<gr> Pr<ooes <apanta deil<ooes <o p<enhs pr<agmata>,
<gr> Kaioe pantas auoeto<u?> cataprone<i?>n upolambanei.
<gr> 'O deoe metrioews prattwn periscelesteron
<gr> "Apanta t aoeniaraoe Dampria, peret. CALLIMACHUS.
From no affliction is the poor exempt,
He thinks each eye surveys him with contempt;
Unmanly poverty subdues the heart,
Cankers each wound, and sharpens ev'ry dart. F. LEWIS.
AMONG those who have endeavoured to promote
learning, and rectify judgment, it has
been long customary to complain of the abuse of
words, which are often admitted to signify things so
different, that, instead of assisting the understanding
as vehicles of knowledge, they produce errour,
dissention, and perplexity, because what is affirmed
in one sense, is received in another.
If this ambiguity sometimes embarrasses the most
solemn controversies, and obscures the demonstrations
of science, it may well be expected to infest
the pompous periods of declaimers, whose purpose
is often only to amuse with fallacies, and change the
colours of truth and falsehood; or the musical
compositions of poets, whose style is professedly figurative,
and whose art is imagined to consist in distorting
words from their original meaning.
There are few words of which the reader believes
himself better to know the import, than of POVERTY;
yet, whoever studies either the poets or philosophers,
will find such an account of the condition expressed
by that term as his experience or observation will
not easily discover to be true. Instead of the meanness,
distress, complaint, anxiety, and dependance,
which have hitherto been combined in his ideas of
poverty, he will read of content, innocence, and
cheerfulness, of health and safety, tranquillity and
freedom; of pleasures not known but to men
unencumbered with possessions; and of sleep that
sheds his balsamick anodynes only on the cottage.
Such are the blessings to be obtained by the
resignation of riches, that kings might descend from
their thrones, and generals retire from a triumph,
only to slumber undisturbed in the elysium of
poverty.
If these authors do not deceive us, nothing can
be more absurd than that perpetual contest for
wealth which keeps the world in commotion; nor
any complaints more justly censured than those
which proceed from want of the gifts of fortune,
which we are taught by the great masters of moral
wisdom to consider as golden shackles, by which
the wearer is at once disabled and adorned; as
luscious poisons which may for a time please the
palate, but soon betray their malignity by langour and
by pain.
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy
unenvied, to be healthful without physick, and
secure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty
of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled
to procure by the help of artists and attendants,
of flatterers and spies.
But it will be found upon a nearer view, that
they who extol the happiness of poverty, do not
mean the same state with those who deplore its
miseries. Poets have their imaginations filled with
ideas of magnificence; and being accustomed to
contemplate the downfall of empires, or to contrive
forms of lamentations, for monarchs in distress,
rank all the classes of mankind in a state of poverty,
who make no approaches to the dignity of crowns.
To be poor, in the epick language, is only not to
command the wealth of nations, nor to have fleets
and armies in pay.
Vanity has perhaps contributed to this impropriety
of style. He that wishes to become a philosopher
at a cheap rate, easily gratifies his ambition by
submitting to poverty when he does not feel it,
and by boasting his contempt of riches when he has
already more than he enjoys. He who would shew
the extent of his views, and grandeur of his
conceptions, or discover his acquaintance with
splendour and magnificence, may talk like Cowley, of an
humble station and quiet obscurity, of the paucity
of nature's wants, and the inconveniences of superfluity,
and at last, like him, limit his desires to five
hundred pounds a year; a fortune, indeed, not
exuberant, when we compare it with the expenses of
pride and luxury, but to which it little becomes a
philosopher to affix the name of poverty, since no
man can, with any propriety, be termed poor, who
does not see the greater part of mankind richer
than himself.
As little is the general condition of human life
understood by the panegyrists and historians, who
amuse us with accounts of the poverty of heroes
and sages. Riches are of no value in themselves,
their use is discovered only in that which they
procure. They are not coveted, unless by narrow
understandings, which confound the means with the
end, but for the sake of power, influence, and
esteem; or, by some of less elevated and refined
sentiments, as necessary to sensual enjoyment.
The pleasures of luxury, many have, without
uncommon virtue, been able to despise, even when
affluence and idleness have concurred to tempt
them; and therefore he who feels nothing from
indigence but the want of gratifications which he
could not in any other condition make consistent
with innocence, has given no proof of eminent
patience. Esteem and influence every man desires,
but they are equally pleasing, and equally valuable,
by whatever means they are obtained; and whoever
has found the art of securing them without the help
of money, ought, in reality, to be accounted rich,
since he has all that riches can purchase to a wise
man. Cincinnatus, though he lived upon a few acres
cultivated by his own hand, was sufficiently removed
from all the evils generally comprehended
under the name of poverty, when his reputation
was such, that the voice of his country called him
from his farm to take absolute command into his
hand; nor was Diogenes much mortified by his
residence in a tub, where he was honoured with the
visit of Alexander the Great.
The same fallacy has conciliated veneration to the
religious orders. When we behold a man abdicating
the hope of terrestrial possessions, and precluding
himself, by an irrevocable vow, from the pursuit
and acquisition of all that his fellow-beings consider
as worthy of wishes and endeavours, we are
immediately struck with the purity, abstraction, and
firmness of his mind, and regard him as wholly
employed in securing the interests of futurity, and
devoid of any other care than to gain, at whatever
price, the surest passage to eternal rest.
Yet, what can the votary be justly said to have
lost of his present happiness? If he resides in a
convent, he converses only with men whose condition
is the same with his own; he has, from the munificence
of the founder, all the necessaries of life, and
is safe from that destitution, which Hooker declares
to be "such an impediment to virtue, as, till it be
removed, suffereth not the mind of man to admit
any other care." All temptations to envy and
competition are shut out from his retreat; he is not
pained with the sight of unattainable dignity, nor
insulted with the bluster of insolence, or the smile
of forced familiarity, If he wanders abroad, the
sanctity of his character amply compensates all other
distinctions; he is seldom seen but with reverence,
nor heard but with submission.
It has been remarked, that death, though often
defied in the field, seldom fails to terrify when it
approaches the bed of sickness in its natural horrour;
so poverty may easily be endured, while associated
with dignity and reputation, but will always be
shunned and dreaded, when it is accompanied with
ignominy and contempt.