ers that mankind are not yet convinced of their errour,
or that their conviction is without power to influence their conduct;
for poverty still continues to produce contempt, and still obstructs the
claims of kindred and of virtue. The eye of wealth is elevated towards
higher stations, and seldom descends to examine the actions of those who
are placed below the level of its notice, and who in distant regions and
lower situations are struggling with distress, or toiling for bread.
Among the multitudes overwhelmed with insuperable calamity, it is common
to find those whom a very little assistance would enable to support
themselves with decency, and who yet cannot obtain from near relations,
what they see hourly lavished in ostentation, luxury, or frolick.

There are natural reasons why poverty does not easily conciliate
affection. He that has been confined from his infancy to the
conversation of the lowest classes of mankind, must necessarily want
those accomplishments which are the usual means of attracting favour;
and though truth, fortitude, and probity, give an indisputable right to
reverence and kindness, they will not be distinguished by common eyes,
unless they are brightened by elegance of manners, but are cast aside
like unpolished gems, of which none but the artist knows the intrinsick
value, till their asperities are smoothed, and their incrustations
rubbed away.

The grossness of vulgar habits obstructs the efficacy of virtue, as
impurity and harshness of style impair the force of reason, and rugged
numbers turn off the mind from artifice of disposition, and fertility of
invention. Few have strength of reason to over-rule the perceptions of
sense; and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long
against the first impression; he therefore who fails to please in his
salutation and address, is at once rejected, and never obtains an
opportunity of shewing his latent excellencies, or essential qualities.

It is, indeed, not easy to prescribe a successful manner of approach to
the distressed or necessitous, whose condition subjects every kind of
behaviour equally to miscarriage. He whose confidence of merit incites
him to meet, without any apparent sense of inferiority, the eyes of
those who flattered themselves with their own dignity, is considered as
an insolent leveller, impatient of the just prerogatives of rank and
wealth, eager to usurp the station to which he has no right, and to
confound the su