There is an extravagance, I am told, that runs parallel with
wealth; a lavish expenditure among the great; a senseless competition
among the aspiring; a heedless, joyless dissipation among all the
upper ranks, that often beggars even these splendid establishments,
breaks down the pride and principles of their possessors, and makes
too many of them mere place-hunters, or shifting absentees. It is thus
that so many are thrown into the hands of government; and a court,
which ought to be the most pure and honourable in Europe, is so often
degraded by noble, but importunate time-servers. It is thus, too, that
so many become exiles from their native land, crowding the hotels of
foreign countries, and expending upon thankless strangers the wealth
so hardly drained from their laborious peasantry. I have looked upon
these latter with a mixture of censure and concern. Knowing the almost
bigoted fondness of an Englishman for his native home, I can conceive
what must be their compunction and regret, when, amidst the sunburnt
plains of France, they call to mind the green fields of England; the
hereditary groves which they have abandoned; and the hospitable roof
of their fathers, which they have left desolate, or to be inhabited by
strangers.
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