managers prudent; still there is vice and misery left, more than sufficient to justify my description. But, if I could find only one woman who (passing forty years on many stages, and sustaining many principal characters) laments in her unrespected old age, that there was no workhouse to which she could legally sue for admission; if I could produce only one female, seduced upon the boards, and starved in her lodging, compelled by her poverty to sing, and by her sufferings to weep, without any prospect but misery, or any consolation but death; if I could exhibit only one youth who sought refuge from parental authority in the licentious freedom of a wandering company; yet, with three such examples, I should feel myself justified in the account I have given :-but such characters and sufferings are common, and there are few of these societies which could not show members of this description. To some, indeed, the life has its satisfactions: they never expected to be free from labour, and their present kind they think is light they have no delicate ideas of shame, and therefore duns and hisses give them no other pain than what arises from the fear of not being trusted, joined with the apprehension that they may have nothing to subsist upon except their credit.

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XIII.

THE ALMS-HOUSE AND TRUSTEES.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. - POPE.

There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pool,
And do a wilful stillness entertain:
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion,
As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle,
"And when I ope my lips let no dog bark."

Merchant of Venice.

Sum felix; quis enim neget? felixque manebo;
Hoc quoque quis dubitet? Tutum me copia fecit.

The frugal Merchant - Rivalship in Modes of FrugalityPrivate Exceptions to the general Manners - Alms-house built Its Description-Founder dies- Six Trustees Sir Denys Brand, a Principal - His Eulogium in the Chronicles of the Day Truth reckoned invidious on these Occasions - An Explanation of the Magnanimity and Wisdom of Sir Denys - His Kinds of Moderation and Humility- Laughton, his Successor, a planning, ambitious, wealthy Man - Advancement in Life his perpetual Object, and all Things made the Means of it- His Idea of Falsehood - His Resentment dangerous: how removed - Success produces Love of Flattery; his daily Gratification - His Merits and Acts of Kindness - His proper Choice of AlmsIn this Respect meritorious - His Predecessor not so cautious.

men

221

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XIII.

THE ALMS-HOUSE AND TRUSTEES.

LEAVE now our streets, and in yon plain behold
Those pleasant Seats for the reduced and old;
A merchant's gift, whose wife and children died,
When he to saving all his powers applied;

He wore his coat till bare was every thread,
And with the meanest fare his body fed.
He had a female cousin, who with care
Walk'd in his steps, and learn'd of him to spare ;
With emulation and success they strove,
Improving still, still seeking to improve,

As if that useful knowledge they would gain-
How little food would human life sustain :
No pauper came their table's crums to crave;
Scraping they lived, but not a scrap they gave:
When beggars saw the frugal Merchant pass,
It moved their pity, and they said, “Alas!
"Hard is thy fate, my brother," and they felt
A beggar's pride as they that pity dealt :