g and quick sensibility.
When he found himself thus kindly received by his sovereigns, and beheld
tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelings burst
forth. He threw himself upon his knees, and for some time could not
utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings.

* * * * *

From Wolfert's Roost.

=_183._= "A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY."

Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive
seasons, when "the credit system," as it is called, expands to full
luxuriance; every body trusts every body; a bad debt is a thing unheard
of; the broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open, and
men are tempted to dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.

Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming individuals, are
liberally discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin
words into cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may
readily be supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon
in circulation. Every one now talks in thousands; nothing is heard
but gigantic operations in trade, great purchases and sales of real
property, and immense sums made at every transfer. All, to be sure,
as yet exists in promise; but the believer in promises calculates the
aggregate as solid capital, and falls back in amazement at the amount of
public wealth, "the unexampled state of public prosperity!"

Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing men. They
relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle
them with golden visions, and set them maddening after shadows. The
example of one stimulates another; speculation rises on speculation;
bubble rises on bubble; every one helps with his breath to swell the
windy superstructure, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the
inflation he has contributed to produce.

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its
sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the
exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind
of Knight-errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure
gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes: no "operation"
is thought worthy of attention, that does not double or treble the
investment. No business is worth following, that does not promise an
immediate fortune. As he sits musing over his ledger, with pen behind
his ear, he