history opens, representing a scene crowded with all the monuments
of avarice, and laying before us a most beautiful contrast, such as is
too general in the world, to pass unobserved; nothing being more common
than for a son to prodigally squander away that substance his father
had, with anxious solicitude, his whole life been amassing.--Here, we
see the young heir, at the age of nineteen or twenty, raw from the
University, just arrived at home, upon the death of his father. Eager to
know the possessions he is master of, the old wardrobes, where things
have been rotting time out of mind, are instantly wrenched open; the
strong chests are unlocked; the parchments, those securities of treble
interest, on which this avaricious monster lent his money, tumbled out;
and the bags of gold, which had long been hoarded, with griping care,
now exposed to the pilfering hands of those about him. To explain every
little mark of usury and covetousness, such as the mortgages, bonds,
indentures, &c. the piece of candle stuck on a save-all, on the
mantle-piece; the rotten furniture of the room, and the miserable
contents of the dusty wardrobe, would be unnecessary: we shall only
notice the more striking articles. From the vast quantity of papers,
falls an old written journal, where, among other memorandums, we find
the following, viz. "May the 5th, 1721. Put off my bad shilling." Hence,
we learn, the store this penurious miser set on this trifle: that so
penurious is the disposition of the miser, that notwithstanding he may
be possessed of many large bags of gold, the fear of losing a single
shilling is a continual trouble to him. In one part of the room, a man
is hanging it with black cloth, on which are placed escutcheons, by way
of dreary ornament; these escutcheons contain the arms of the covetous,
_viz._ three vices, hard screwed, with the motto, "BEWARE!" On the
floor, lie a pair of old shoes, which this sordid wretch is supposed to
have long preserved for the weight of iron in the nails, and has been
soling with leather cut from the covers of an old Family Bible; an
excellent piece of satire, intimating, that such men would sacrifice
even their God to the lust of money. From these and some other objects
too striking to pass unnoticed, such as the gold falling from the
breaking cornice; the jack and spit, those utensils of original
hospitality, locked up, through fear of being used; the clean and empty
chimney, in which a fire is jus