J06 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



I once flopped, with admiration, to contem*- 

 plate a poor mendicant, feated on a poft, in the 

 rue Bergère, near the Boulevards. A great many 

 well-drefled people pafTed by, without giving him 

 any thing ; but there were very few fervant- girls, 

 or women loaded with baflcets, who did not flop 

 to beftow their charity. He wore a well-powdered 

 peruque, with his hat under his arm, was dreffed 

 in a furtout, his linen white and clean, and every 

 article To trim, that you would have thought thefe 

 poor people were receiving alms from him, and 

 not giving them. It is impoffible, affuredly, to 

 refer this fentiment of generofity in the common 

 people to any fecret fuggeflion of felf-intereft, as 

 the enemies of mankind allege, in taking upon 

 them to explain the caufes of compaffion. No 

 one of thofe poor benefaélrefles thought of putting 

 herfelf in the place of the unfortunate mendicant, 

 who, it was faid, had been a watchmaker, and had 

 loft his eye-fight ; but they were moved by that 

 fublime inftinft which intercfts us more in the di- 

 ftreffes of the Great, than in thofe of other men ; 

 becaufe we eftimate the m.agnitude of their fufFer- 

 ings by the ftandard of their elevation, and of the 

 fall from it. A blind watchmaker was a Bclifarius 

 in the eyes of fervant- maids. 



1 Ihould never have done, were Î to indulge my- 

 felf in detailing anecdotes of this fort. They would 



be 



