our
colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was
natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction.

[339] See _ante_, ii. III.

[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds
our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so
contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the
exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the
exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in
specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made
against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint
or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's
_Works_, ed. 1824, iv. 160.

[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great
Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see
it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's
_Letters_, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the
sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on
divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et
Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' _Dr. Johnson: His
Friends and His Critics_, p. 315. It sold for L5,011 (ante, in. 420,
note 4). Wilkes's own library--a large one--had been sold in 1764, in a
five days' sale, as is shewn by the _Auctioneer's Catalogue_, which is
in the Bodleian.

[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time
been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who,
considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have
undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' _The Idler_,
No. 91.

[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English
sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining
faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's
first volume, and fourteenth sermon, _'Against foolish Talking and
Jesting.'_ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious
_Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule_, calls it 'a profuse description of
Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out
some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known,
and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may
receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall
here s