As pity is often by ourselves and in our own cases mistaken for charity, so it assumes the shape, and borrows the very name of it; a beggar asks you to exert that virtue for Jesus Christ's sake, but all the while his great design is to raise your pity. He represents to your view the first side of his ailments and bodily infirmities; in chosen words he gives you an epitome of his calamities, real or fictitious; and while he seems to pray God that he will open your heart, he is actually at work upon your ears; the greatest profligate of them flies to religion for aid, and assists his cant with a doleful tone, and a studied dismality of gestures: but he trusts not to one passion only, he flatters your pride with titles and names of honour and distinction; your avarice he sooths with often repeating to you the smallness of the gift he sues for, and conditional promises of future returns, with an interest extravagant beyond the statute of usury, though out of the reach of it. People not used to great cities, being thus attacked on all sides, are commonly forced to yield, and cannot help giving something though they can hardly spare it themselves. How oddly are we managed by self-love! It is ever watching in our defence, and yet, to sooth a predominant passion, obliges us to act against our interest: for when pity seizes us, if we can but imagine, that we contribute to the relief of him we have compassion with, and are instrumental to the lessening of his sorrows, it eases us, and therefore pitiful people often give an alms, when they really feel that they would rather not.