dwellings, would be starved in spite of industry, only for want of knowing where to sell the product of their labour, if there were not others to dispose of it for them: And again, the rich and extravagant are daily furnished with an infinite variety of superfluous knicknacks and elaborate trifles, every one of them invented to gratify either a needless curiosity, or else wantonness and folly; and which they could never have thought of, much less wanted, had they never seen or known where to buy them. What a blessing, then, to the public, is the social toyman, who lays out a considerable estate to gratify the desires of these two different classes of people? He procures food and raiment for the deserving poor, and searches with great diligence after the most skilful artificers, that no man shall be able to produce better workmanship than himself: with studied civilities, and a serene countenance, he entertains the greatest strangers; and, often speaking to them first, kindly offers to guess at their wants: He confines not his attendance to a few stated hours, but waits their leisure all day long in an open shop, where he bears the summer's heat, and winter's cold, with equal cheerfulness. What a beautiful prospect is here of natural affection to our kind! For, if he acts from that principle, who only furnishes us with necessaries of life, certainly he shows a more superlative love and indulgence to his species, who will not suffer the most whimsical of it to be an hour destitute of what he shall fancy, even things the most unnecessary. Hor. You have made the most of it indeed, but are you not tired yet with these fooleries yourself? Cleo. What fault do you find with these kind constructions; do they detract from the dignity of our species? Hor. I admire your invention, and thus much I will own, that, by overacting the part in that extravagant manner, you have set the social system in a more disadvantageous light than ever I had considered it before: But the best things, you know, may be ridiculed. Cleo. Whether I know that or not, Lord Shaftsbury has flatly denied it; and takes joke and banter to be the best and surest touchstone to prove the worth of things: It is his opinion, that no ridicule can be fastened upon what is really great and good. His Lordship has made use of that test to try the Scriptures and the Christian religion by, and exposed them because it seems they could not stand it. Hor. He has exposed superstition, and the miserable notions the vulgar were taught to have of God; but no man ever had more sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, and the universe, than himself. Cleo. You are convinced, that what I charge him with is true.