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man now living, and I now wait upon you for a lesson in frugality, an art in which I used to think I excelled, but I am told by all who know you that you are greatly my superior." "If that is all you are come about," said Guy, "why then we can talk the matter over in the dark;" so saying, he with great deliberation put the extinguisher on his newly lighted farthing candle. Struck with this instance of economy, Hopkins acknowledged the superior abilities of his host, and took his leave imbued with a profound respect for such an adept in the art of saving.

It is singular to observe what trifling events will sometimes act as a pivot upon which the future events of a life will turn. It is to one of these slight rufflings in the stream of life that the public are indebted for the noble institution which still exists as a monument of the munificient charity of the parsimonious Thomas Guy. "He employed," says Highmore, "a female servant whom he agreed to marry. Some days previous to the intended ceremony he ordered the pavement before his door to be mended up to a particular stone, which he marked, and then left his house on business. The servant in his absence looking at the workman, saw a broken stone beyond the mark which they had not repaired, and on pointing to it with that design, they acquainted her that Mr. Guy had not ordered them to go so far. She however directed it to be done, adding,

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with the security of feeling incidental to her expectation of soon becoming his wife, "Tell him I bade you, and he will not be angry." But she soon learnt how dangerous it is for any one in a dependent situation to exceed the limits of their authority; for her master, on his return, was so enraged at finding that they had exceeded his orders, and put him to an additional expense, that he renounced his matrimonial engagement with his servant, and devoted his ample fortune to public charity.

When he had reached the age of seventy-six, and found himself possessed of a fortune, which might justly be regarded as enormous for the age, Guy commenced his munificent plans of charity. He took of the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital, a piece of ground opposite to that building, on a lease of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, at an annual rent of thirty pounds per annum. The spot was, at that time, covered with small tenements, which in a few months he had removed. Plans were drawn out-foundations dug with the utmost speed; and he who had been so solicitous to save a farthing candle, had the gratification to behold, before he died, a handsome hospital erected with a portion of his parsimonious savings. Eighteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-three pounds were expended in the erection of Guy's Hospital; and its eccentric founder, who died in 1724, in his eighty-first year,

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endowed it with two hundred and twenty thousand pounds, the residue of his estate. Other acts of kindness and charity adorn the memory of this singular but most benevolent man. He bequeathed one thousand pounds for the discharging of four debtors within the City of London, and in the counties of Middlesex and Surrey; by this means, some seven or eight hundred were liberated from prison. He bequeathed to Christ's Hospital a perpetual annuity of four hundred pounds, for taking in four children yearly, on the nomination of the Governors. In his life time he founded some almshouses at Tamworth, which borough he represented in Parliament during several sessions; these almshouses he further endowed by his will with a perpetual annuity of one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Nor did this worthy man forget his numerous relatives-many of them were poor, and most of them were in indifferent circumstances they all, however, had to be grateful for the parsimony which Guy had practised during his life. Not one of them was forgotten; to some he left small annuities for life, and to others considerable sums of money. To most of his sister's children and cousins, who were very numerous, he left a thousand pounds a piece. Among his poor relatives, in various sums, he left life annuities amounting to near nine hundred pounds per annum ; and among his younger relations and executors, he distributed nearly seventy-six thousand pounds. It

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is seldom that the hoardings of parsimony have been in their distribution so guided by the dictates of benevolence. Guy did not, like the miser, save for the senseless and selfish gratification of an ignoble passion. He saved that he might bestow, and he consecrated his profits in trade, and his accumulations by rigid selfdenial to the service of the poor, the unfortunate, and the sick-all honour, and all praise, to the memory of the kind and noble-hearted bookseller!

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIFE OF DANIEL DANCER.

His Birth and Estate-His garments and outward appearanceMiss Dancer and her feminine graces-The Miser's MansionThe finding of a Treasure-The Story of the Mutton Pies-A Miser's idea of Death-Bob, the Miser's cur-Griffiths and his Master-How to turn a penny-A substitute for a Fire-The advantages of keeping a Snuff-box-The Miser dies without a Shirt-The Treasures of a Dunghill, &c.

THERE are few, who, by their habits of parsimony, have gained such notoriety as Daniel Dancer; by nature he was a complete miser, the passion of avarice in him, obscured during the whole of his life every feeling of virtue, and every trace of natural affection.

K

The life of Dancer is not without its moral; we behold the vice of an inordinate acquisitiveness in its darkest hues, and we learn how incompetent is wealth to bestow happiness without the presence of virtue and benevolence to guide the mind in its distribution, and to make its accumulation in the hands of one, a blessing to the hearts of many.

Daniel Dancer was born in the year 1716, he was the oldest of a family of three boys, and one girl; his father lived on Harrow Weald Common, on Harrow-on-theHill, where he possessed property, which produced a comfortable income; we have no information relative to the habits and character of the senior Dancer, and cannot say whether the propensity to acquire was excited in the mind of the son, by the example of the parent, nor have we any memorial of the infancy and boyhood of this famous miser.

Upon the death of his father, Daniel Dancer came into possession of the paternal estate; the few hundreds which it annually produced was, by the strictest parsimony, and the most rigid saving, so increased as to produce, before he died, a revenue of three thousand pounds per The sister of this singular character was as miserly as himself, and their habits and inclinations so harmonized, that after the death of their parents they always lived together, and strove during the whole of

annum.