ustice upon
such as brought poverty and distress upon the world below them, while
they themselves were sunk in pleasures and luxury, supported at the
expense of those very persons whom they treated with a negligence, as
if they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a
very heavy accusation, both of me and such as the man aggrieved accuses
me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into
consideration, and upon very little meditation could call to my memory
many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The
root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of
figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in
being unacquainted with their own business, not considering how mean a
part they act when their names and characters are subjected to the
little arts of their servants and dependants. The overseers of the poor
are a people who have no great reputation for the discharge of their
trust, but are much less scandalous than the overseers of the rich. Ask
a young fellow of a great estate, who was that odd fellow spoke to him
in a public place? He answers, "One that does my business." It is, with
many, a natural consequence of being a man of fortune, that they are not
to understand the disposal of it; and they long to come to their
estates, only to put themselves under new guardianship. Nay, I have
known a young fellow who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very
expert one till he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that
happened, he who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon
his own, and was so sharp, that a man at first sight would give him a
small sum for a general receipt, whether he owed him anything or not:
such a one, I say, have I seen, upon coming to an estate, forget all his
diffidence of mankind, and become the most manageable thing breathing.
He immediately wanted a stirring man to take upon him his affairs, to
receive and pay, and do everything which he himself was now too fine a
gentleman to understand. It is pleasant to consider, that he who would
have got an estate had he not come to one, will certainly starve
because one fell to him: but such contradictions are we to ourselves,
and any change of life is insupportable to some natures.

It is a mistaken sense of superiority, to believe a figure or equipage
gives men precedence to their neighbours. Nothing can create respect
from mankind,