When my soul, starting from the dark unknown, Then shed thy comforts o'er me, then put on And pouring o'er my wounds the heav'nly balm · Till my wrapt soul, anticipating Heaven, Springs into liberty, and light, and life." PORTEUS. ON 1 ON AVARICE AND PRODIGALITY. THE avaricious man is an enemy to all mankind, and equally so to himself; he turns aside from poverty, and stifles all the genuine sentiments of humanity, sooner than part with his beloved gold. He lives abstemiously, not from principle but meanness, and even neglects cleanliness, because it is attended with some expence. Alone, as it were, in the world, he is interested for no one, nor is any person interested for him. In the midst of affluence he is in want, his body shivers at every blast, his craving appetite demands food which he has not the heart to purchase-in every noise he dreads a thief, regardless that he himself is the greatest robber, who deprives not only his fellow creatures of the claim they have on his humanity, but also his own body of necessary cloathing, and his stomach of wholesome food. If he be honest 'tis next to a wonder, for in his eagerness to grasp all, how frequently may temptation carry him beyond rectitude? Thus age creeps on, 'till at length the hour of death approaches; but even yet he grasps to increase his store, for strong habits are not easily to be shaken off.-In his sickness no one will attend him from affection, and even bodily suffering will not open open his heart or his purse strings. The gold for which he has forsaken all mankind, still clings to him; and after depriving him of every worldly comfort, 'tis well if it does not yet cost him a greater. sacrifice everlasting happiness.. At length the curtain drops, and his eyes lose sight of their darling object, though his clenched hands appear still to grasp it. His barred doors are thrown open, his rasty bolts are torn off, his padlocks are broken, his iron chests are forced,. his bags are emptied, and with a light heart and chearful countenance, his heir enters on his possessions. That heir to whom, when living, he denied bread, and who, perhaps uneducated and unfeeling, bound by no tie of gratitude or affection, has long anxiously waited for his death.Consider him ransacking his predecessor's hoards, |