1827.] On the Wani of Money. 43 



If I can live to think, and think to live, I am satisfied. Some want to 

 possess pictures, others to collect libraries. All I wish is, sometimes, 

 to see the one and read the other. Gray was mortified because he had 

 not a hundred pounds to bid for a curious library ; and the Duchess of 

 has immortalized herself by her liberality on that occasion, and 

 by the handsome compliment she addressed to the poet, that " if it 

 afforded him any satisfaction, she had been more than paid, by her 

 pleasure in reading the Elegy in a Country Church-yard." 



Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the world without 

 money. To be in want of money, is to pass through life with little 

 credit or pleasure ; it is to live out of the world, or to be despised if you 

 come into it ; it is not to be sent for to court, or asked out to dinner, 

 or noticed in the street ; it is not to have your opinion consulted or else 

 rejected with contempt, to have your acquirements carped at and 

 doubted, your good things disparaged, and at last to lose the wit and 

 the spirit to say them ; it is to be scrutinized by strangers, and neglected 

 by friends ; it is to be a thrall to circumstances, an exile in a foreign 

 land ; to forego leisure, freedom, ease of body and mind, to be dependent 

 on the good-will and caprice of others, or earn a precarious and irksome 

 livelihood by some laborious employment : it is to be compelled to stand 

 behind a counter, or to sit at a desk in some public office, or to marry 

 your landlady, or not the person you would wish ; or to go out to the 

 East or West-Indies, or to get a situation as judge abroad, and return 

 home with a liver-complaint ; or to be a law-stationer, or a scrivener or 

 scavenger, or newspaper reporter ; or to read law and sit in court with- 

 out a brief, or be deprived of the use of your fingers by transcribing 

 Greek manuscripts, or to be a seal engraver and pore yourself blind ; 

 or to go upon the stage, or try some of the Fine Arts ; with all your 

 pains, anxiety, and hopes, most probably to fail, or, if you succeed, after 

 the exertions of years, and undergoing constant distress of mind and 

 'fortune, to be assailed on every side with envy, back-biting, and false- 

 hood, or to be a favourite with the public for awhile, and then thrown 

 into the back-ground or a jail, by the fickleness of taste and some new 

 favourite; to be full of enthusiasm and extravagance in youth, of cha- 

 grin and disappointment in after-life ; to be jostled by the rabble 

 because you do not ride in your coach, or avoided by those who know 

 your worth and shrink from it as a claim on their respect or their purse; 

 to be a burden to your relations, or unable to do any thing for them ; 

 to be ashamed to venture into crowds ; to have cold comfort at home ; 

 to lose by degrees your confidence and any talent you might possess ; 

 to grow crabbed, morose, and querulous, dissatisfied with every one, 

 but most so with yourself; and plagued out of your life, to look about 

 for a place to die in, and quit the world without any one's asking after 

 your will. The wiseacres will possibly, however, crowd round your 

 coffin, and raise a monument at a considerable expense, and after a lapse 

 of time, to commemorate your genius and your misfortunes ! 



The only reason why I am disposed to envy the professions of the 

 church or army is, that men can afford to be poor in them without being 

 subjected to insult. A girl with a handsome fortune in a country town 

 may marry a poor lieutenant without degrading herself. An officer is 

 always a gentleman ; a clergyman is something more. Echard's book 

 On the Contempt of the Clergy is unfounded. It is surely sufficient for 

 any set of individuals, raised above actual want, that their characters 



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