Chapter XLVIII: Letter XVIII: The Poor and Their Dwellings

Bene paupertas
Humili tecto contenta latet.

_Seneca_ [Octavia, Act V. vv. 895-6].

Omnes quibu' res sunt minu' secundæ, magi' sunt, nescio quo modo,
Suspiciosi; ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis;
Propter suam impotentiam se semper credunt negligi.

_Terent. in Adelph._ Act 4. Sc. 3 [vv. 12-4].

Show not to the poor thy pride,
Let their home a cottage be;
Nor the feeble body hide
In a palace fit for thee;
Let him not about him see
Lofty ceilings, ample halls,
Or a gate his boundary be,
Where nor friend or kinsman calls.

Let him not one walk behold,
That only one which he must tread,
Nor a chamber large and cold,
Better far his humble shed,
Where the aged and sick are led;
Humble sheds of neighbours by,
And the old and tatter'd bed,
Where he sleeps and hopes to die.

To quit of torpid sluggishness the [lair],
And from the pow'rful arms of sloth [get] free,
'Tis rising from the dead--Alas! it cannot be.

_Thomson's Castle of Indolence_ [Canto II. ll. 59-61].

The Method of treating the Borough Paupers--Many maintained at their
own Dwellings--Some Characters of the Poor--The School-mistress,
when aged--The Idiot--The poor Sailor--The declined Tradesman and
his Companion--This contrasted with the Maintenance of the Poor in
a common Mansion erected by the Hundred--The Objections to this
Method: not Want, nor Cruelty, but the necessary Evils of this
Mode--What they are--Instances of the Evil--A Return to the
Borough Poor--The Dwellings of these--The Lanes and By-ways--No
Attention here paid to Convenience--The Pools in the
Path-ways--Amusements of Sea-port Children--The Town-Flora--Herbs
on Walls and vacant Spaces--A female Inhabitant of an Alley--A
large Building let to several poor Inhabitants--Their Manners and
Habits.