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It is a gieat abject with Mr . Mai thus to represent poverty as disgraceful . Surely he forgets that Christ was poor . He represents this state also as the most \ infavourable which can he
conceived to the purity of the human character . jLike every other condition m tins world , it has , no doubt , its peculiar temptations , and it is easy , by accumulating these , to form a picture of uuroingled gloom . But this is manifestly unjust . It . would be as easy
to represent the evils attendant on abundance , as rendering its pleasures dangerous to the sensibilities and the virtues of man . Poverty would never have been allotted by Providence to a large portion of our species , if it had not its softening and ameliorating influences as well as its sorrows and its
trials . It often stimulates to the noblest and most active exertions . It calls forth powers , framed for the benefit and the delight of man , which otherwise might slumber for ever . And
what is far better than all this , it softens the heart , and practically teaches compassion . It has even its own joys . It proves the strength of devoted affect km , and exhibits " the
glorious triumph of exceeding love . " * standing the strain of elevated rapture , whicb breathes in every li « e the whole is majestically simple . In reading * it , one seems to breafbe the elear air of Attica , and to expatiate on a sky without a cloud .
I know of no grander piece of philosophical poetry in those treasures of wiscloin and beauty which have descended to ns from classical times . In Euripides—whose maxims , indeed , are rather the results of a nice observation on the affairs of ordinary life , than of deep thougiit on the nature of man—there is nothing- at all comparable
with it . Something there is of this meditative greatness in iEschylus , when his fiery and impetuous spirit condescends to repose . Perhaps Sophocles is the -second of philosophical poets . The first still lives , to redeem the genius of the present , age with the lovers of genuine poetry in future times .
* The absurd maxim , that u When poverty comes in at the door love Jlies out of the window f will , pjerhapf , be contemptuously repeated bere by Mr . Maltbus ' s di&cipLes . It is merely founded on a
mlsao « ior . Some attachments may fly ai the approach of poverty , but they are not love At least , if they are to be bo termed , there ftbould be some other name for the tnoat duinienftf ted a * mil a * 4 h * « wt dtftighrful
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Jt weans the thoughts from things of time aod sense , and fixes them on immortal realities . Such are some of the moral advantages of the state , which Mr . Malthas represents as more unfavourable to virtue than profligacy itself—that profligacy which " harden * all within and petrifies the feeling I "
Hitherto the friend of the human race has been accustomed to reflect with pleasure , that the most sacred , as well as the most exquisite of earthly joys was experienced as truly by the lowliest as the most exalted . There
was a noble equality here . The pleasantness of courtship has been felt as thrillingly by the rustic , in an evening walk with the * ' milk-white thorns " and the wild roses around him , and the nightingale to listen to and echo back his joy , as by any , even of the
virtuous , encompassed by artificial luxuries . If domestic pleasures have sometimes shed their holy influence in hall and bower , they have nestled as purely in the humblest dwelling . But if the doctrines of the new philosophy are reduced into practice , the
very best affections of nature will be engrossed by the rich } for what labourer can , in times like these , cherish any hope of being able to marry with a prospect of supporting in comfort a numerous offspring i > Those feelings
which have prevented rusticity from hardening into brutality will be taken from it . The peasantry will lose all that is generous in its character , except , indeed , this new inequality in the social state should be found too
heavy for endurance , and the most dreadful disorders should ensue from the vengeauce of the oppressed and hi suited poor . But , let the heart have its natural utterance , and all these evils will be
avoided . Let us look with a forgiving eye , even on those frailties " which lean to virtue ' s side , " and which spring from affection too little regarding the contingencies of human condition . Let us have jsome charity for those delusions which love calls up by
of buman affections . Mv . Moore has embodied thin worldly maxim in a song— and truly , if th « feelings on which he lavish ** the aparkJiogu of has happy combinations * are to b * d « iKmu , w * ttfd J ? y « , a lighter Uiceze tb « m that ef * er * ow may uyieep m ^ va away .
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364 O » the System ofMaWuus .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1817, page 664, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2470/page/24/
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