boiling down several hams, several legs of beef, many joints of veal, fowls, &c., to make a pint or two of soup; which, after all, makes but a small part of the dinner of their masters. The art of the fine manufacturer and that of the cook have precisely the same effect, viz., the bringing together and reducing the bulky matters to their quintessences, as it were; by which means the great man can consume and destroy, in a very short time, the works of months and of years.
And this effect of enabling the masters of mankind to do more mischief than they otherwise could do, constitutes the great utility of the fine arts, as they are called.[1]
Hæ tibi sunt artes.—Virg.
Manufactures, besides occasioning that great waste of the labour of the poor, which we have ascribed to them, have a still further bad effect, namely, that they furnish the most certain, if not the only means of oppressing and enslaving a people. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for any species of government, whether a monarchy or an aristocracy, to oppress them greatly and
- ↑ By this it must not be understood that the author objects to the existence of the fine arts, but merely to the misapplication of them.—Ed.
