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you gain, and you’ll ken better how to guide it; for pride is an imperfect fortune, and a ludicrous life will not last long ? Another sort I see, who has got more silver than sense, more gold than good nature, more muslins and means than good manners ; tho’a sack can hold their silver, six houses and a half cannot con- tain their ambitious desires. Fortunatus' wonderful purse would fail in fetching in the fourth part of their worldly wants : and the children imitate their mothers, chattering like hungry cranes crying ill, I want ! I want! ever craving, wilfully wasting, till all be brought to a doleful dish of desolation, and with cleanness of teeth, a full breast, an empty belly, big pockets without pence, pinching penury, perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money and friends both, old age dim eyes feeble joints, without shoes or clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings faith and repentance in one day. 3d. Another thing I see, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding of bairns, and bringing them up like bill-flirks : they gie them wealth of meat, but no manners. But when I was a bairn, if I did not bend to obedience, I ken mysel what I got, which learn’d me what to gie
