MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 393 



view. If we are rightly informed, Mr. Rothschild came from Manchester or 

 Liverpool, many years ago, as a poor man, and became connected with some 

 monied house in the city in which and by private ventures he gained a suf- 

 ficient sum to enter on speculations for himself. His further history, which 

 soon became connected with the turbulent period of our history in the French 

 war we have no means of ascertaining. That war, at any rate, was mainly 

 instrumental in raising him to that pinnacle of golden glory to which he was 

 afterwards exalted. Mr. Rothschild was not a proud man except on one 

 point : the pride of the capitalist never rose higher in any one than in him, 

 the acknowledged sovereign of the British money-market. That pride should 

 have been engendered, under such circumstances, is not matter of surprise. 

 Without reproaching the dead, we may fairly derive a moral lesson from the 

 errors of humanity. 



Dr. Styles's sermon (from Luke xvi. 9, "Make to yourselves friends of the 

 mammon of unrighteousness") is worthy of the talents of that minister (who 

 by the way has been rather hardly used by many members of his connexion), 

 and shows very well the folly of covetousness, the abuse of money in the hands 

 of the unrighteous, and its right use when committed to those who hold it in 

 stewardship from God. It does not fall within the province of a magazine of 

 general literature to notice the theological part of the sermon : but we may 

 fairly make an extract or two in which the great capitalist is introduced. 



In the introduction the reverend gentleman observes : 



" Death, under whatever circumstances it occurs, is always monitory but 

 its visitation is seldom known beyond the narrow circle of private affection 

 and friendship. It is only at long intervals that his awful voice passes the 

 boundaries of a province, and is heard by a nation and a world. And even 

 in such instances it rather produces surprise than sympathy. Princes and 

 nobles, while they live, fill a large space before the eyes of mankind ; their 

 death therefore becomes a subject of universal observation, but it nearly 

 affects only the privileged few of their own rank and order, they alone 

 feel themselves struck at in the person of their illustrious compeer. If 

 ever society at large is disposed to listen to the memento mori with salutary 

 effect, it is when death selects for his victim an individual equally linked with 

 all its classes. This of course must be an event of rare occurrence, and 

 ought not to be suffered to pass unheeded and unimproved. 



" The great capitalist, who is now no more, belonged to the whole civilized 

 world. Mammon might have chosen him for his high priest, had he been as 

 selfish as he was successful. As a man of business, and one of the people, he 

 had more than a monarch's power. The peace of Europe was in his hands, 

 and one cause alone invested him with this strange prerogative and that 

 cause was money. As cupidity, covetousness, the love of wealth is the uni- 

 versal passion, and as in the instance of Mr. Rothschild it received boundless 

 gratification, his death in the midst of his riches, and at a time when he pos- 

 sessed the capacity of enjoying them to the utmost, may at least induce the 

 busy throng who now imagine that the grand impediment to the success of 

 their selfish speculations is removed, to pause for a moment and to ask them- 

 selves, whether it is wisdom to follow his example, or to listen to the voice of 

 the Son of God which addresses them from his tomb. And they, too, who 

 are happily in little danger of being hurried into the grand vortex which 

 drowns so many in perdition, but who in some way or other are brought in 

 daily contact with money, as a test of principle, and a means of duty, would 

 do well to ponder the same counsel now so seasonable, and rendered so pecu- 

 liarly impressive by the solemn event which has thrown the whole world of 

 Mammon into a fever of confusion and excitement." 



After the development of the text and the deduction of the various moral 

 lessons suggested by unrighteous mammon, in the third part of his discourse, 

 the preacher introduces the following notice of Mr. Rothschild with its moral. 



" All will admit that such a man as Nathan Meyer Rothschild, should not 



