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The all-sweeping besoof societariaion -- your only dern Alcides club to rid the ti of its abuses -- is uplift with ny-handed sway to etirpate the st fluttering tatters of the bugbear Mendicity frothe tropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags -- staes, dogs, and crutches ;big;/big-- the whole ndit fraternity with all their baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleenth persecution. Frothe crowded crossing, frothe ers of streets and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is quot;with sighi.quot;
I do not approe of this wholesale going to work, this ierti crusado, or belluad eternatione procid against a species. Muight be sucked frothese Beggars.
They were the oldest and the honourablest forof pauperis Their appeals were to our on nature; less reoing to an ingenuous nd than to be a suppliant to the particur huurs or caprice of any fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. Theirs were the only rates uninidious in the ley, ungrudged in the assessnt.
There was a dignity springing frothe ery depth of their desotion; as to be naked is to be so earer to the being a n, than to go in liery.
The greatest spirits hae fe this in their reerses; and when Dionysius froking turned saster, do we feel any thing towards hibut pt? uld Vandyke hae de a picture of hi swaying a feru for a sceptre, which would hae affected our nds with the sa heroic pity, the sa passionate adration, with whic;bdo;/bdoh we regard his Belisarius begging for an obolu Would the ral hae been aceful, re pathetic?
The Blind Beggar in the legend -- the father of pretty Bessy -- whose story doggrel rhys and ale-house signs ot so degrade nor attenuate, but that so sparks of a lustrous spirit will shihrough the disguisents -- this noble Earl of wall (as indeed he was) and rable sport of fortune, fleeing frothe unjust sentence of his liege lord, stript of all, aed on the fl green of Bethnal, with his re fresh and springing daughter by his side, illuning his rags and his beggary -- would the child and parent hae cut a better figure, doing the honours of a ter, or epiating their fallen dition upohree-foot enence of so sestering shop-board?
In tale or histar is eer the just antipode to your King. The poets and roncical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would call the when they would st sharply and feelingly paint a reerse of fortune, op till they hae brought down their hero in good ears and the wallet. The depth of the dest illustrates the height he falls fro There is no diuwhibsp; be preseo the igination without offehere is no breaking the fall. Lear, thrown frohis pace, st diest hiof his garnts, till he answer quot;re nature;quot; and Cresseid, fallen froa princes loe, st etend her pale ar, pale with other whitehan of beauty, supplig zar al with bell and cp-dish.
The Lu wits khis ery well; and, with a erse policy, when they would epress s of greatness without the pity, they show us an Aleander in the shadebbling shoes, or a Seras getting up foul linen.
How would it sound in song, that a great narch had deed his affes upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the igination at all ioted when we read the quot;true bald,quot; where King phetua wooes the beggar id?
Pauperis pauper, poor n, are epressions of pity, but pity alloyed with pt. No one properly ns a beggar. Poerty is a paratie thing, and each degree of it is cked by its quot;neighbrice.quot; Its poor rents and ings-in are soon sued up and told. Its preteo property are alst ludicrous. Its pitiful attets to sae ecite a sle. Eery sful panion gh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor n reproaches poor s with iolitition of his dition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally paratie insus a Beggar, or thinks of ghing purses with hi He is not in the scale of parison. He is not uhe asure of property. He fessedly hath none, ahan a dog or a sheep. No owitteth hiwith ostentation aboe his ans. No one auses hiof pride, or upbraideth hiwith ck hulity. None jostle with hifor the wall, or pick quarrels for preo weahy neighbour seeketh to eject hifrohis te. No n sues hi No o w with hi If I were not the indepe gehat I a rather than I would be a retaio the great, a led captain, or a poor retion, I would choose, out of the delicad true greatness of nd, to be a Beggar.
Rags, which are the reproach of poerty, are the Beggars robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is epected to show hielf in public. He is neer out of the fashion, or lieth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put ourt He weareth allours, fearing none. His e hath undergone less ge than the quakers. He is the only n in the unierse who is not obliged to study appearahe ups and downs of the world hino longer. He aloih iay. The price of stock or nd affecteth hinot. The fluctuations of agricuural or ercial prosperity touch hinot, or at worst but ge his ers. He is ed to bee bail or surety for any one. No n troubleth hiwith questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free n in the unierse.
The Mendits of this great city were so ny of her sights, her lions. I o re spare then, than uld the Cries of London. No er of a street is plete without the They are as indispensable as the Bald Singer; and in their picturesque attire as oral as the Signs of old London. They were the standing rals, ele, ntos, dial-ttos, the spital serns, the books for children, the salutary checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry -
--- Look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there.
Aboe all, those old blind Tobits that used to lihe wall of Lins Inn Garden, before dern fastidiousness had epelled the casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible) of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet, -- whither are they fled? or into what ers, blind as theeles, hae they been drien, out of the wholeso air and sun-warh? iersed between four walls, in what withering poor-house do they ehe penay of double darkness, where the k of the dropt halfpenny no re soles their forlorn bereaent, far frothe sound of the cheerful and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless staes? and who will fartheir dogs Hae the oerseers of St. L --- caused theto be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into the Thas, at the suggestion of B--- , the ld rector of -- -?
Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vi Bour cssical, and at the sa ti, st English, of the Latinists -- who has treated of this hun and quadrupedal alliahis dog and n friendship, in the sweetest of his poe, the Epitaphiuin e or, Dogs Epitaph. Reader, peruse it; and say, if ary sights, whiculd call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do re harood to the ral sense of the passengers ;bdi;/bdithrough the daily thhfares of a ast and busy tropolis.
Pauperis hic iri requi Lyciscus, he９９ｌib?rilis,
Duii, tute igil enque seae,
Du c fidus: nebsp; dute, solebat,
Praetenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua lo
Iaeplorare ia sed fi secutus,
Quae dubierent passus, estigia tuta
Fiit inoffenso gressu; geliduue sedile
In nudo nactus sao, qua praetereuntiubr /&
Unda frequens fluit, ibi serisque tenebras
Lantis, nocteue oculis plorait oborta
Plorait nec frustr oboludedit aer et aer,
Queirda et ntei natura benigna
Ad tus interea jacui sopitus herile,
Vel diis igil in sois; ad herilia jussa
Auresque atque aniarrectus, seu frustu ace
Porreit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei
Taedia perpessus, reditusub nocte parabat.
Hi res, haec ita fuit, dufata si,
Duneque nguebarbis, e se
Quae tandeobrepsit, eterique satellite cascubr /&
Orbait donuprisci sed gratia facti
a i, longos deleta per annos,
Eiguuhunc Irus tulude cespite fecit,
Etsi inopis, non ingratae, nuscu detrae;
e signaitque brei, donuue eue
Quod ret, fiduue edonuue benignu
Poor Irus faithful wolf-dog here I lie,
That wont to tend ;bdo..;/bdoy old blind sters steps,
His guide and guard: nor, while serice sted,
Had he oasion for that staff, with which
He now goes pig out his path in fear
Oer the highways and crossings; but would pnt,
Safe in the duy friendly string,
A firfoot forward still, till he had reachd
His poor seat on so stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers by in thickest fluence flowd:
To whowith loud and passios
Frorn to ee his dark estate he waild.
Nor waild to all in ain: so here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gae.
I a his feet obsequious slept;
Not all-asleep in sleep, hut heart and ear
Prickd up at his least tion; to receie
At his kind hand ary cru,
And on portion in his feast of scraps;
Or when night warnd us howard, tired and spent
With our long day and tedious beggary.
These were nners, this way of life,
Till age and slow disease oertook,
And seerd fro sightless sters side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in te obliion lost,
This sleo of turf hath Irus reared,
Cheap of no ungrudging hand,
And with short erse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and sting union to attest,
The irtues of the Beggar and his Dog.
These dieyes hae in ain eplored for so nths past a well-known figure, or part of the figure, of a n, who used to glide his ely upper half oer the paents of London, wheeling along with st ingenious celerity upon a e of wood; a spectacle to ners, and to children. He was of a robust ke, with a florid sailor-like pleion, and his head was bare to the storand sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a specution to the stific, a prodigy to the sile. The infant would stare at the ghty n brought down to his owhe on cripple would despise his own pusilnity, iewing the hale stoutness, ay heart, of this half-lied giant. Few but st hae noticed hi for the act, which brought hilow, took pce during the riots of 1780, and he has been a groundling so long. He seed earth-born, an Anteus, and to su fresh igour frothe soil which he neighboured. He was a grand fragnt; as good as an Elgin rble. The nature, which should hae recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a trendous oice thundering and growling, as before ahquake, and casting down eyes, it was this ndrake reiling a steed that had started at his portentous appearance. He seed to want but his just stature to hae rent the offending quadruped in shiers. He was as the n-part of a taur, frowhich the horse-half had been in so dire Lapithan troersy. He ed on, as if huld hae de shift with yet half of the body- portion which was left hi The os subli was not wanting; ahrew out yet a jolly tenance upon the heaens. Forty-and-two years had he drien this out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the serice, but his good spirits no way iaired, because he is not tent to ege his free air and eercise for the restraints of a poor-house, he is epiating his a one of those houses (ironically christened) of rre.
Was a daily spectacle like this to be deed a nuisance, which called fal interfereo ree? or not rather a salutary and a toug object, to the passers-by in a great city? -- Ang her shows, her seu, and supplies for eer-gaping curiosity (and what else but an aution of sights -- endless sights -- is a great city; or for what else is it desirable?) was there not roofor one Lusus (not Naturae, indeed, but) Actiu What if in forty-and-two years going about, the n had scraped together enough to gie a portion to his child (as the ruur ran) of a few hundreds -- whohad he injured ? -- whohad he iosed upon? The tributors had eheir sight for their pennies. What if after being eposed all day to the heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaen -- shuffling his ungainly trunk along in an eborate and painful tion -- he was eo retire at night to enjoy hielf at a club of his fellow cripples oer a dish of hot at aables, as the charge was graely brought against hiby a clergyn deposing before a House of ons ittee -- was this, or was his truly paternal sideration, which (if a fact) desered a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is insistent at least with the eaggeration of noal ies which he has been sndered with -- a reason that he should be depried of his chosen, haress, nay edifying, way of life, aed in he for a sturdy agabond? --
There was a Yorice, whoit would not hae shad to hae sate down at the cripples feast, and to hae thrown in his beion, ay, and his te too, for a panionable syol. quot;Age, thou hast lost thy breed.quot; -
Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes de by begging are (I erily beliee) sers caluies. One was ch talked of in the public papers so ti since, and the usual charitable inferences deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the annou of a fie hundred pound legacy left hiby a person whose na he was a strao. It see that in his daily walks froPeckha(or so ilge thereabouts) where he lied, to his office, it had been his practice for the st twenty years to drop his halfpenny duly into the hat of so blind Bartius, that sate begging al by the way-side in the Bh. The good old beggar reised his daily beor by the oily; and, when be died, left all the assings of his al (that [p 120] had been half a tury perhaps iing) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up peoples hearts, and pennies, against giing an ai to the blind ? -- or not rather a beautiful ral of well-directed charity on the one part, and noble gratitude upoher?
I sotis wish I had been that Bank clerk.
I seeto reer a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, and looking up with his no eyes in the sun --
Is it possible uld hae steeled  urse against hi
Perhaps I had no sll ge.
Reader, do not be frighte the hard words, iosition, iosture -- gie, and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upoers. So hae unawares (like this Bank clerk) eained angels.
Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sotis. When a poor creature (outwardly and isibly such) es before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the quot;seen sll children,quot; in whose na he ilores thy assistance, hae a eritable eistence. Rake not into the bowels of uruth, to sae a halfpenny. It is good to beliee hi If he be not all that he preteh, gie, and under a persoher of a faly, think (if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieed an i bachelor. When they e with their terfeit looks, and ing tohink thepyers. You pay your o see a edian feighings, which, ing these poor people, thou st not certainly tell whether they are feigned or not.
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