THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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In countries where church benefices are the greater part ofthem very moderate, a chair in a university is generally abetter establishment than a church benefice. The universitieshave, in this case, the picking and choosing of their membersfrom all the churchmen of the country, who, in every coun-try, constitute by far the most numerous class of men of let-ters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many ofthem very considerable, the church naturally draws from theuniversities the greater part of their eminent men of letters ;who generally find some patron who does himself honour byprocuring them church preferment. In the former situationwe are likely to find the universities filled with the most emi-nent men of letters that are to be found in the country. Inthe latter we are likely to find few eminent men amongthem, and those few among the youngest members of thesociety, who are likely too to be drained away from it, be-fore they can have acquired experience and knowledgeenough to be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr.de Volts. ire, that father Porree, a jesuit of no great emi-nence in the republic of letters, was the only professorthey had ever had in France whose works were worth thereading. In a country which has produced so many emi-nent men of letters it must appear somewhat singular thatscarce one of them should have been a professor in a univer-sity. The famous Gassendi was, in the beginning of his life,a professor in the university of Aix. Upon the first dawningof his genius, it was represented to him, that by going intothe church, he could easily find a much more quiet and com-fortable subsistence, as well as a better situation for pursuinghis studies; and he immediately followed the advice. Theobservation of Mr. de Voltaire may be applied, I believe, notonly to France, but to all other Roman catholic countries.We very rarely find in any of them, an eminent man of let-ters who is a professor in a university, except, perhaps, inthe professions of law and physic ; professions from whichthe church is not so likely to draw them. After the church ofRome , that of England is by far the richest and best endowedchurch in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the churchis continually draining the universities of all their best andablest members; and an old college tutor, who is known anddistinguished in Europe , as an eminent man of letters, is asrarely to be found there as in any Roman catholic country.In Geneva, on the contrary, in the protestant cantons of Swit-

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