Your Covetous Churl is Undoubtedly the most Miserable of Beggars; the
more he _Has_, the more he _Wants_; Beside that, he wants what he
_Has_ too; for ’tis lost to all Intents and Purposes, when neither he
Himself, nor any Body else is the Better for’t. He Pines and Watches
himself to Death, for fear of losing that which he only Fancies that
he has; or which is the same thing, that which he has not the Heart to
Use. All this, says the _Dragon_, I suffer, because I’m Doom’d to’t,
which tells us most _Emphatically_, that an Anxiety of Mind is a Just
Judgment upon a Man for Delivering himself up to so Sordid an Appetite.
We must not understand the _Dragon_ here to be Condemn’d to this Misery
by the Fatality of any Inevitable Decree; but in these Cases, Custom and
Corruption, superinduce upon us a kind of Necessity of going on as we
begun.