to prevent worse
consequences. Sir, I insist upon it." I was going to repeat my remonstrances, but just then we heard a footman's rap at the
door, and the two ladies cried out: "As sure as death there is our master and mistress come home." It seems my entertainer was
all this while only the butler, who, in his master's absence, had a mind to cut a figure, and be for a while the gentleman himself;
and, to say the truth, he talked politics as well as most country-gentlemen do. But nothing could now exceed my confusion
upon seeing the gentleman and his lady enter; nor was their surprise at finding such company and good cheer less than ours.
"Gentlemen," cried the real master of the house to me and my companion, "my wife and I are your most humble servants; but I
protest this is so unexpected a favor that we almost sink under the obligation." However unexpected our company might be to
them, theirs, I am sure was still more so to us, and I was struck dumb with the apprehensions of my own absurdity, when
whom should I next see enter the room but my dear Miss Arabella Wilmot, who was formerly designed to be married to my
son George; but whose match was broken off as already related. As soon as she saw me, she flew to my arms

with the utmost joy. "My dear, sir," cried she, "to what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit? I am sure my
uncle and aunt will be in raptures when they find they have the good Doctor Primrose for their guest." Upon hearing my name,
the old gentleman and lady very politely stepped up, and welcomed me with most cordial hospitality. Nor could they forbear
smiling upon being informed of the nature of my present visit; but the unfortunate butler, whom they at first seemed disposed to
turn away, was at my intercession forgiven.

   Mr. Arnold and his lady, to whom the house belonged, now insisted upon having the pleasure of my stay for some days, and
as their niece, my charming pupil, whose mind in some measure had been formed under my own instructions, joined in their
entreaties, I complied. That night I was shown to a magnificent chamber, and the next morning early Miss Wilmot desired to
walk with me in the garden, which was decorated in the modern manner. After some time spent in pointing out the beauties of
the place, she inquired with seeming unconcern when last I had heard from my son George. "Alas! madam," cried I, "he has
now been nearly three years absent, without ever writing to his friends or me. Where he is I know not: perhaps I shall never see
him or happiness more. No, my dear madam, we shall never more see such pleasing hours as were once spent by our fireside
at Wakefield.

My little family are now dispersing very fast, and poverty has brought not only want but infamy upon us." The good-natured girl
let fall a tear at this account; but as I saw her possessed of too much sensibility, I forbore a more minute detail of our sufferings.
It was, however, some consolation to me to find that time had made no alteration in her affections, and that she had rejected
several offers that had been made her since our leaving her part of the country. She led me round all the extensive
improvements of the place, pointing to the several walks and arbors, and at the same time catching from every object a hint for
some new question relative to my son.

   In this manner we spent the forenoon, till the bell summoned us to dinner, where we found the manager of the strolling
company that I mentioned before, who was come to dispose of tickets for "The Fair Penitent," which was to be acted that
evening, the part of Horatio by a young gentleman who had never appeared on any stage. He seemed to be very warm in-the
praise of the new performer, and averred that he never saw any who bid so fair for excellence. Acting, he observed, was not
learned in a day; "but this gentleman." continued he, "seems born to tread the stage. His voice, his figure, and attitudes are all
admirable. We caught him up accidentally in our journey down." This account, in some measure, excited our curiosity, and, at
the entreaty of the ladies, I was prevailed upon to accompany

them to the playhouse, which was no other than a barn. As the company with which I went was incontestably the chief of the
place, we were received with the greatest respect, and placed in the front seat of the theatre, where we sat for some time with
no small impatience to see Horatia make his appearance. The new performer advanced at last; and let parents think of my
sensations by their own, when I found it was my unfortunate son. He was going to begin, when, turning his eyes upon the
audience, he perceived Miss Wilmot and me, and stood at once speechless and immovable.

   The actors behind the scene, who ascribed this pause to his natural timidity, attempted to encourage him; but instead of going
on, he burst into a flood of tears, and retired off the stage. I don't know what were my feelings on this occasion, for they
succeeded with too much rapidity for description; but I was soon awakened from this disagreeable revery by Miss Wilmot,
who, pale and with a trembling voice, desired me to conduct her back to her uncle's. When we got home, Mr. Arnold, who
was as yet a stranger to our extraordinary behavior, being informed that the new performer was my son, sent his coach and an
invitation for him; and as he persisted in his refusal to appear again upon the stage, the players put another in his place, and we
soon had him with us. Mr. Arnold gave him the kindest reception, and I received him with my

usual transport; for I could never counterfeit false resentment. Miss Wilmot's reception was mixed with seeming neglect, and yet
I could perceive she acted a studied part. The tumult in her mind seemed not yet abated; she said twenty giddy things that
looked like joy, and then laughed loud at her own want of meaning. At intervals she would take a sly peep at the glass, as if
happy in the consciousness of irresistible beauty, and often would ask questions without giving any manner of attention to the
answers.