ABSTRACT
Sir Andrew Freeport, Addison and Steele's exponent of mercantilism in The Spectator, denounced giving to beggars as bad for business, especially that of merchants like himself who made their living by buying and selling. Sir Andrew departed from his principles, however, when beggars hung on either side of his coach and made it impossible for him to proceed until he had given them something for their allegedly sick spouses and starving children. Bernard de Mandeville denied that giving to beggars was charity. Pity, not love, inspires our giving, and we give to ease the discomfort we experience in seeing their afflictions, hearing their tales of woe, and imagining ourselves in their place. Wordsworth's "The Beggars" was based not on his own experience but on his sister's encounters with a woman who asked for and received alms, and later with the woman's two little boys; the latter interrupted their play to beg for money, saying their mother was dead.
