and the peasant, are, in some measure, fitted for their respective
situations."

Much of these positions is, perhaps, true; and the whole paragraph might
well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the
establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want
of riches. In that sense, almost every man may, in his own opinion, be
poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence of all
that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify
attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which
is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the
publick, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling
openly, and many secretly.

That hope and fear are inseparably, or very frequently, connected with
poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder
degrees of poverty are, sometimes, supported by hope; but the more
severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen,
before it can be known. This author and Pope, perhaps, never saw the
miseries which they imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor, indeed, are
insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the
possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich. They are not
pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a
compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases
to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh.

That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of
some other, may be fairly allowed; but the compensations of sickness I
have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery
only prove the intenseness of the pain.