t relation; and in a
few weeks became insane from the fear of poverty, lamenting that he should
die in a jail or workhouse. He had left off a laborious country business,
and the daily perception of profit in his books; he also now saw greater
expences going forwards in his new house, than he had been accustomed to
observe, and did not so distinctly see the source of supply; which seems to
have occasioned the maniacal hallucination.--This idea of approaching
poverty is a very frequent and very painful disease, so as to have induced
many to become suicides, who were in good circumstances; more perhaps than
any other maniacal hallucination, except the fear of hell.

The covetousness of age is more liable to affect single men, than those who
have families; though an accumulation of wealth would seem to be more
desirable to the latter. But an old man in the former situation, has no
personal connections to induce him to open his purse; and having lost the
friends of his youth, and not easily acquiring new ones, feels himself
alone in the world; feels himself unprotected, as his strength declines,
and is thus led to depend for assistance on money, and on that account
wishes to accumulate it. Whereas the father of a family has not only those
connections, which demand the frequent expenditure of money, but feels a
consolation in the friendship of his children, when age may render their
good offices necessary to him.

M. M. I have been well informed of a medical person in good circumstances
in London, who always carries an account of his affairs, as debtor and
creditor, in his pocket-book; and looks over it frequently in a day, when
this disease returns upon him; and thus, by counteracting the maniacal
hallucination, wisely prevents the increase of his insanity. Another
medical person, in London, is said to have cured himself of this disease by
studying mathematics with great attention; which exertions of the mind
relieved the pain of the maniacal hallucination.

Many moral writers have stigmatised this insanity; the covetous, they say,
commit crimes and mortify themselves without hopes of reward; and thus
become miserable both in this world and the next. Thus Juvenal:

Cum furor haud dubius, cum sit manifesta phrenitis,
Ut locuples moriaris, egenti vivere fato!

The covetous man thought he gave good advice to the spendthrift, when he
said, "Live like me," who well answered him,

----------"Like you, Sir John?
"That