a parsimonious person who is at the same time rich; or a wretch covetous to extremity, whom avarice has divested of all the charities of human nature, and made even an enemy to himself.

Of this most unaccountable of all characters, many instances occur; some of them so extraordinary as almost to surpass belief. The following are here selected, as being of recent date, perfectly authentic, and the last of them in particular exhibiting an assemblage of qualities the most singular perhaps that ever centered in the same person. Too little dignified to merit a place in regular biography, yet too curious a variety of human character to pass unnoticed in this Work, the present seemed the only title under which it could with propriety be introduced.

1. In December 1792, died at Paris, literally of want, Mr Ottervald, a well-known banker. This man, originally of Neuchatel, felt the violence of the disease of avarice (for surely it is rather a disease than a passion of the mind) so strongly, that, within a few days of his death, no opportunities could induce him to buy a few pounds of meat for the purpose of making a little soup for him. "Tis true (said he), I should not dislike the soup, but I have no appetite for the meat; what then is to become of that?" At the time that he refused this nourishment, for fear of being obliged to give away two or three pounds of meat, there was tied round his neck a silken bag, which contained 800 assignats of 1000 livres each. At his outset in life, he drank a pint of beer, which served him for supper, every night at a house much frequented, from which he carried home all the bottle-corks he could come at. Of these, in the course of eight years, he had collected as many as sold for 12 louis d'or, a sum that laid the foundation of his future fortune, the superstructure of which was rapidly raised by his uncommon success in stock jobbing. He died possessed of three millions of livres (£1,250,000 sterling).

2. The late John Elwes, Esq., was member for Berkshire in three successive parliaments. His family name was Meggot; and his father was a brewer of great eminence, and distinguished by no peculiarity of character; but his mother, though she was left nearly £100,000 by her husband, starved herself to death! At an early period of life he was sent to Westminster school, where he remained for 10 or 12 years. During that time he certainly had not misapplied his talents; for he was a good classical scholar to the last; and it is a circumstance not a little remarkable, though well authenticated, that he never read afterwards, nor had he ever any knowledge in accounts; to which may in some measure be attributed the total ignorance he was always in as to his affairs. From Westminster school Mr Meggot removed to Geneva, where he soon entered upon pursuits more agreeable to him than study. The riding-master of the academy there had then to boast perhaps of three of the best riders in Europe, Mr Worsley, Mr Elwes, and Sir Sydney Meadows. Of the three, Elwes was reckoned the most desperate; the young horses were always put into his hands, and he was the rough-rider to the other two.

On his return to England, after an absence of two or three years, he was to be introduced to his uncle the late Sir Harvey Elwes, who was then living at Stoke in Suffolk, perhaps the most perfect picture of human penury that ever existed. The attempts at saving money were in him so extraordinary, that Mr Elwes perhaps never quite reached them, even at the last period of his life.—Of what temperance can do, Sir Harvey was an instance. At an early period of life he was given over for a consumption, and he lived till betwixt 80 and 90 years of age. On his death, his fortune, which was at least £1,250,000, fell to his nephew Mr Meggot, who by will was ordered to assume the name and arms of Elwes. To this uncle, and this property, Mr Elwes succeeded when he had advanced beyond the 40th year of his age. And for 15 years previous to this period, it was that he was known in the more fashionable circles of London. He had always a turn for play; and it was only late in life, and from paying always and not always being paid, that he conceived disgust at it. The theory which he professed, "that it was impossible to ask a gentleman for money," he perfectly confirmed by the practice; and he never violated this feeling to the latest hour of his life.

The manners of Mr Elwes were such—so gentle, so attentive, so gentlemanly, and so engaging—that rudeness could not ruffle them, nor strong ingratitude break their observance. He retained this peculiar feature of the old court to the last; but he had a praise beyond this; he had the most gallant disregard of his own person, and all care about himself, that can be imagined. The instances in younger life, in the most imminent personal hazard, are innumerable; but when age had despoiled him of his activity, and might have rendered care and attention about himself natural, he knew not what they were: He wished no one to afflict him: "He was as young as ever; he could walk; he could ride, and he could dance; and he hoped he should not give trouble even when he was old:" He was at that time 75.

It is curious to remark how he contrived to mingle small attempts at saving with objects of the most unbounded dilapidation. After sitting up a whole night at play for thousands with the most fashionable and profligate men of the time, amidst splendid rooms, gilt sofas, wax lights, and waiters attendant on his call, he would walk out about four in the morning, not towards home, but into Smithfield, to meet his own cattle, which were coming to market from Thaydonhall, a farm of his in Essex! There would this same man, forgetful of the scenes he had just left, stand in the cold or rain bartering with a carcass-butcher for a shilling! Sometimes, when the cattle did not arrive at the hour he expected, he would walk on in the mire to meet them; and more than once has gone on foot the whole whole way to his farm without stopping, which was 17 miles from London, after sitting up the whole night. Had every man been of the mind of Mr Elwes, the race of innkeepers must have perished, and post-chaises have been returned back to those who made them; for it was the business of his life to avoid both. He always travelled on horseback. To see him setting out on a journey, was a matter truly curious; his first care was to put two or three eggs, boiled hard, into his great-coat pocket, or any scraps of bread which he found; baggage he never took; then mounting one of his hunters, his next attention was to get out of London into that road where turnpikes were the fewest; then, stopping under any hedge where grass presented itself for his horse, and a little water for himself, he would sit down and refresh himself and his horse together.

The chief residence of Mr Elwes at this period of his life was in Berkshire, at his own seat at Marcham. Here it was he had two natural sons born, who inherit the greatest part of his property by a will made about the year 1735. The keeping fox-hounds was the only instance in the whole life of Mr Elwes of his ever sacrificing money to pleasure; and may be selected as the only period when he forgot the cares, the perplexities, and the regret, which his wealth occasioned. But even here everything was done in the most frugal manner. Scrub, in the Beaux Stratagem, when compared with Mr Elwes's huntman, had an idle life of it. This famous huntman might have fixed an epoch in the history of servants: for in a morning, getting up at four o'clock, he milked the cows; he then prepared breakfast for Mr Elwes or any friends he might have with him; then slipping on a green coat, he hurried into the stable, fiddled the horses, got the hounds out of the kennel, and away they went into the field. After the fatigues of hunting, he refreshed himself by rubbing down two or three horses as quickly as he could; then running into the house to lay the cloth, and wait at dinner; then hurrying again into the stable to feed the horses—diversified with an interlude of the cows again to milk, the dogs to feed, and eight hunters to litter down for the night.

In the penury of Mr Elwes there was something that seemed like a judgment from heaven. All earthly comforts he voluntarily denied himself; he would walk home in the rain in London rather than pay a shilling for a coach; he would fit in wet cloaths sooner than have a fire to dry them; he would eat his provisions in the last stage of putrefaction sooner than have a fresh joint from the butchers; and he wore a wig for above a fortnight, which his biographer saw him pick up out of a rut in a lane where they were from whose riding. This was the last extremity of laudable economy; for to all appearance it was the cast-off wig of some beggar!

Mr Elwes had now resided about 13 years in Suffolk, when the contest for Berkshire presented itself on the dissolution of the parliament; and when, to preserve the peace of that county, he was nominated by Lord Craven. Mr Elwes, though he had retired from public business for some years, had still left about him some of the seeds of more active life, and he agreed to the proposal. It came farther enhanced to him, by the agreement, that he was to be brought in by the freeholders for nothing. All he did on the occasion was dining at the ordinary at Reading; and he got into parliament for 18 pence!

Though a new man, Mr Elwes could not be called a young member; for he was at this time nearly 60 years old when he thus entered on public life. But he was in possession of all his activity; and, preparatory to his appearance on the boards of St Stephen's Chapel, he used to attend constantly during the races and other public meetings all the great towns where his voters resided. At the different assemblies, he would dance amongst the youngest to the last, after riding over on horseback, and frequently in the rain, to the place of meeting. A gentleman who was one night standing by, observed on the extraordinary agility of so old a man.—“O! that is nothing (repined another); for Mr Elwes, to do this, rode 20 miles in the rain, with his shoes stuck into his boots and his bag-wig in his pocket.”

The honour of parliament made no alteration in the dress of Mr Elwes: on the contrary, it seemed at this time to have attained additional neatness; and nearly to have reached that happy climax of poverty, which has more than once drawn on him the compassion of those who passed by him in the street. For the speaker's dinners, however, he had one suit, with which the speaker in the course of the sessions became very familiar. The minister likewise was well acquainted with it; and at any dinner of opposition till was his apparel the same. The wits of the minority used to say, “that they had full as much reason as the minister to be satisfied with Mr Elwes, as he had the same habit with everybody.” At this period of his life Mr Elwes wore a wig. Much about the time when his parliamentary life ceased, that wig was worn out; so then, being older and wiser as to expense, he wore his own hair, which like his expenses was very small.

All this time the income of Mr Elwes was increasing hourly, and his present expenditure was next to nothing; for the little pleasures he had once engaged in he had now given up. He kept no house, and only one old servant and a couple of horses: he resided with his nephew; his two sons he had stationed in Suffolk and Berkshire, to look after his respective estates: and his dress certainly was no expense to him; for had not other people been more careful than himself, he would not have had it even mended.

When he left London, he went on horseback to his country-seats with his couple of hard eggs, and without once stopping upon the road at any house. He always took the most unfrequented road, and used every shift to avoid turnpikes. Marcham was the seat he now chiefly visited; which had some reason to be flattered with the preference, as his journey into Suffolk cost him only two-pence halfpenny, while that into Berkshire amounted to four-pence!

As Mr Elwes came into parliament without expense, he performed his duty as a member would have done in the pure days of our constitution. What he had not bought, he never attempted to sell; and he went forward in that straight and direct path, which can alone satisfy a reflecting mind. Amongst the smaller memorials of the parliamentary life of Mr Elwes may be noted, that he did not follow the cu- When he quitted parliament, he was, in the common phrase, "a fish out of water!" The style of Mr Elwes's life had left him no domestic scenes to which he could retire—his home was dreary and poor—his rooms received no cheerfulness from fire; and while the outside had all the appearance of a "House to be Let," the inside was a desert; but he had his penury alone to thank for this, and for the want of all the little consolations which should attend old age, and smooth the passage of declining life. At the close of the spring of 1785, he wished again to visit, which he had not done for some years, his seat at Stoke. But then the journey was a most serious object to him. The famous old servant was dead, all the horses that remained with him were a couple of worn-out broodmares; and he himself was not in that vigour of body in which he could ride 60 or 70 miles on the sustenance of two boiled eggs. The mention of a post-chaise would have been a crime—"He afford a post-chaise, indeed! where was he to get the money?" would have been his exclamation. At length he was carried into the country as he was carried into parliament, free of expense, by a gentleman who was certainly not quite so rich as Mr Elwes. When he reached Stoke—the seat of more active scenes, of somewhat resembling hospitality, and where his fox-hounds had spread somewhat like vivacity around—he remarked, "he had expended a great deal of money once very foolishly; but that a man grew wiser by time."

The rooms at this seat, which were now much out of repair, and would have all fallen in but for his son John Elwes, Esq.; who had resided there, he thought too expensively furnished, as worse things might have served. If a window was broken, there was to be no repair but that of a little brown paper, or that of piecing in a bit of broken glass; which had at length been done so frequently, and in so many shapes, that it would have puzzled a mathematician to say "what figure they described." To save fire, he would walk about the remains of an old greenhouse, or sit with a servant in the kitchen. During the harvest he would amuse himself with going into the fields to glean the corn on the grounds of his own tenants; and they used to leave a little more than common to please the old gentleman, who was as eager after it as any pauper in the parish. In the advance of the season, his morning employment was to pick up any stray chips, bones, or other things, to carry to the fire, in his pocket—and he was one day surprised by a neighbouring gentleman in the act of pulling down, with some difficulty, a crow's nest for this purpose. On the gentleman wondering why he gave himself this trouble—"Oh, Sir, (replied old Elwes), it is really a shame that these creatures should do so. Do but see what waste they make! They don't care how extravagant they are!"

As no gleam of favourite passion, or any ray of amusement, broke through this gloom of penury, his insatiable desire of saving was now become uniform Miser, and systematic. He used still to ride about the country on one of these mares—but then he rode her very economically, on the soft turf, adjoining the road, without putting himself to the expense of shoes, as he observed, "The turf was so pleasant to a horse's foot!" And when any gentleman called to pay him a visit, and the boy who attended in the stables was profuse enough to put a little hay before his horse, old Elwes would flit back into the stable, and take the hay very carefully away. That very strong appetite which Mr Elwes had in some measure restrained during the long sitting of parliament, he now indulged most voraciously, and on everything he could find. To save, as he thought, the expense of going to a butcher, he would have a whole sheep killed, and to eat mutton to the end of the chapter. When he occasionally had his river drawn, though sometimes horse-loads of small fish were taken, not one would he suffer to be thrown in again; for he observed, "He should never see them again!" Game in the last state of putrefaction, and meat that walked about his plate, would he continue to eat, rather than have new things killed before the old provision was finished. With this diet—the charnel-house of sustenance—his dress kept pace—equally in the last stage of absolute dissolution. Sometimes he would walk about in a tattered brown-coloured hat, and sometimes in a red and white woolen cap, like a prisoner confined for debt. His shoes he never would suffer to be cleaned, lest they should be worn out the sooner. But still, with all this self-denial—that penury of life to which the inhabitant of an almshouse is not doomed—still did he think he was profuse, and frequently say, "He must be a little more careful of his property." His disquietude on the subject of money was now continual. When he went to bed, he would put five or ten guineas into a bureau; and then, full of his money, after he had retired to rest, and sometimes in the middle of the night, he would come down to see if it was there.

The scene of mortification at which Mr Elwes was now arrived was all but a denial of the common necessaries of life: and indeed it might have admitted a doubt, whether or not, if his manors, his fishponds, and some grounds in his own hands, had not furnished a subsistence, where he had not anything actually to buy, he would not, rather than have bought anything have starved. Strange as this may appear, it is not exaggerated.—He one day, during this period, dined upon the remaining part of a moorhen, which had been brought out of the river by a rat! and at another eat an undigested part of a pike which a larger one had swallowed, but had not finished, and which were taken in this state in a net. At the time this last circumstance happened, he discovered a strange kind of satisfaction; for he said to a friend, "Aye! this was killing two birds with one stone!" In the room of all comment—of all moral—it let be remarked, that at this time Mr Elwes was perhaps worth nearly eight hundred thousand pounds! and, at this period, he had not made his will, of course was not favoring from any sentiment of affection for any person.

The summer of 1788 Mr Elwes passed at his house in Welbeck-street, London; and he passed that summer without any other society than that of two maid servants; servants; for he had now given up the expense of keeping any male domestick. His chief employment used to be that of getting up early in a morning to visit some of his houses in Mary-le-Bone, which during the summer were repairing. As he was there generally at four o'clock in a morning, he was of course on the spot before the workmen; and he used contentedly to sit down on the steps before the door, to scold them when they did come. The neighbours who used to see him appear thus regular every morning, and who concluded, from his apparel, he was one of the workmen, observed, "there never was so punctual a man as the old carpenter." During the whole morning he would continue to run up and down stairs to see the men were not idle for an instant, with the same anxiety as if his whole happiness in life had been centered in the finishing this house, regardless of the greater property he had at stake in various places, and for ever employed in the minutiae only of affairs. Indeed such was his anxiety about this house, the rent of which was not above L. 50 a-year, that it brought on a fever which nearly cost him his life; but the fate which dragged him on thus strangely to bury him under the load of his own wealth, seemed as restless as it was unaccountable.

In the muscular and unencumbered frame of Mr Elwes there was everything that promised extreme length of life; and he lived to above 70 years of age without any natural disorder attacking him; but, as Lord Bacon has well observed, "the minds of some men are a lamp that is continually burning;" and such was the mind of Mr Elwes. Removed from those occasional public avocations which had once engaged his attention, money was now his only thought. He rove upon money—upon money he lay down to rest; and as his capacity sunk away from him by degrees, he dwindled from the real cares of his property into the puerile concealment of a few guineas. This little store he would carefully wrap up in various papers, and depositing them in different corners, would amuse himself with running from one to the other, to see whether they were all safe. Then forgetting, perhaps, where he had concealed some of them, he would become as seriously afflicted as a man might be who had lost all his property. Nor was the day alone thus spent—he would frequently rise in the middle of the night, and be heard walking about different parts of the house, looking after what he had thus hidden and forgotten.

During the winter of 1789, the last winter Mr Elwes was fated to see, his memory visibly weakened every day; and from the unceasing wish to save money he now began to fear he should die in want of it. Mr Gilson had been appointed his builder in the room of Mr Adams; and one day, when this gentleman waited upon him, he said with apparent concern, "Sir, pray consider in what a wretched state I am; you see in what a good house I am living; and here are five guineas, which is all I have at present; and how I shall go on with such a sum of money puzzles me to death. I dare say you thought I was rich; now you see how it is!"

Mr George Elwes having now settled at his seat at Marcham in Berkshire, he was naturally desirous that, in the affections of his wife, his father might at length find a comfortable home. In London he was certainly most uncomfortable: but still, with these temptations before and behind him, a journey with any expense annexed to it was insurmountable. This, however, was luckily obviated by an offer from Mr Partis, a gentleman of the law, to take him to his ancient seat in Berkshire with his purse perfectly whole. But there was one circumstance still very distressing—the old gentleman had now nearly worn out his last coat, and he would not buy a new one; his son, therefore, with a pious fraud, contrived to get Mr Partis to buy him a coat and make him a present of it. Thus, formerly having had a good coat, then a bad one, and at last no coat at all, he was kind enough to accept one from a neighbour.

Mr Elwes carried with him into Berkshire five guineas and a half, and half a crown. Left the mention of this sum may appear singular, it should be said, that previous to his journey he had carefully wrapped it up in various folds of paper, that no part of it might be lost. On the arrival of the old gentleman, Mr George Elwes and his wife did every thing they could to make the country a scene of quiet to him. But "he had that within" which baffled every effort of this kind. Of his heart it might be said, "there was no peace in Israel." His mind, cast away upon the vast and troubled ocean of his property extending beyond the bounds of his calculation, returned to amuse itself with fetching and carrying about a few guineas, which in that ocean was indeed a drop. But nature had now carried on life nearly as far as she was able, and the sand was almost run out. The first symptoms of more immediate decay was his inability to enjoy his rest at night. Frequently would he be heard at midnight as if struggling with some one in his chamber, and crying out, "I will keep my money, I will; nobody shall rob me of my property." On any one of the family going into his room, he would start from this fever of anxiety, and, as if waking from a troubled dream, again hurry into bed, and seem unconscious of what had happened. At length, on the 26th November 1789, expired this miserably rich man, whose property, nearly reaching to a million, extended itself almost through every county in England.