Complete.

WHEN we consider the offices of human life, there is, methinks, something in what we ordinarily call generosity; which, when carefully examined, seems to flow rather from a loose and unguarded temper than an honest and liberal mind. For this reason it is absolutely necessary that all liberality should have for its basis and support, frugality. By this means the beneficent spirit works in a man from the convictions of reason, not from the impulses of passion. The generous man in the ordinary acceptation, without respect to the demands of his own family, will soon find upon the foot of his account that he has sacrificed to fools, knaves, flatterers, or the deservedly unhappy, all the opportunities of affording any future assistance where it ought to be. Let him therefore reflect that, if to bestow be in itself laudable, should not a man take care to secure an ability to do things praiseworthy as long as he lives? Or could there be a more cruel piece of raillery upon a man who should have reduced his fortune below the capacity of acting according to his natural temper than to say of him, “That gentleman was generous”? My beloved author therefore has, in the sentence on the top of my paper, turned his eye with a certain satiety from beholding the addresses to the people by largesses and public entertainments, which he asserts to be in general vicious, and are always to be regulated according to the circumstances of time and a man’s own fortune. A constant benignity in commerce with the rest of the world, which ought to run through all a man’s actions, has effects more useful to those whom you oblige, and is less ostentatious in yourself. He turns his recommendation of this virtue on commercial life; and, according to him, a citizen who is frank in his kindnesses, and abhors severity in his demands; he who, in buying, selling, lending, doing acts of good neighborhood, is just and easy; he who appears naturally averse to disputes, and above the sense of little sufferings—bears a nobler character, and does much more good to mankind than any other man’s fortune, without commerce, can possibly support. For the citizen, above all other men, has opportunities of arriving at “that highest fruit of wealth,” to be liberal without the least expense of a man’s own fortune. It is not to be denied but such a practice is liable to hazard; but this therefore adds to the obligation that, among traders, he who obliges is as much concerned to keep the favor a secret as he who receives it. The unhappy distinctions among us in England are so great that to celebrate the intercourse of commercial friendship, with which I am daily made acquainted, would be to raise the virtuous man so many enemies of the contrary party. I am obliged to conceal all I know of “Tom the Bounteous,” who lends at the ordinary interest, to give men of less fortune opportunities of making greater advantages. He conceals, under a rough air and distant behavior, a bleeding compassion and womanish tenderness. This is governed by the most exact circumspection, that there is no industry wanting in the person whom he is to serve, and that he is guilty of no improper expenses. This I know of Tom; but who dare say it of so known a Tory? The same care I was forced to use some time ago in the report of another’s virtue, and said fifty instead of a hundred, because the man I pointed at was a Whig. Actions of this kind are popular, without being invidious; for every man of ordinary circumstances looks upon a man who has this known benignity in his nature as a person ready to be his friend upon such terms as he ought to expect it; and the wealthy who may envy such a character can do no injury to its interests but by the imitation of it, in which the good citizens will rejoice to be rivaled. I know not how to form to myself a greater idea of human life than in what is the practice of some wealthy men whom I could name, that make no step to the improvement of their own fortunes wherein they do not also advance those of other men who would languish in poverty without that munificence. In a nation where there are so many public funds to be supported, I know not whether he can be called a good subject who does not embark some part of his fortune with the state, to whose vigilance he owes the security of the whole. This certainly is an immediate way of laying an obligation upon many, and extending your benignity the furthest a man can possibly who is not engaged in commerce. But he who trades, besides giving the state some part of this sort of credit he gives his banker, may, in all the occurrences of his life, have his eye upon removing want from the door of the industrious, and defending the unhappy upright man from bankruptcy. Without this benignity, pride or vengeance will precipitate a man to choose the receipt of half his demands from one whom he has undone, rather than the whole from one to whom he has shown mercy. This benignity is essential to the character of a fair trader, and any man who designs to enjoy his wealth with honor and self-satisfaction; nay, it would not be hard to maintain that the practice of supporting good and industrious men would carry a man further even to his profit than indulging the propensity of serving and obliging the fortunate. My author argues on this subject in order to incline men’s minds to those who want them most, after this manner: “We must always consider the nature of things, and govern ourselves accordingly. The wealthy man, when he has repaid you, is upon a balance with you; but the person whom you favored with a loan, if he be a good man, will think himself in your debt after he has paid you. The wealthy and the conspicuous are not obliged by the benefits you do them; they think they conferred a benefit when they received one. Your good offices are always suspected, and it is with them the same thing to expect their favor as to receive it. But the man below you, who knows, in the good you have done him, you respected himself more than his circumstances, does not act like an obliged man only to him from whom he has received a benefit, but also to all who are capable of doing him one. And whatever little offices he can do for you, he is so far from magnifying it that he will labor to extenuate it in all his actions and expressions. Moreover, the regard to what you do to a great man at best is taken notice of no further than by himself or his family; but what you do to a man of a humble fortune, provided always that he is a good and a modest man, raises the affections towards you of all men of that character, of which there are many, in the whole city.”

  There is nothing gains a reputation to a preacher so much as his own practice; I am therefore casting about what act of benignity is in the power of a spectator. Alas! that lies but in a very narrow compass; and I think the most immediately under my patronage are either players, or such whose circumstances bear an affinity with theirs. All, therefore, I am able to do at this time of this kind is to tell the town that on Friday, the eleventh of this instant, April, there will be performed, in York Buildings, a concert of vocal and instrumental music, for the benefit of Mr. Edward Keen, the father of twenty children; and that this day the haughty George Powell hopes all the good-natured part of the town will favor him, whom they applauded in “Alexander,” “Timon,” “Lear,” and “Orestes,” with their company this night, when he hazards all his heroic glory for their approbation in the humbler condition of honest Jack Falstaff.