1826.] Familiarities — £. s, d. 573 



of a quiet and graceful retirement. Thus we are compelled to recognize 

 in f . s. d. at once the alphabet of Judas, and the ritual of worldly exal- 

 tation ; the written law of the profits, by which we stand or fall ; a tra- 

 gical tale in three volumes, a farcical absurdity in three acts ; a three- 

 cocked-hat, endowed with the gold lace of " a little brief autliority" — 

 whoso puts it on, claims consideration as an official from the court of 

 Plutus. They may be compared to the three sole faults that Scaliger found 

 in Terence. They are connecting links from the statesman to the shop- 

 keeper : we calculate and accunmlate, disperse what we have gained, 

 and make a death-bed of empty money-bags. One half of life is occu- 

 pied in expending what the other has amassed : we breathe an atmosphere 

 of gain and loss : one by one we pluck from our wings, whether for pens 

 or shuttlecocks, the feathers that are to support our flight ; as the thirsty 

 Scythians in the desert are said to have drunk blood drawn from the 

 horses on whose vigour they depended for relief. 



But are these symbols, so universally known and understood, exclu- 

 sively the insignia of arithmetic ? Is there but one picture behind the 

 narrow curtain of abbreviation ? Are there no earthly angels but those 

 that figure in collections of coins ? Let the usurer build him a sarcopha- 

 gus of guineas, and bury his living pleasures within it. Let him find 

 poetry in his ledger and sentiment in a sum-total. I regard it only in 

 the spirit of the innocent being, who, on begging the loan of a book to 

 vary his amusements, received a Directory from a wag ; and on being 

 asked his opinion of it, remarked that it seemed very well put together, 

 but that he could not discover the^;/o^ If he can see but one meaning 

 at a time, let him blame not his spectacles, but his eyes : if his heart 

 be not quite in the right place, let him heap the censure on his own 

 pocket for keeping it buttoned up. We will put Cocker on the top-shelf, 

 and select an unsophisticated £. s. d. from the ranks. We will view it 

 through a microscope, and let every eye be its own interpreter, " after 

 its kind." Lo I a philosopher comes to look ; he analyzes it in the 

 apparatus of his profession, and discovers its signification — ^Life, Shadows, 

 Death. A scholar appears, a worshipper of great names ; he discovers 

 in it a Lycurgus, a Solon, and a Demosthenes : another, whose sympa- 

 thies or studies are not carried so far back — Locke, Shakspeare, and 

 Descartes. Wliat may be its import in the eyes of a ruling libel on the 

 race of princes — a maker of swords and fetters to a nation ? Legitimacy, 

 Suspicion, and Dungeons. The enthusiast pronounces an animated and 

 luxuriant translation of Leisure, Sunshine, and Dreams of lovely and 

 admired objects ; the fanatic shrieks out a phrenzied denunciation of 

 Lucifer, Sin, and — its consequence. But beyond all these — beyond the 

 raptured hope of the visionary, and the healthful consciousness of the 

 philosopher — there is a fullness, an intensity of meaning growing out of 

 these pigmy characters (as though the Kile were to come gushing 

 through the tube of a straw), which is seen and felt only by the lover of 

 nature and the friend and enlightener of man. To his view they epitomize 

 the great mysteries of the mind : they embody a power no less capacious 

 than the universe itself — whose breath is like the air of heaven, and 

 whose torch is burning far over palace-tops, and shines upon the high 

 mountains; it is the spirit of Liberty, of Science, and intellectual 

 Dominion. The terms may be contracted, as the body may endure bonds 

 and the mind become enfeebled ; but the sense is without a limit, and 

 goes forth " trimipet-tongiied " to plead the cause of mankind. It is in 



