ompanied with idle jests. Here again is food
for the vitiated appetites of scandalmongers, and that miserable but
numerous portion of mankind, who rejoice at the fall of a superior. The
name of _debtor_ is an odium which a proud spirit can but ill
support; cunning and avarice come in a thousand shapes, not to retrieve
lost credit, but to swell the list of embarrassments;--friends have fled
at the approach of the crisis, and associates appear but to pluck the
poor victim of the wrecks of his fortune! Absenteeism, the curse of
England, is the only alternative of wretched and humiliating
imprisonment. An entire change of habit ensues: ease and elegance of
manners dwindle into coldness and neglect, liberality to meanness, and
good-natured simplicity to chicanery and cunning. In society, too, how
changed; once the gay table companion, full of gallantry and wit, now
solitary and dejected, with the weeds of discomfort and despair rankling
around his heart. If fortune ever enable him to regenerate from such
obscurity, perhaps custom may have habituated him to privation till the
return of comfort serves little more than to awaken recollections of
past error or obligation, and to embitter future enjoyment. Such a
change may, however, empower him to adjust his conscience with men, of
all satisfaction the most valuable; notwithstanding that the world is
readier to exaggerate error, than recognise such sterling principle. It
is alike obvious, that men who are under the stigma of debt, do not
enjoy that ease which they are commonly thought to possess. The horrors
of dependance, in all its afflicting shapes, are known to visit them
hourly, although in some instances, buoyancy of spirits, and affected
gaiety may enable them to appear happy; and ofttimes would they be
awakened to a sense of these fallacies, and thus become reformed, were
it not for the rigour of persecution, which renders them reckless of all
that may ensue, and callous to the honourable distinctions of man. This
of a truth, is tampering with human weakness, and is too often known to
prove the upshot of industry, by sacrificing principle to vindictive
passion.

That a system of debt is identified with the existence and framework of
all commercial republics, is well known; else, genius would cease to be
fostered, enterprise would be cramped, and industry wither on her own
soil. Nevertheless, the system may be so extended, as to beget
indifference for the future and negle