| Citation |
NYG(B.737.015
25 Jul-1 Aug 1737:11,12 (613)
London, April 8. Extract of a Letter from Paris. We have
at present here, not only an illustrious, but most
prodigious pattern of goodness to the afflicted and
unfortunate: he seems to be charity itself come to bless
this Metropolis and Kingdom in a human shape. The person I
mean is the Duke of Orleans, who, if his means were equal to
the benevolence of his mind, would enrich all the poor in
the universe; for his bounties and charities are not
confin'd to his own country; abundance of British subjects
here have largely partaken of them; and a great number of
the children of Irish officers in the service of France owe
their present support to the generous care he has order'd to
be had of them.
The generosity of the peers and nobility too are
conspicuous for the number of families to which they give
pensions to subsist them; it is impossible for them to keep
their charities long a secret, for the gratitude of the
receivers still proclaim them some time or other, and it was
judiciously remark'd by a subject of Great Britain that the
French Quality give twice as much every year to the poor as
they throw away on opera's, masquerades and assemblies; but
whether the British Quality imitate them in so laudable an
atonement for their vices, is what we are no judges of on
this side the water. Your Act for insolvent debtors is
indeed very much talk'd of among our country-men here, and
the French themselves highly commend it; but they think your
laws very oddly fram'd, or the generosity of the English
very much depraved and immoral in their principles to make
prisons so absolutely necessary among you for the getting in
of debts . . . As for the fine ladies of London and
Westminster, I don't write you this as a lesson for them:
the dear creatures have no time to spend in such acts of
piety, or money to spare from the opera and quadrille. If
they are but handsome, well-shap'd, and have prudence enough
to preserve their reputation, according to what the mode
calls reputation, they immediately think they fulfil the
duties of a Christian, and indulge their pleasures without
the least reflection on the miseries of their fellow
creatures. But had not a Lady, a fine English Lady, better
lend a part of her pin-money to God Almighty, by
distributing it among the prisons of London and Westminster,
than sacrifice it all to her vanity or her pleasures?. . .
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