every point; nay, what is more, every twinge of
the gout or gravel will be felt in their consequences by the community.
As the thief-catcher, upon viewing a house broke open, could immediately
distinguish, from the manner of the workmanship, by what hand it was
done.

It is hard to form a maxim against which an exception is not ready to
start up: So, in the present case, where the minister grows enormously
rich, the public is proportionably poor; as, in a private family, the
steward always thrives the fastest when his lord is running out.

* * * * *
* * * * *

AN ACCOUNT OF THE COURT AND EMPIRE OF JAPAN.[202]

Regoge[203] was the thirty-fourth emperor of Japan, and began his reign
in the year 341 of the Christian era, succeeding to Nena,[204] a
princess who governed with great felicity.

There had been a revolution in that empire about twenty-six years
before, which made some breaches in the hereditary line; and Regoge,
successor to Nena, although of the royal family, was a distant
relation. There were two violent parties in the empire, which began in
the time of the revolution above mentioned; and, at the death of the
Empress Nena, were in the highest degree of animosity, each charging the
other with a design of introducing new gods, and changing the civil
constitution. The names of these two parties were Husiges and
Yortes.[205] The latter were those whom Nena, the late empress, most
favoured towards the end of her reign, and by whose advice she governed.

The Husige faction, enraged at their loss of power, made private
applications to Regoge during the life of the empress; which prevailed
so far, that, upon her death, the new emperor wholly disgraced the
Yortes, and employed only the Husiges in all his affairs. The Japanese
author highly blames his Imperial Majesty's proceeding in this affair;
because, it was allowed on all hands, that he had then a happy
opportunity of reconciling parties for ever by a moderating scheme. But
he, on the contrary, began his reign by openly disgracing the principal
and most popular Yortes, some of which had been chiefly instrumental in
raising him to the throne. By this mistaken step he occasioned a
rebellion; which, although it were soon quelled by some very surprising
turns of fortune, yet the fear, whether real or pretended, of new
attempts, engaged him in such immense charges, that, instead of clearing
an