He has given away during his lifetime the greater part of his large fortune,--not always wisely, but always in a manner characteristic of the man. He has acted upon the belief that it is wrong to take interest in excess of the principal, and has made the property over to his debtors whenever he has had interest to this extent. He gave seventeen thousand pounds to his poor relations as soon as he came into his fortune; and fifteen thousand pounds more to a cousin, tossing it to him as one would a sugar-plum; fourteen thousand pounds to Sheffield and Oxford; and numberless other gifts to different charities, mostly of an eccentric nature. He retained for himself three hundred and sixty pounds a year, upon which he says "a bachelor gentleman ought to live, or if he cannot, deserves speedily to die." Of course such a royal giver has been besieged during his whole life by an innumerable company of beggars for every conceivable object; but he has always chosen to select for himself his beneficiaries, and has often sent sharp answers to appeals; like the following to the secretary of a Protestant Blind Pension Society: "To my mind, the prefix of 'Protestant' to your society's name indicates far stonier blindness than any it will relieve." And in reply to a letter asking aid in paying off a church debt he replies:-- "I am sorrowfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing. My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is, 'Don't get into debt. Starve, and go to heaven; but don't borrow. Try, first, begging. I don't mind, if it's really needful, stealing. But don't buy things you can't pay for.' And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can't pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach and pray behind the hedges, or in a sandpit, or in a coal-hole, first? And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me. And of all the sects and believers in any ruling spirit--Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolaters, and Mumbo Jumbo Log and Fire Worshippers--who want churches, your modern English Evangelical sect is the most absurd and objectionable and unendurable to me. All of which you might very easily have found out from my books. Any other sort of sect would, before bothering me to write it to them."