I shall, to avoid prolixity in a barren chapter of the two extremes of life, select about every tenth year from the register.  Those years at the time of the plague, make no addition to the burials, because the unhappy victims were conveyed to Lady-wood for internment.

These lists inform us, that the number of streets, houses, inhabitants, births, burials, poor’s rates, and commercial productions, increase with equal rapidity.  It appears also from the register, that there were more christenings lately at St. Martin’s, in one day, than the whole town produced in a year, in the 16th century—­The same may be found in that of St. Phillip’s.

The deaths in Deritend are omitted, being involved with those of Aston.

      Year.  Births.  Burials.  Year.  Births.  Burials.

1555 37 27 1667 146 140 1560 —­ 37 1668 113 102 1571 48 26 1681 251 139 1580 37 25 1690 127 150 1590 52 47 1700 172 171 1600 62 32 1719 334 270 1610 70 45 1720 423 355 1623 81 66 1730 449 415 1628 100 96 1740 520 573 1653 —­ 47 1750 860 1020 1660 —­ 75 1760 984 1143 1665 —­ 109 1770 1329 899 1666 144 121 1780 1636 1340

GENERAL HOSPITAL.

Though charity is one of the most amiable qualities of humanity, yet, like Cupid, she ought to be represented blind; or, like Justice, hood-winked.  None of the virtues have been so much misapplied; giving to the hungry, is sometimes only another word for giving to the idle.  We know of but two ways in which this excellence can exert itself; improving the mind, and nourishing the body.  To help him who will not help himself; or, indiscriminately to relieve those that want, is totally to mistake the end; for want is often met with:  but to supply those who cannot supply themselves, becomes real charity.  Some worthy Christians have taken it into their heads to relieve all, for fear of omitting the right.  What should we think of the constable who seizes every person he meets with, for fear of missing the thief?  Between the simple words, therefore, of WILL NOT and CANNOT, runs the fine barrier between real and mistaken charity.

This virtue, so strongly inculcated by the christian system, hath, during the last seventeen centuries, appeared in a variety of forms, and some of them have been detrimental to the interest they were meant to serve:  Such was the cloister.  Man is not born altogether to serve himself, but the community; if he cannot exist without the assistance of others, it follows, that others ought to be assisted by him:  but if condemned to obscurity in the cell, he is then fed by the aid of the public, while that public derives none from him.