The artful and fraudulent usurpers of distinction
deserve greater severities than ridicule and contempt,
since they are seldom content with empty
praise, but are instigated by passions more pernicious
than vanity. They consider the reputation which
they endeavour to establish as necessary to the
accomplishment of some subsequent design, and value
praise only as it may conduce to the success of avarice
or ambition.
The commercial world is very frequently put into
confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants, that
assumed the splendour of wealth only to obtain the
privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and
of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties
could enable them to pay; till after having
supported their appearance a while by tumultuous
magnifience of boundless traffick, they sink at once,
and drag down into poverty those whom their equipages
had induced to trust them.
Among wretches that place their happiness in the
favour of the great, of beings whom only high titles
or large estates set above themselves, nothing is
more common than to boast of confidence which they
do not enjoy; to sell promises which they know their
interest unable to perform; and to reimburse the
tribute which they pay to an imperious master, from
the contributions of meaner dependants, whom they
can amuse with tales of their influence, and hopes
of their solicitation.
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