692 GRESHAM 6KASHOPFER. 



most important speculator in the greatest, all are alike their pulses 

 beat to the self-same time. 



We must not confound business-men with men of business, for be- 

 tween the two there is a very wide distinction. The latter are a most 

 useful and important race of men ; the former are those who give up 

 their whole faculties to the mere love of business, and the golden re- 

 sults which it brings in its train: men who cry " cui bono" to every 

 thing out of their daily routine. I have seen a man of this kind per- 

 suaded to look at a fine picture or statue, or examine some splendid 

 effort of human genius and invention- " Aha \" said he, " this must 

 have been an expensive affair. Do you know how much it cost ? Is 

 it a marketable commodity ? I know there is a great deal of humbug 

 about pictures, and statues, and such like ; for a friend of mine lost 

 thirty per cent, upon some he was fool enough to speculate in when 

 he yielded to the vagaries of his wife, in taking a trip to what is called 

 the land of genius Italy." 



This is the sort of man who rises in the morning before the Novem- 

 ber fogs have mingled their dense masses with the London smoke, to 

 perform his morning devotions over his ledger ! who sits down to his 

 hasty breakfast with a better appetite after a favourable statement of 

 market-prices in the morning newspaper. One would imagine that 

 such a man was born with a pen behind his ear, within a near view of 

 the Gresham grasshopper : his early food must have had gold-dust 

 mingled with it. If he was not born to this, surely he must have 

 been bitten, in his younger days, by the fangs of a greedy plodder 

 from t'other side of the Tweed. It is a monstrously infectious disease 

 under which he labours, and no medicine can stem the torrent of it. 



Mark that cadaverous, wizen-faced reptile, dressed in a suit of 

 shabby black : you would not give him a pound for his whole ward- 

 robe ; he rolls in wealth. For forty years he has sailed down the 

 commercial stream, with cent, per cent, swelling his sails hope has 

 stowed his cargoes, and caution has swayed the helm. Observe his 

 stealthy step slow steady, fearful " lest the very stones should 

 prate of his whereabout." His eye is bent upon the earth he needs 

 no eyes to guide him he moves mechanically to and from this, his 

 daily haunt. He bends forward to the earth, as if the weight of his 

 cargoes were upon his shoulders. He is a ticket-porter a beast of 

 burthen to his own schemes and fancies. He was made to bear great 

 weights he is a weighty man in his way. He looks like one of 

 those before whom the uncertificated bankrupt might cringe in vain. 

 Sooner would he give a drop of his heart's blood, or see the bank- 

 rupt's heart shed its last drop, than waste one drop of his ink in sign- 

 ing the necessary document of emancipation to the forlorn and broken 

 trader. Happy for this man if he does not hear a widow's cry 

 mingled with his death knell, and feel an orphan's tear mingled with 

 the death-dew on his forehead at his last hour. That cry would sound 

 keener than the loudest bell ; that tear strike colder than the touch of 

 death. That sallow cheek knows not the tender touch of fond emo- 

 tion's tear tracing its channel downwards, drawn forth from the in- 

 ward recesses of the heart : his heart is dry. Thus has he lived 

 thus will he live ; and when his bones shall be carried to their last 



