fer nobility; for there honourable distinction can only be obtained by real worth. A man who leaves a noble posterity is certainly entitled to higher respect than he who only boasts of nobler ancestors. The great Catherbeius, sultan of Egypt and Syria, was originally a common slave; but his extraordinary worth, valour, and manhood, procured him to be elected emperor of the Mamelukes. Castruccius Castrucanus was a poor orphan child, who was found lying in a field, exposed to the extreme of misery; but his virtue raised him to the throne of Senes: and history furnishes innumerable instances of the like kind. Why, therefore, should any man think meanness of birth a reproach? Who thinks Cicero less respectable for having been a plebeian? Agathocles less glorious, for having been a potter's son? or Marius less great, for having been a ploughboy at Arpinum? Many a great man comes out of a low cottage. What rational man thinks the better of the kings of Denmark, because they derive their pedigree from Ulfo,who was the son of a bear? Let no proud or vain upstart be offended by these examples; but recollect, that it is virtue alone that can ennoble greatness, and that nothing is so intolerable as a fortunate fool, or so detestable as exalted wickedness. The nobility of many of our modern gentry consists of the parchment by which their title is conferred; but how much better is it to be born of mean parentage, and to excel in moral worth and noble actions, than to be, as many great men are, only valued for their riches?

Poverty is accounted, in the world's esteem, the greatest misery that can befall a man; but if properly considered, it will afford no real cause of discontent. Riches, like the rains from heaven, fall on persons of every description, whether good or bad; they are only valuable to those who would be contented without them, for to those who would not, they only convey pride, insolence, lust, riot, intemperance, ambition, cares, fears, suspicions, troubles, anger, and every other disease which can afflict either the body or the mind.~

No crime, disease, or vice, is now unknown,
Since poverty, the god of virtue, 's gone;
Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts,
Pour, like a deluge, in from foreign parts,
Since gold obscene, and silver, found the way
Our plain and honest manners to betray.

Rich men, whose only objects are to gratify the mean and sordid passion of avarice, are like painted walls, fair without, but rotten within. The higher they soar, the greater are the dangers to which they are exposed; for misery assails riches, as lightning does the highest towers; or as a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, so do riches destroy the virtue of their possessor. But,

The man, within the golden mean,
Who can his boldest wish contain,
Serenely views the ruin'd cell,

Where sordid want and sorrow dwell;
And in himself, securely great,

Declines an envied room of state.

Worldly wealth, indeed, is an evil bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches, generally recede from real happiness in proportion as their stores increase; as the moon, when she is fullest of light, is farthest from the sun. Theodoret, therefore, justly exhorts his readers, as often as they shall see a man abounding in wealth, and naught withal, not to call him happy, but to esteem him unfortunate, because he has thereby so many inducements and temptations to live unjustly; and, on the other side, to consider a virtuous man, though poor, as far from being miserable. 'Tis not in wealth to give true joys: Him purest happiness attends,

Who heav'n's distinguish'd gifts employs
With wisdom, to the noblest ends.

Seneca calls the happiness of wealth 'tinfoiled happiness,' and an 'unhappy felicity. A poor man drinks out of a wooden dish, and eats his hearty meal with a wooden spoon; a rich man, with languid appetite, picks his dainties with a silver fork from plates of gold; but the one drinks in health and happiness from

his earthen jug; the other, disease and poison from his jewelled cup.

Were it not better to inquire

How Nature bounds each impotent desire,
What she with ease resigns, or wants with pain,
And then divide the solid from the vain?
Say, should your jaws with thirst severely burn,
Would you a cleanly earthen pitcher spurn?
Should hunger on your gnawing entrails seize,
Would turbot only, or a capon, please?

Poverty, indeed, is well described by the holy fathers of the church, and the finest orators of antiquity, as the way to heaven, as the mistress of true philosophy, the mother of religion, the sister of innocency, and the handmaid of sobriety and virtue. The rich, it is true, cover their floors with marble, their roofs with gold, their porticoes with statues, and their chambers with costly furniture and curious paintings; but what is all this to true happiness? The happier poor live and breathe under a glorious sky, the august canopy of nature; enjoy the brightness of the stars, the daily radiance of the sun, the nightly lightness of the moon, the harmony of the groves, and all that bounteous nature presents to the hands of honest industry and calm content, far surpassing every enjoyment that art and opulence can give.

Like the first mortals, blest is he,

From debts, and mortgages, and business free,
With his own team who ploughs the soil,

Which, grateful, once confess'd his father's toil.

Nature is content with bread and water; and he that can rest satisfied with what nature requires, may contend with "Jupiter himself" for happiness.

If

you, my Iccius, to whose hands

The fruits of his Sicilian lands

Agrippa trusts, use well your gain,
What more can you from Jove obtain?
Hence with complaints! can he be poor

Who all things needful may secure?

Whatever is beyond this creation, says Manderensis,

is not useful, but troublesome: and he that is not satisfied with a little, will never have enough. "O ye gods!" exclaimed Socrates, as he passed through a fair, "what a number of things are here, which I do not want!" Strength, both of body and mind, is the offspring of temperance; and temperance is the offspring of want, man's best physician and chiefest friend. Virtue, when she first descended from heaven to bless mankind, being scorned by the rich, abandoned by the wicked, ridiculed by courtiers, hated by money-loving men, and thrust out of every door, wandered to the humble cottage of her sister Poverty, where she was cherished with the warmest affection, and with whom alone she still resides. The truest happiness, according to the holy Scriptures, may be enjoyed in a low estate. A man's fortune, like his garment, if it fit him well, is not less useful for being made of homely materials. A rich man may be decorated with the titles of Lord, Patron, Baron, Earl, and possess many fine houses; but he who is poor has the greater happiness.

While, with the rich, the passing day

In fruitless wishes wears away;

Ah! rural scenes, his heart repeats,
How I enjoy your blest retreats!

Where, while with nature's views I please

My fancy, or recline at ease,

In sweet oblivion lose the strife,

And all the cares of splendid life.

The misery which is supposed to follow poverty, arises, not from want, but from peevishness and discontent. A mind once satisfied (if, alas! a mind can be satisfied on this subject) is happy; for he who is thoroughly wet in a bath, cannot be more wet if he were flung into the sea. The mind is all; for if a man had all the world, or a solid mass of gold as big as the world, he could not have more than enough. True plenty consists in not desiring, rather than in possessing, riches; the contempt of which confers more real glory than the possession. Even by those who are miserably poor, it should be recollected that

misery is virtue's whetstone, that the poor shall not always be forgotten; that the LORD is a refuge to the oppressed, and a defence in the time of trouble, and that he who sows in tears shall reap in joy. A lowring morning may turn to a fair afternoon. When Zeno the philosopher lost all his goods in a shipwreck, he exclaimed, "Fortune may take away my means, but cannot touch my mind." Alexander sent a hundred talents of gold to Phocion of Athens, for a present, because he heard he was a good man; but Phocion returned the gold, with a request that he might be permitted to continue a good man still. So the Thalian Crates flung, of his own accord, his money into the sea, exclaiming, "Abite nummi, ego vos mergam, ne mergar à vobis:" and shall Christians become sorrowful for the want of wealth, when Stoics and Epicures could contemn it so easily? O man! let thy fortune be what it will, it is thy mind alone that makes thee poor or rich, happy or miserable.

He who enjoys th' untroubled breast,
With virtue's tranquil wisdom bless'd,
With hope the gloomy hour can cheer,
And temper happiness with fear.
If God the winter's horrors bring,
He soon restores the genial spring.
Then let us not of fate complain,

For soon shall change the gloomy scene.

I wish to avoid the absurdity of those writers who represent poverty as having the advantage over riches. It must be confessed that poverty is an evil. I would wish to give a rational and consistent view of the opposite conditions of poverty and riches.

Poverty has certainly great disadvantages. Let us take the instance of a poor man, the father of a family of small children, unable to do any thing for themselves. He strains every nerve, and exerts all his strength to supply their wants; he rises early, works hard all the day long, and stops the craving of his hunger with a morsel of coarse bread, washed down with water from the brook: but all he does and suffers is not sufficient to supply the wants of his