housand gunshots,
fired at not move than ten paces off."

The Duke of Marlborough often faced death. He became rich, and left a
million and a half to his descendants to squander. The Duke was a
penurious man. He is said to have scolded his servant for lighting four
candles in his tent, when Prince Eugene called upon him to hold a
conference before the battle of Blenheim. Swift said of the Duke, "I
dare hold a wager that in all his compaigns he was never known to lose
his baggage." But this merely showed his consummate generalship. When
ill and feeble at Bath, he is said to have walked home from the rooms to
his lodgings, to save sixpence. And yet this may be excused, for he may
have walked home for exercise. He is certainly known to have given a
thousand pounds to a young and deserving soldier who wished to purchase
a commission. When Bolingbroke was reminded of one of the weaknesses of
Marlborough, he observed, "He was so great a man, that I forgot that he
had that defect."

It is no disgrace to be poor. The praise of honest poverty has often
been sung. When a man will not stoop to do wrong, when he will not sell
himself for money, when he will not do a dishonest act, then his poverty
is most honourable. But the man is not poor who can pay his way, and
save something besides. He who pays cash for all that he purchases, is
not poor but well off. He is in a happier condition than the idle
gentleman who runs into debt, and is clothed, shod, and fed at the
expense of his tailor, shoemaker, and butcher. Montesquieu says, that a
man is not poor because he has nothing, but he is poor when he will not
or cannot work. The man who is able and willing to work, is better off
than the man who possesses a thousand crowns without the necessity for
working.

Nothing sharpens a man's wits like poverty. Hence many of the greatest
men have originally been poor men. Poverty often purifies and braces a
man's morals. To spirited people, difficult tasks are usually the most
delightful ones. If we may rely upon the testimony of history, men are
brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not in proportion to their wealth, but
in proportion to their smallness of means. And the best are often the
poorest,--always supposing that they have sufficient to meet their
temporal wants. A divine has said that God has created poverty, but He
has not created misery. And there is certainly a great difference
between the two. While honest poverty is honourable, mi