Lives and Anecdotes of Misers Or the Passion of Avarice Displayed in the

The Lives of misers teach us that no propensity can be abused
without entailing its own punishment-The effects of avarice—
Its appearance in Youth-Manhood-and Old Age-Concluding
remarks, &c.

Page 174

LIVES & ANECDOTES OF MISERS.

CHAPTER I.

AVARICE DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED.

Description of this Passion by Ancient Writers -Dion the Philosopher-Euripides-Aristotle-Plato-Anecdote of AlcibiadesBoethius-Sir George Mackenzie on this Passion-Anecdote from Horace-Avarice in a Cardinal and in a Pope-The Miser described by Old Burton; by Dryden; by Goldsmith; by Robert Pollok-Avarice in History-Analogy between Avarice and Prodigality-A Curious Anecdote-Avarice in the Great and "Noble”—The Great Duke of Marlborough- Another Ducal Miser of a more Modern Day-A Little Rustic and a Great Duke-The Insatiableness of Acquisitiveness-Jemmy Wood of Gloucester-Osterval and Danden both starved to Death-Strength and Durability of the Passion of Avarice— Virtue not quite Extinct-Benevolence and Parsimony often` displayed by the same Individual-Guyot, a reputed Miser of Marseilles; his singular Will-An unexpected Contribution to a good Work, &c. &c.

ALTHOUGH a passion so common to mankind, there is none that has received such scorn and contempt, as that of avarice. Philosophers and poets of all ages, and of every nation, have exerted their wit and satire, to denounce, and expose, the evils of this ungodly lust. Moralists have declared this passion for gold and silver the most unpardonable, because the most detestable, of all passions. "There are men," exclaims an ancient

satirist, "who do not profit to live, but who seem to
live, for no other purpose than to gain." The denun-
ciations of classic eloquence have been hurled against it.
Heathens regarded it as a sin, the possession of which
would exclude them from the favor of the gods.
"Avarice," says Dion, the philosopher, "is the source
of all wickedness." It was the opinion of the high-
minded Euripides that an avaricious man could neither
think nor desire, any good thing; and Lucilius, the
friend of Scipio Africanus, does not forget to employ the
pen of satire against this base and grovelling passion.
"A miser," he writes, "is good to nobody, because he
is wicked to himself." Plautus, in his character of
Euclio, has graphically pourtrayed the meanness of
avarice; nor can we even say that he exaggerates when
he makes his miser repine, that he cannot save the
smoke from his own miserable fire.
riches," says Aristotle, "is without end.

a covetous man poor; for his avarice will

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to employ, for fear of losing them." Plato, the philosopher, once advised a miser, that if he was desirous of becoming truly rich, not to strive to increase his wealth, but to decrease his avarice-advice worthy of that great man. Valerius speaks of a miser who, in a famine, sold a mouse for two hundred pence, and died of starvation.*

Lib. 7. cap. vi.

BY CLASSIC AUTHORS.

It was a keen rebuke with which Socrates humbled the pride of avarice in a wealthy ancient. Alcibiades, the great Athenian general, was boasting to the philosopher of the extent of his land, and the immensity of his riches. The stoic laid before the proud man a map of the world. "Pray," said he, "show me where your land lyeth here?" The point of a pin would have covered all! "Though the rich miser," says Boethius, "should be in a flowing whirlpool of gold, he could not satisfy his appetite for wealth; let him adorn his neck with the berries of the Red Sea, and cleave his rich soils with a hundred oxen!" We might extract some curious anecdotes of misers from the lore of classic ages. Horace speaks of a man named Ovid, who was so abundantly rich that he could measure his gold and silver by bushels, and yet was so penurious that he would go almost naked about the streets, never eating enough to satisfy the demands of hunger. Fearing lest he should fall into poverty, he lived most wretchedly all his life.

Our old English writers have not been less severe in delineating the evils of avarice. "It is," says Brown in his Religio Medici, "not so much a vice as a species of madness." "I must beg rich and avaricious men's leave," says Sir George Mackenzie, "to laugh as much at their folly, as I should do at a shepherd who would weep and grieve, because his master would give him no more beasts to herd; or at a steward because his lord

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Lives and Anecdotes of Misers Or the Passion of Avarice Displayed in the ...