XXX INTRODUCTION. 



Few opulent country gentlemen are fo furrounded by 

 grandeur, but that within their neighbourhoods, and fome- 

 times on their own eftates, they have to pafs the abodes of 

 poverty, rendered pitiable by incommodious and wretched 

 buildings — the fight of which is at once difguflful to the 

 eye, and difcreditable to their owners, in proportion as they 

 have the power of improvement. I ufe no flronger word 

 than difcreditable^ becaufe I cannot fuppofe that in general 

 the defefl arifes fo much from wilful want of kindnefs, or 

 of good policy, as of habitual attention to the fubjecl. So 

 frequent are the inflances of gentlemen fuffering themfelves 

 to be drawn eafiiy into unnecelTary expences, on trivial oc- 

 calion?, or for trivial objects — fo common their indifference 

 to opportunities of emolument, far beyond the expence of 

 a new cottage, — that their negle6l of fuch improvements, 

 mufi be attributed to other caufes than covetoufncfi ; — nor 

 will pride and difdain account for it. It feems to have been 

 confidered as a thing of courfe, (fo far as it has been con- 

 fiiltred at all) that poverty of circumftances, and incommo- 

 dious liabitation, are in neceffary connection. But a little 

 refle'Uon may convince an ingenuous mind that, though to 

 a certain degree, poverty of circumftanc^s be neceflary in 

 the laborious clalTes, and is no moral or political evil, yet 

 decency at leaft is defirable in all our fellow -creatures — and 

 that in proportion to the general decency of fervants and 

 dependents, is their general ufefulnefs in their feveral fta- 

 tions. No reafoning man expcv.ts in an equal degree thofe 

 ufeful qualities, and that coaifort, from taking as in- 

 mates into his houfe, fervants who have been in habits of 

 dirty living, or who have not attained practical notions of 

 cleanlinefs and decorum; as from fervants of different 



habits 



