MEDDLERS.

L’Abbe Gagliani says “that mankind are born with a disposition to meddle with other people’s affairs; and that liberty consists in nothing else but the power of indulging the propensity.” As a sneer against popular governments, this may be an excellent joke, but it is directly the contrary of truth. The propensity to which men are really predisposed, is that of enjoying the fruits of other men’s industry, and of directing the actions of the public towards their own private advantage. The utility of liberty is, that it puts some restraint upon the indulgence of this inclination. The affairs of the nation are the affairs of every one of its members; and tyrants and oligarchs are the real interlopers in their gestion, whose interference is impossible, when the guarantees of liberty are perfect.

It is, however, quite true, that in free states the citizens are disposed to resent any abridgment of another’s rights, and to interfere in the concerns of the oppressed, so far as to procure him redress. But every one, thus employed, is really acting for himself, and with the perfect consciousness that he is fighting his own battle. Few of Wilkes’s cotemporaries either loved or respected him, personally; but when his rights were attacked by the government, he represented the people of England; and the people had the sense and the spirit to force the ministry to desist from their violence.