146 THE BEE, OR Jan. 26. 



Preliminary Addrefs io the Pennfylvania Alma- 

 nack, intifled Poor Richard's Almanack, for 

 the year 1758, printed at Philadelphia, con- 

 tinued from page 1 09 . 



JljLeRE you are all got together at this fale of fineries and 

 nicknacks. You call them goods ; but if you do not take 

 care, they will prove evils to fome of you. You expeft they 

 will be fold clieap. and perhaps they may for lefs than they 

 cofl ; but if you have no occafion for them, they muft be 

 dear to you. Remember what poor Richard fays, " Buy 

 what thou haft no need of, and 'ere long thou fhalt fell thy 

 iiecefTaries." And again, " At a great pennyworth paufe 

 a while." He means, that perhaps the cheapnefs is apparent 

 only, and°not real ; or the bargain, by ftraitening thee in thy 

 bufinefs, may do thee more harm than good. For in another 

 place he fays, " Many have been ruined by buying good 

 pennyworths." Again poor Richard fays, " It is foolifh to lay 

 out money in a purchafe of repentance ;" and yet this folly 

 is practifed every day at auflions, for want of minding the 

 Almanack. " V/ife men (as poor Dick fays) learn by others 

 Itarms, fools fcarcely by their own ; but Felix quern faciunt 

 aliena pericula cautiim." Many a one, for the fake of fi- 

 nery on the back, have gone with a hungiy belly, and half 

 flarved their families; '•'■Silk and fattins, fcarlet and vel- 

 vets, (as poor Richard fays) put out the kitchen fire." Thefe 

 are not the necefTaries of life ; they can fcarcely be called 

 the conveniencies ; and yet only becaufe they look pretty, 

 how many want to have them ? The artificial wants of man- 

 kind thus become more numerous than the natural ; and, 

 as poor Dick fays, " For one poor perfon, «:here are an hun- 

 dred indigent." By thefe, and other extravagancies, the 

 genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of thofe 

 whom they formerly defpifed, but who, through induflry 

 and frugality, have maintained their ftanding; in which 

 cafe, it appears plainly, "• A ploughman on his legs is high- 

 er t'lan a^entleman on his knees," as poor Richard fays. 

 Perhaps they have had a fmall eftate left them, wiiich they 

 knew not the getting of; they think " It is day, and will 

 never be ni^ht;" that a little to be fpent out of io much, is 



