The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen.

How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the imagination at all violated when we read the “true ballad,” where King Cophetua wooes the beggar maid?

Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed with contempt.  No one properly contemns a beggar.  Poverty is a comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its “neighbour grice.”  Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told.  Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous.  Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile.  Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it.  Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both.  No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him.  He is not in the scale of comparison.  He is not under the measure of property.  He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep.  No one twitteth him with ostentation above his means.  No one accuses him of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility.  None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency.  No wealthy neighbour seeketh to eject him from his tenement.  No man sues him.  No man goes to law with him.  If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a Beggar.

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar’s robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.  He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it.  He is not required to put on court mourning.  He weareth all colours, fearing none.  His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker’s.  He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances.  The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer.  He alone continueth in one stay.  The price of stock or land affecteth him not.  The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers.  He is not expected to become bail or surety for any one.  No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics.  He is the only free man in the universe.  The Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions.  I can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London.  No corner of a street is complete without them.  They are as indispensable as the Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the Signs of old London.  They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos, dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry—­