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All the world knows that
Mandeville, the author of the "Fable of the Bees," and Shaftesbury, the
author of the "Characteristics,’ divided a great portion of mankmd on a
question which is now no question at all That there are, assuredly, some
instances to be met with of rational bipeds, who exhibit scarcely any
traces of a moral sense, and act altogether upon the principle of
selfishness, we do not deny; but this admission does not bind us to the
selfish theory, for the very good reason, that we hold these creatures to
be nothing better than a species of monsters. Nor do we think the world,
with the tendency to self-love that prevails in it, would have been the
better for the want of these living, walking exemplars of their patron—the
devil; for, of a surety, they show us the fallen creature in all his naked
deformity, and make us hate the principle of evil through the ugly
flesh-case in which it works, and the noisome overt acts it turns up in
the repugnant nostrils of good men. Now, if you are an inhabitant of that
scandalous freestone village that lies near Arthur Seat, and took its name
from the Northumbrian king, Edwin—corrupted, by the conceit of the
inhabitants, into Edin—you will say that we mean something personal in
these remarks; and, very probably, when we mention the name of Mr Samuel
Ramsay Thriven, who, about twenty years after Mr John Neal introduced to
the admiring eyes of the inhabitants of the Scottish metropolis the term
haberdasher, carried on that trade in one of the principal streets of the
city, our intention will be held manifest. And what then? We will only
share the fate, without exhibiting the talent of Horace, and shall care
nothing if we return his good humour—a quality of far greater importance
to mankind than even that knowledge "which is versant with the stars."
Now, this Mr Samuel Ramsay
Thriven, who took up, as we have already signified, the trade designated
by the strange appellative introduced by the said John Neal, was one of
those dabblers in morals who endeavour to make the whole system of
morality accord with their own wishes. As to the moral sense, so strongly
insisted for by the noble author of the "Characteristics," he considered
it as a taste something like that for virtue, which a man
might have or not have, just as it pleased Dame Nature, or Mr Syntax
Pedagogue, but which he could pretend to have as often and in as great
profusion as it pleased himself. It was, he acknowledged, a very good
thing to have, sometimes, about one, but there were many things in the
world far better—such as money, a good house, good victuals, good
clothing, and so forth. It was again, sometimes, a thing a man might be
much better without. It formed a stumbling-block to prosperity; and when,
at the long run, a man had made to it many sacrifices, and become a
beggar, "rich in the virtue of good offices," he did not find that it got
him a softer bed in an alms-house, or a whiter piece of bread at the door
of the rich. These sentiments were probably strengthened by the view he
took of the world, and especially of our great country, where there is a
mighty crying, and a mighty printing about virtue, magnanimity, and
honesty, in the abstract, while there is probably, less real active
honesty than might be found among the Karomantyns—yea, or the Hottentots
or Cherokees. Then, too, it could not be denied that "riches cover a
multitude of sins;" why, then, should not Mr Thriven strive to get rich?
Upon such a theory did Mr
Samuel Thriven propose to act. It had clearly an advantage over theories
in general in so much as it was every day reduced to practice by a great
proportion of mankind, and so proved to be a good workable speculation.
That he intended to follow out the practical part of his scheme with the
same wisdom he had exhibited in choosing his theory of morals, may be
safely doubted. Caution, which is of great use to all men in a densely-popu
lated country, is an indispensable element in the cornposition of one who
would be rich at the expense of others. A good-natured man will often
allow himself to be cheated out of a sum which is not greater than the
price of his ease, and there are a great number of such good-natured men
in all communities. It is upon these that clever men operate; without them
a great portion of the cleverest would starve. They are the lambs with
sweet flesh and soft wool, making the plains a paradise for the wolves. A
system of successful operations carried on against these quiet subjects,
for a number of years, might have enabled Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven to have
retired, with his feelings of enjoyment blunted, and his conscience
quickened, to some romantic spot where he might have turned poetical. An
idle man is always, to some extent, a poet; and a rogue makes often a good
sentimentalist.
This ought clearly to have
been the course which worldly caution should have suggested as the
legitimate working out of the theory of selfishness. But Mr Thriven was
not gifted with the virtue of patience to the same extent that he was with
the spirit of theorizing on the great process of getting rich. He wanted
to seize Plutus by a coup de main, and hug the god until he
got out of him a liberal allowance. The plan has been attended with
success; but it is always a dangerous one. The great deity of wealth has
been painted lame, blind, and foolish, because he gives, without
distinction, to the undeservmg as well as to the worthy—to the bad often
more than to the good. It is seldom his godship will be coaxed into a
gift; and if he is attempted to be forced, he can use his lame leg,
and send the rough worshipper to the devil. Neither can we say that Mr
Thriven’s scheme was new or ingenious, being no other than to "break
with the full hand"—a project of great antiquity in Scotland, and
struck at, for the first time, by the Act 1621, cap. 18. It existed,
indeed, in ancient Rome and was comprehended under the general name of
stellionate, from stelio, a little subtle serpent, common in Italy Always
in great vogue in our country, it at one time roused the choler of our
judges to snch an extent that they condemned the culprits either to wear
the yellow cap and stockings of different colours, or be for ever at the
mercy of their creditors. But these times had gone by, and man might make
a very respectable thing of a break, if he could manage it adroitly enough
to make it appear that he had himself been the victim of misplaced
confidence So Mr Samuel, having given large orders to the English houses
for goods, at a pretty long credit, got himself in debt to an amount
proportioned to the sum he wished to make by his failure. There is no
place in the world where a man may get more easily in debt than in
Scotland. We go for a decent, composed, shrewd, honest people; and, though
we are very adequately and sufficiently hated by the volatile English whom
we so often beat on their own ground, and at their own weapons, we enjoy a
greater share of their confidence in mercantile matters than their own
countrymen. Vouchsafe to John the privilege of abusing Sawney, and calling
him all manner of hard names, and he will allow his English neck to be
placed in the Scotch noose, with a civility and decorum that is just as
commendable as his abuse of our countryman is ungenerous and unmanly. Mr
Thriven’s warehouses were, accordingly, soon filled with goods from both
England and Scotland; and it is no inconsiderable indication of a man’s
respectability that he is able to get pretty largely in debt. When a man
is to enter upon the speculations of failing, the step we have now
mentioned is the first and most important preliminary. Debt is the Ossa
from which the successful speculator rolls into the rich vale of Tempe.
There are some rugged rocks in the side of his descent to
independence—such as the examinations under the statutes—that are next to
be guarded against, and the getting over these is a more difficult
achievement than the getting himself regularly constituted a debtor. The
running away of a trusty servant with a hundred pounds, especially if he
has forged the cheque, maybe the making of a good speculator in
bankruptcy, because the loss of a thousand or two may be safely laid to
the charge of one who dare not appear to defend himself. The failure and
flight of a relation, to whom one gives a hundred pounds to leave him in
his books a creditor in a thousand, is also a very good mode of overcoming
some of the difficulties of failing; and a clever man, with a sharp
foresight, ought to be working assiduously for a length of time in
collecting the names of removing families, every one of whom will make a
good "bad-debtor." These things were not unknown to Mr Thriven; but
accident did what the devil was essaying to do for him, or rather,
speaking in a more orthodox manner, the great enemy, taking the form of
the mighty power, yclept Chance, set the neighbouring uninsured premises,
belonging to Miss Fortune, the milliner, in a blaze; and a large back
warehouse, in which there was scarcely anything save Mr Thriven’s ledgers,
was burnt so effectually, that no person could have told whether they were
full of Manchester goods, or merely atmospheric air of the ordinary
weight—that is, thirty-one grains to a hundred cubic inches.
When a respectable man
wishes ardently for a calamity, he arrays his face in comely melancholy,
because he has too much respect for public decorum to outrage the
decencies of life. Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven accordingly looked the
loss he had sustained with a propriety that might have done honour to a
widower between whom and a bad wife the cold grave has been shut for the
space of a day, and then set about writing circulars to his creditors,
stating that, owing to his having sustained a loss through the burning of
a warehouse where he had deposited three thousand pounds’ worth of goods,
he was under the necessity of stopping payment. No attorney ever made more
of letter-writing than Mr Samuel did on that day: in place of three
shillings and fourpence for two pages, every word he penned was equal to a
pound. |
