of a diminution of his avarice, or without any thoughts of the future. In his last words addressed to his son he expressed a hope "that he had left him what he wished." He bequeathed the whole of his vast fortune, amounting in addition to his estate, to the sum of five hundred thousand pounds, to his two natural sons, George and John Elwes. Thus died John Elwes, the representative of a family of misers. He began, as we have seen, his career as a gambler, in which he displayed his innate avarice, modified by his contact with the vices of fashionable life; for amidst the most boundless profligacy at the gaming-table, we have seen that acquisitiveness was ever active, and his mind was always on the watch to save. Search the Ruling Passion. There alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; POPE. 142 CHAPTER X. NOTICES OF FEMALE MISERS. Mary Luhorne, the Female Miser of Deptford; her Miserable Habits of Penury; her Love of Hoarding; her enormous Wealth-Elizabeth Wilcocks and her Secret Hoards-The Misses Vooght, Three Female Misers of Amsterdam; a singular instance of Avarice as a Family failing-Joanna Horrel the Applewoman of Exeter; her sumptuous fortune, &c. Ir has been remarked, that when women become vicious they know no medium; they are good or they are very bad; and when once fascinated with vice, they are more difficult to reclaim than men. Certainly, in the cases which we subjoin of female misers, the passion of avarice appears in fearful strength, rendering the heart of its votaries callous to the call of duty, and insensible to the dictates of conscience. In the month of August of the year 1766 there died at Deptford a wretched old woman, in her ninety-sixth year; she was the widow of Captain Luhorne, of the East India service. She survived her husband forty years, and during the whole of that period she lived in a most miserly and penurious manner. She not only denied herself the comforts, but even the most common necessaries and decencies of life. Her clothes were so tattered that she was almost in a state of nudity, and the rags which she hung upon her shoulders were so filthy, and so animated with vermin, that passengers took the precaution to keep at a distance from her in the streets. She was never known to have lit a fire in her room, and never indulged in the luxury of a candle; she wore no under garments, and had no sheet to cover her at night; she eschewed all rules of cleanliness, and appeared never so happy as when surrounded with filth and loathsomeness. She would frequently wander along the roads to beg of passers by, and always professed the utmost poverty. The demon of avarice was so strong within this covetous soul, that she was more than once detected in pilfering some trifling articles from her neighbours. One Tuesday the old woman was missed; she had not been observed to leave her room, and she had not been seen in her accustomed walks: Wednesday past, and the neighbours began to suspect that the old miser must be ill; they knocked at her door, but no voice replied; they waited for the morrow; and when the day had far advanced, and she did not appear, they got in at the window. They found her in bed alive, but speechless: with attention she revived a little, but on Saturday the old woman died. Her relatives were sent for, who on opening her drawers and chests found 144 WANT AMIDST ABUNDANCE. securities and gold to the amount of forty thousand pounds, besides clothes of the most sumptuous make and texture, plate, china, jewels and linen. For years had she been surrounded with this wealth and possessed these luxuries, which if rightly used would have served to comfort her old age, and have been the means of relieving the miseries and wants of others; the remembrance would in return have proved a great solace to the bed of sickness and death. Yet although her drawers were thus crammed with costly apparel, which was slowly mouldering and rotting before the effects of time; that wretched object of penury chose rather to wear rags so filthy that it became the imperative duty of her relatives to burn them immediately after her death. In a life so wretched-so devoid of purpose, so laborious, without an object, so self-denying and so debasedwe have a striking example of the littleness of human wishes, and the ignobility of the human mind, when unguided by reason, and when swayed by the despotism of the passions. Her life is, indeed, a problem the philosopher will find some difficulty to solve. With forty thousand pounds, no fraction of which she would venture to enjoy-with none for whom affection would prompt her to save-here was a wretched being whose lust for gold, and whose propensity to hoard, was so overwhelming, that she would beg of strangers in the ELIZABETH WILCOCKS. 145 streets-pilfer whatever she could lay her hands upon; and although surrounded with an abundance, deprived herself of every enjoyment—of every hope and consolation-that she might gratify this most senseless propensity of her nature. When we think of the worthlessness of her life—of her avarice, as manifested in all its strength at the age of ninety-five, and of her lonely and comfortless death-bed-we are prompted to exclaim, with the psalmist, Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas! In the year 1768, there died at Nether-Shuckburgh, in Warwickshire, an old maid, named Elizabeth Wilcocks, whose life presents a similar illustration of that love of hoarding, and that passion to acquire, which we have seen exemplified so fearfully in the case of Mary Luhorne. For many years before her death, she eat nothing but horse-beans or a few curlings: she had hardly any clothes, and had nothing but a bundle of straw and an old blanket to lie upon; yet, at her death, twelve pairs of sheets, and a large quantity of other linen, was found in her drawers. She hid her wealth in the most unaccountable places. In a pickle-pot, stowed away in the clock-case, was discovered eighty pounds in gold and five pounds in silver. In a hole under the stairs a canister full of gold: in an old rat-trap a large quantity of gold and silver, and in several other places similar hoards were discovered by her executors. In addition to all this wealth, this miserable old miser was possessed N |