POLITICAL ECONOMY. 25 



is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain of all this world's philosophy.] 



" economy is heaven's best boon to man." When the loose but gifted Byron lay in his Venetian 



exile he observed that, if it could be granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, 

 he virould give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition, not of frivolous rhymes, but 

 of essays upon political economy. Washington loved this exquisite science ; such names as Baker, 

 Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it ; and even imperial Homer, in the ninth 

 book of the Iliad, has said : — 



Fiat justitia, ruat caelum. 

 Post mortem unum, ante bellum, 

 Hie jacet hoc, ex-parte res, 

 Politicum e-conomico est. 



The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the felicity of the wording which 

 clothes them, and the sublimity of the imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that 

 stanza, and made it more celebrated than any that ever 



[" Now, not a word out of you — not a single word. Just state your bill and 

 relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on these premises. Nine 

 hundred dollars.? Is that all.? This check for the amount will be honored at any 

 respectable bank in America. What is that multitude of people gathered in the 

 -street for ? How ? — ' looking at the lightning-rods !' Bless my life, did they never 

 see any lightning-rods before .' Never saw ' such a stack of them on one establish-. 

 ment,' did I understand you to say .? I will step down and critically observe this 

 popular ebullition of ignorance."] 



Three Days Later. — We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hours 

 our bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. The theatres lan- 

 guished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame and commonplace compared 

 with my lightning-rods. Our street was blocked night and day with spectators, and 

 among them were many who came from the country to see. It was a blessed relief 

 on the second day, when a thunder-storm came up and the lightning began to "go 

 for " my house, as the historian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the gal- 

 leries, so to speak. In five minutes there was not a spectator within half a mile of 

 my place ; but all the high houses about that distance away were full, windows, 

 roof, and all And well they might be, for all the falling stars and Fourth-of-July 



