_Calloph._ How? Why by spending it in gaming, to the Encouragement of Cheats and Sharpers: By squandering it away upon Lusts and Appetites, in the Support of Stews and Bawdy-houses: Or by Dealing it out in Bribes, in opposition to Honesty, and to advance Corruption. In Arts like these, what Numbers consume their Wealth! It is not enough for them to prevent Mankind's being benefited by their affluent Circumstances; but they do their utmost, while they diminish their Fortunes, to make all they can influence as worthless as themselves. So that I assure you I should look upon it as a very great Point gained, if all our Men of Fortune would only take care that their Wealth proves of no Disservice to Mankind. Tho' I am far from desiring they should stop there: I would have them endeavour to turn it into some useful Channel. And in my Opinion, it is laid out in a very laudable Manner, when it is spent, as it is here, in circulating thro' a Variety of Trades, in supporting a Number of poor Families, and in the Encouragement of Art and Industry. _Polypth._ Well, Sir, I confess Wealth thus laid out, is beneficial to a Country; but still you keep from the Point: I ask whether all these good Ends would not be answered, and more too, were this Wealth laid out according to my Scheme, in public Works, or something of an _useful_ Nature. _Calloph._ And so you have no Notion of any Use arising from these elegant Productions of Art: You cannot conceive how they should be of any Service to the Public. Why you are a mere _Goth_, an unpolished _Vandal_; were you impowered to reform the Age, I suppose I should see you, like one of those wild misguided People, coursing furiously round the Land, and laying desolate every thing beautiful you met with. But in my Opinion, Sir, these noble Productions of Art, considered merely as such, may be looked upon as Works of a very public Nature. Do you think no _End_ is answered when a Nation's Taste is regulated with regard to the most innocent, the most refined, and elegant of its Pleasures? In all polite Countries the Amusements of the People were thought highly deserving a Legislator's Inspection. To establish a just Taste in these, was esteemed in some measure as advancing the Interest of Virtue: And can it be considered as a Work entirely of a private Nature, for a superior Genius to exert itself in an Endeavour to fix a true Standard of Beauty in any of these allowed and useful kinds of Pleasure? In the Way of Gardening particularly, the Taste of the Nation has long been so depraved, that I should think we might be obliged to any one that would undertake to reform it. While a Taste for Painting, Music, Architecture, and other polite Arts, in some measure prevailed amongst us, our Gardens for the most Part were laid out in so formal, aukward, and wretched a Manner, that they were really a Scandal to the very Genius of the Nation; a Man of Taste was shocked whenever he set his Foot into them.