1829.] Affairs im General. 179 
ages. Rowland Stephenson would probably have never found the 
necessity of robbing his creditors, if he had not found that an Opera-box, 
a country-seat, and a dozen dilettanti dinners a year, were a regular 
part of the accomplishments of a banker. Fauntleroy would not have 
felt the necessity of being hanged, but for the discovery of similar 
necessities; and three-fourths of the bankruptcies, that make half a 
million of pounds not worth half a million of farthings, and wrap thou- 
sands of the industrious and honest in the ruin of a single shewy firm, 
would never startle commerce “ from its propriety.” 
As to the general point—why they should be considered so peculiarly 
gentlemen—we should first be told what there is so peculiarly consti- 
tuting the character, in the mere act of trafficking paper against gold, of 
keeping other men’s accounts, or ef dealing professionally in the sale of 
stock. he fact is, that the mere trade of banking has no more to do 
with gentlemanhood than the mere trade of scrivening, or book-keeping, 
or any other vulgar and mechanical occupation of the pen. If the bankers 
are men of education and good-breeding, their claims must be acknow- 
ledged, but not on the strength of their firms. Let scholarship, personal 
accomplishment, high-bred manners, or active ability, give a title te 
general consideration in society ; but let us disdain to accept the supre- 
macy of the purse as the title to respect. It is the glory of England 
that there is no aristocracy of talent, and that every man of mental attain- 
ment may establish his right to public attention. But the mere fact of 
making money by the most common-place and mindless method of accu- 
a should establish no title to any rank beyond that of a money- 
er. 
But, if they are to figure at all, let them figure in the way of their 
trade. Let the English banker be like the foreign one, and he may 
become as public a character as his strongest passion for publicity can 
desire, without leaving his credit to the fingering of underlings. Every 
traveller on the Continent has felt the advantage of the hospitality, pro- 
tection, and valuable introductions of which the great bankers are the 
direct instruments. The foreign banker opens his house, at intervals, 
for the general meeting of his correspondents with the principal persons 
of importance in the place; and thus not merely serves them in the 
general purposes of his trade, but greatly adds to the personal gratifica- 
tion and convenience which induce the resort of strangers, The Lafittes 
and Torlonias ef the Continent do more in a year for the promotion of 
good society, by their occasional soirées, than the whole race of the 
London bankers for a century. What foreign tourist, coming to this 
country, ever knows more than his banker’s counter? The stranger 
finds no place where he may reckon on a reception, as abroad. While 
the superb English banker is aping the habits of the superb English 
lord, and exceeding the expenditure of the superb English prince, his 
torrespondent knows no more of his house than that it is the largest in 
some patrician square—or of his hospitality, than that the newspapers 
mention his having had half the Cabinet to dinner. Let our bankers 
attend to their ledgers, if they will not be cheated and ruin their cus- 
tomers ; and, if they will solicit public importance, let them do it in the 
way of their business, by exercising fair English hospitality to their 
rrespondents at home and abroad, and being as little like dukes, and 
much like honest tradesmen, as their fathers were. 
2A2 
