Miser
[5] A typical late example of Christian doctrine on the subject is the Reverend Erskine Neale's The Riches that Bring No Sorrow (1852), a moralising work based on a succession of biographies contrasting philanthropists and misers.
The moment she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages, Anecdotes of strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr Boffin's countenance would light up, and he would instantly dart in and buy it.
'[8]In the following chapter, Mr Boffin brings a coachload of the books to his premises and readers are introduced to a selection of typical titles and to the names of several of the misers treated in them.
[28] The American Hetty Green, who despite being a multimillionaire had also a reputation as a miser, involved herself in a six-year lawsuit to obtain her aunt's fortune, only to have it proved against her that she had forged the will.
[41] There an unsuccessful poet meets Mammon in the guise of a miser digging up his buried gold and debates with him whether the life of wit and learning is a better calling than the pursuit of wealth.
While these are more or less original interpretations of the theme, French fabulist Antoine Houdar de la Motte harks back to the light-hearted approach of the Greek Anthology in "The Miser and Minos", first published in his fables of 1719.
[43] Descending to the Classical underworld at his death, the miser is brought before the judge of the dead and is given the extreme punishment of returning to earth to witness how his wealth is now being spent.
The Scottish poet Allan Ramsay adapted this into dialect two years later,[44] and Charles Denis provided a version in standard English in his Select Fables (1754), reversing the title to "Minos and the Miser".
The ballad mixes sung verses with prose description, both in Cumberland dialect: Neist my deame she e'en starv'd me, that niver liv'd weel; Her hard words and luiks wou'd ha'e freeten'd the deil:
[77] Among later adaptations there was Vasily Pashkevich's 18th-century Russian comic opera The Miser and pioneering dramatic works in Arabic by Marun Al Naqqash (1817–55)[78] and in Serbian by Jovan Sterija Popović.
In Aubrey Beardsley's title page for the latter, Volpone is shown worshiping his possessions, in illustration of the lines from the play, "Dear Saint, / Riches, the dumb god that giv'st all men tongues.
Following on from the continuing success of Molière's L'Avare, there was a spate of French plays dealing with misers and their matrimonial plans over the next century and a half.
A similarly titled play was the five-act comedy partially in verse, The Miser's Daughter or The Lover's Curse of 1839, a schoolboy indiscretion of the future controversial churchman, Rev.John Purchas.
[89] And on the other side of the Atlantic there was a stage production of Julietta Gordini:The Miser's Daughter, a verse play in five acts, which claimed to derive its plot 'from an Italian story'.
[93] The later Thomas Peckett Prest's The Miser of Shoreditch or the Curse of Avarice (1854) was based on a penny dreadful story by him; later he adapted it as a two-act romantic drama set in time of Henry VIII.
James Roberts II (1753 – c. 1810) executed a pen and ink watercolour of Edward Shuter in character which was adapted as a print for the six-volume play collection, Bell's British Theatre.
[100] From this time too dates the coloured print of Samuel Vale acting the part of Goliah Spiderlimb, the comic servant in Jerrold's The Smoked Miser.
Johann Zoffany painted Charles Macklin in the role that had brought him fame at the Covent Garden Theatre (1767–68)[106] and Thomas Gray portrayed a confrontation between Shylock and his daughter Jessica (1868).
[134] But the bracketing of the miser and the usurer as equally culpable types, mentioned earlier, makes it difficult to interpret the subject of later moralistic paintings, since they may represent either a hoarder, a money lender or even a tax collector.
Bosch shows the miser on his deathbed, with various demons crowding about his possessions, while an angel supports him and directs his attention to higher things.
Low Countries artists who took up the allegorical theme added the variation of making the woman examine a coin by the light of a candle or lantern, as in the paintings by Gerrit van Honthorst[145] and Mathias Stomer.
[146] In his own allegorical treatment, Paulus Moreelse made the link with the dance of death genre by introducing a young boy slyly fingering the coins while keeping a wary eye on the woman to see if she has noticed.
[147] These Dutch variations were mostly painted during the 1620s, when Rembrandt too borrowed the imagery, but his candlelit examiner of a coin is male and the piece is variously titled "The Money Changer" or "The Rich Fool", in reference to the parable already mentioned.
[152] David Teniers the Younger depicted a couple similarly engaged in 1648 which was later engraved in France by Pierre-François Basan under the title Le plaisir des vieillards (the pleasures of old age).
[154] On the other hand, the Miser Casting His Accounts presented by Jan Lievens is poorly dressed and his interest in hoarding is indicated by the way he gloats on the key that will lock his money away.
There a young woman in luxuriant Renaissance dress stands behind an ugly miser, reaching across him to take coins from the money bags he clutches to his chest, while he looks up at her, crying out with a grimace and trying to push away her hand.
Underneath is a verse commentary: Literary manifestations of the theme of the mismatched couple include the Malbecco episode in "The Faerie Queene" and Catherine Hutton's novel "The Miser Married".
Lechery was supposed to be an attribute of some misers, exposing them to a contest between satisfying this weakness and their overmastering passion to save expense, as exemplified in the Old Gripus print.
[165] The drunken young man alarming the miser there is probably his son, taking up a literary theme to be found, among other places, in Allan Ramsay's comic monologue.
[166] The Indian Raja Ravi Varma paints a Jewish character type for his miser, dated 1901,[167] while the Hungarian nobleman Ladislav Medňanský titles his humanised study "Shylock" (1900).
