that he
retrenched the superfluities in his own way of living, in order to
preserve the power of assisting his fellow-creatures in distress.
Numberless were the objects to which he extended his charity in private.
Indeed, he exerted this virtue in secret, not only on account of
avoiding the charge of ostentation, but also because he was ashamed
of being detected in such an awkward unfashionable practice, by the
censorious observers of this humane generation. In this particular, he
seemed to confound the ideas of virtue and vice; for he did good, as
other people do evil, by stealth; and was so capricious in point of
behaviour, that frequently, in public, he wagged his tongue in satirical
animadversions upon that poverty which his hand had in private
relieved. Yet, far from shunning the acquaintance, or discouraging the
solicitation of those who, he thought, wanted his assistance, he
was always accessible, open, and complaisant to them, even when the
haughtiness of his temper kept his superiors at a distance; and often
saved a modest man the anguish and confusion of declaring himself, by
penetrating into his necessity, and anticipating his request, in a
frank offer of his purse and friendship. Not that he practised this
beneficence to all the needy of his acquaintance without distinction;
there is always a set of idle profligate fellows, who, having squandered
away their own fortunes, and conquered all sense of honour and shame,
maintain themselves by borrowing from those who have not yet finished
the same career, and want resolution to resist their importunate
demands. To these he was always inflexible; though he could not
absolutely detach himself from their company, because, by dint of
effrontery, and such of their original connections as they have been
able to retain, they find admission to all places of fashionable resort.

Several unsuccessful attacks had been made upon his pocket by beggars of
this class. One of the most artful of them, having one day joined him
in the Mall, and made the usual observation on the weather, d--d all
the fogs of London, and began a dissertation on the difference of air,
preferring that of the country in which he was born to any climate under
the sun. "Were you ever in Gloucestershire?" said he to Peregrine; who
replying in the negative, he thus went on: "I have got a house there,
where I should be glad to see you. Let us go down together during the
Easter holidays; I can promise you g