B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows, "Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.

cheat; he was next banished Brussels, and drummed out of Ghent, on the same account. After a hundred tricks at the gaming-tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant interest and on great penalties, accumulating premium, interest, and capital, into a new capital, and seizing to a minute when the payments became due; in a word, by a constant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immense fortune. His house was a perpetual bawdy-house. He was twice condemned for rapes, and pardoned; but the last time not without imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He died in Scotland in 1731, aged 62. The populace at his funeral raised a great riot, almost tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, &c. into the grave along with it. The following epitaph contains ‘his character, very justly drawn by Dr. Arbuthnot:

HERE continueth to rot

The body of FRANCIS CHARTRES,
Who, with an INFLEXIBLE CONSTANCY,

and

INIMITABLE UNIFORMITY of life,
PERSISTED,

In spite of AGE and INFIRMITIES,
In the practice of EVERY HUMAN VICE,
Excepting PRODIGALITY and HYPOCRISY :
His insatiable AVARICE exempted him from the first,
His matchless IMPUDENCE from the second.
Nor was he more singular

in the undeviating pravity of his manners,
Than successful

in accumulating WEALTH;

For, without TRADE or PROFESSION,
Without TRUST of PUBLIC MONEY,
And without BRIBE-WORTHY service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A MINISTERIAL ESTATE.

He was the only person of his time
Who could CHEAT without the mask of HONESTY,
Retain his primeval MEANNESS

When possessed of TEN THOUSAND a year,

And having daily deserved the GIBBET for what he did,
Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.
Oh, indignant reader!

Think not his life useless to mankind!
PROVIDENCE connived at his execrable designs,
To give to after ages

A conspicuous PROOF and EXAMPLE,

Of how small estimation is EXORBITANT WEALTH
In the sight of GOD,

By his bestowing it on the most UNWORTHY OF ALL

MORTALS.

This gentleman was worth seven thousand pounds a year estate in land, and about one hundred thousand in money.

Mr. Waters, the third of these worthies, was a man no way resem

MORAL ESSAYS.

P. But how unequal it bestows, observe,
"Tis thus we riot, while, who sow it, starve:
What nature wants (a phrase I much distrust)
Extends to luxury, extends to lust:

Useful, I grant, it serves what life requires,
But dreadful too, the dark assassin hires.
B. Trade it may help, society extend.

P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend.
B. It raises armies in a nation's aid.

P. But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
In vain may heroes fight, and patriots rave;
If secret gold sap on from knave to knave.
Once, we confess, beneath the patriot's cloak,1
From the crack'd bag the dropping guinea spoke,
And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew,
"Old Cato is as great a rogue as you."
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings;2
A single leaf shall waft an army o'er,
Or ship off senates to a distant shore:3
A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow:
Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen,
And silent sells a king, or buys a queen.

Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see,
Still, as of old, encumber'd villany!

bling the former in his military, but extremely so in his civil capacity; his great fortune having been raised by the like diligent attendance on the necessities of others. But this gentleman's history must be deferred till his death, when his worth may be known more certainly.

1 This is a true story, which happened in the reign of William III. to an unsuspected old patriot, who coming out at the back-door from having been closeted by the king, where he had received a large bag of guineas, the bursting of the bag discovered his business there.

2 In our author's time, many princes had been sent about the world, and great changes of kings projected in Europe. The partition treaty had disposed of Spain; France had set up a king for England, who was sent to Scotland, and back again; King Stanislaus was sent to Poland, and back again; the Duke of Anjou was sent to Spain, and Don Carlos to Italy.

3 Alludes to several ministers, counsellors, and patriots, banished in our times to Siberia, and to that MORE GLORIOUS FATE of the PARLIAMENT of PARIS, banished to Pontoise in the year 1720.

Could France or Rome divert our brave. designs,
With all their brandies or with all their wines?
What could they more than knights and squires
confound,

Or water all the quorum ten miles round?

A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!
Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levee roar."

Poor avarice one torment more would find;
Nor could profusion squander all in kind.
Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet
And Worldly crying coals from street to street;1
Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed.
Had Colepepper's2 whole wealth been hops and hogs,
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?
His grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heels and with a butting head.
To White's be carried, as to ancient games,
Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home six whores, and make his lady weep?
Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine,
Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?

O filthy check on all industrious skill,

To spoil the nation's last great trade, quadrille!

Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall,

What say you? B. Say? Why take it, gold and all.

P. What riches give us let us then inquire:

Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, clothes, and fire.

1 Some misers of great wealth, proprietors of the coal mines, had entered at this time into an association to keep up coals to an extravagant price, whereby the poor were reduced almost to starve; till one of them, Saking the advantage of underselling the rest, defeated the design. Öne of these misers was worth ten thousand, another seven thousand a year.

2 Sir William Colepepper, Bart., a person of an ancient family and ample fortune, without one other quality of a gentleman, who, after ruining himself at the gaming-table, passed the rest of his days in sitting there to see the ruin of others; preferring to subsist upon borrowing and begging, rather than to enter into any reputable method of life, and refusing a post in the army, which was offered him.

Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner1 finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton,2 waking, found at last!
What can they give? to dying Hopkins,3 heirs
To Chartres, vigour; Japhet, nose and ears?
Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow,
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below:
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,

With all the embroidery plaster'd at thy tail?
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend;
Or find some doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife:
But thousands die, without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college, or a cat.5

To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate,
To enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.

1 One who, being possessed af three hundred thousand pounds, laid down his coach, because interest was reduced from five to four per cent., and then put seventy thousand into the charitable corporation for better interest; which sum having lost, he took it so much to heart, that he kept his chamber ever after. It is thought he would not have outlived it, but that he was heir to another considerable estate, which he daily expected, and that by this course of life he saved both clothes and all other expenses.

2 A nobleman of great qualities, but as unfortunate in the application of them, as if they had been vices and follies. See his character in the first epistle.

3 A citizen, whose rapacity obtained him the name of Fulture Hopkins. He lived worthless, but died worth three hundred thousand pounds, which he would give to no person living, but left it so as not to be inherited till after the second generation. His counsel representing to him how many years it must be before this could take effect, and that his money could only lie at interest all that time, he expressed great joy thereat, and said, "They would then be as long in spending, as he had been in getting it." But the chancery afterwards set aside the will and gave`it to the heir-at-law.

4 Japhet Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, was punished with the loss of those parts, for having forged a conveyance of an estate to himself, upon which he took up several thousand pounds. He was at the same time sued in chancery for having fraudulently obtained a will, by which he possessed another considerable estate, in wrong of the brother of the deceased. By these means he was worth a great sum, which (in reward for the small loss of his ears) he enjoyed in prison till his death, and quietly left to his executor.

5 A certain duchess in her last will left considerable legacies and annuities to her cats.

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor,' and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule

That every man in want is knave or fool:
"God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes)
The wretch he starves" and piously denies:
But the good bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.
Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,
Each does but hate his neighbour as himself:
Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides
The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.
B. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own,
Must act on motives powerful, though unknown.
P. Some war, some plague, or famine, they foresee,
Some revelation hid from you and me.

Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found,
He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound.
What made directors cheat in South-Sea year?
To live on venison when it sold so dear.

Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?
Phryne foresees a general excise.2

Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum ?
Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

Wise Peter3 sees the world's respect for gold,
And therefore hopes this nation may be sold:

1 This epistle was written in the year 1730, when a corporation was established to lend money to the poor upon pledges, by the name of the Charitable Corporation; but the whole was turned only to an iniquitous method of enriching particular people, to the ruin of such numbers, that it became a parliamentary concern to endeavour the relief of those unhappy sufferers; and three of the managers, who were members of the House, were expelled. By the report of the Committee appointed to inquire into that iniquitous affair, it appears, that when it was objected to the intended removal of the office, that the poor, for whose use it was erected, would be hurt by it, Bond, one of the directors, replied, Damn the poor! That "God hates the poor," and, "that every man in want is either knave or fool," &c., were the genuine apophthegms of some of the persons here mentioned.

2 Many people, about the year 1733, had a conceit that such a thing was intended, of which it is not improbable this lady might have some intimation.

3 Peter Walter, a person not only eminent in the wisdom of his profession, as a dexterous attorney, but allowed to be a good, if not a safe, conveyancer; extremely respected by the nobility of this land, though free from all manner of luxury and ostentation: his wealth was never