of twenty and thirty millions, while the Lydian monarch, with all
his boasted treasures, would have been unable to make good even the
first instalment! Such, however, is the talisman of credit in a
commercial and banking country! In addition to their own funds, and to
the funds permanently confided to their prudence from foreign
correspondents, amounting to three or four millions, the brothers,
Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid, commanded for many years, from day to
day, the floating balances of the principal London bankers; and they
were among bankers, what bankers are among private traders. It was
their daily practice to visit most of the bankers' counting-houses,
and address them briefly--"Will you borrow or lend fifty thousand
to-day?"--According to the answer, the sum required was deposited on
the spot, or carried away--no memorandum passed, and a simple entry in
their respective books served merely to record the hour when the sum
was to be repaid, with its interest. With such credit, and such ready
means, it is not to be wondered that the Goldsmids commanded the
wealth of the world; nor that their services were courted by an
administration which never suffered its projects to languish while
these brokers could raise money on exchequer-bills! A paper
circulation is, however, a vortex, out of which neither individuals
nor governments ever escaped without calamity, and from whose fatal
effects the prudence and integrity of these worthy men served as no
adequate protection. A whisper that they had omitted to repay a
banker's loan at the very hour agreed, first shook their credit; while
some changes in the financial arrangements of government, and the
malignity of some envious persons, (for rivals they could have none,)
led to a fatal catastrophe in regard to one brother in this house;
afterwards to a similar tragedy in regard to the other, at Merton; and
finally to the breaking-up of their vast establishment. Whether their
exertions were beneficial to the country may be doubted; this,
however, is certain, that the Goldsmids were men of a princely spirit,
who possessed a command of wealth, during the twelve or fifteen years
of their career, beyond any example in the domestic history of
nations. In this house Benjamin repeatedly gave banquets, worthy of
his means, to the chief branches of the royal family, and most of the
nobility and gentry of the realm: and it deserves to be mentioned, to
his honour, that he was the const