The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827. Various

      Debt is obligation, and "obligation," says Hobbes, "is thraldom." This will be evident if we once consider to what a variety of mean shifts the state of being in debt exposes us. It sits like fetters of iron on conscience; but as old offenders often whistle to the clanking of their chains, so rogues lighten their hearts by increasing their debts. It destroys freedom as much as a debtor is his creditor's slave; and, under certain circumstances, his range may be reduced to a few square feet, and his view prescribed by a few cubits of brick walls; and, humiliating as this may appear, it sits lightly on the majority, since, even the brawlers for liberty, forgetting "the air they breathe," are often to be found within its pale; but in this case they also forget, that being in legal debt is less venial than many other sins, since it cannot be cleared by any appeals to argument, or settled by shades of opinion. Subterfuge, lying, and loss of liberty, are not all the miseries of a conscious debtor: in the world he resembles a prisoner at large; he walks many circuitous miles to avoid being dunned, and would sooner meet a mad dog than an angry creditor. He lives in a sort of abeyance, and sinks under shame when caught enjoying an undue luxury. In short, he is cramped in all his enjoyments, and considers his fellow, out of debt, as great as the emperor of the celestial empire, after whose repast other kings may dine. Hence ensue repining and envy: he fancies himself slighted by the world, and, in return, he cares not for the opinion of the world; his energies waste, and he falls.

      These sufferings, however, appertain but to one class of debtors. There are others who scorn such compunctious visitations, and set all laws of conscience at defiance. They press into their service all the aids of cunning, and travel on byroads of the world till they are bronzed enough for its highway. Their memories are like mirrors, and their debts like breathings on them, which vanish the same moment they are produced. They look on mankind as a large family, and the world as a large storehouse, or open house, where they have a claim proportioned to their wants. They clear their consciences by maintaining, that what is parted with is not lost, and foster their hopes with the idea of its reversion. They think those who can ride ought not to walk; and, therefore, that all men have the option of such chances of good-fortune. With this laxity of principle they quarter themselves on the credulity of extortionate tradesmen, and the good-natured simplicity of friends or associates. If, perchance, they possess any excellence above their society, they consider it as a redeeming grace for their importunities, and, calculating on the vulgarism ad captandum, that what is dearest bought is most prized, they make their friends pay freely for their admiration. Nor are such admirers willing to break the spell by which they are bound, since, by their unqualified approval they sanction, and flatter the man of their party, to their mutual ruin; for, as Selden observes, "he who will keep a monkey should surely pay for the glasses he breaks."

      Prone as men are to the crooked path, and still more apt as the weak and ignorant are to indulge them in such a course, perhaps the love of principle is as strong in men's hearts as it ever will be. Of times gone by, we must not here speak; because the amor patriæ its has long since shifted to amor nummi, and naked honesty has learned the decency of dress. There have been profligates in all ages; but the world, though sometimes a severe master, ruins as many by its deceitful indulgence, as by its ill-timed severity. Good fellows are usually the worst treated by the world allowing them to go beyond their tether, and then cutting them off out of harm's way. Nothing but an earlier discipline can improve us; for so habitual is debt, that the boy who forestals his pocket-money uses it as a step-ladder to mortgaging his estate. The sufferers, in such cases, are generally shut up in prisons or poor-houses, to afflict or console each other as their sensibilities may direct; and thus the salutary lessons, which their condition might afford, is lost to the world. Neither are such scenes of real misery courted by mankind; the nearest semblances which they can bear being in the sentimentalities of the stage, encumbered as they often are by overstrained fiction and caricature. On the contrary, a walk through those receptacles of human woe, and the little histories of their inmates, will often furnish as many lessons of morality and world-knowledge as will suffice us for life. We may there see the rapacious creditor at the same goal with the unfortunate debtor, whom he has hunted through life, supplicating mercy which he never exercised, and vainly attempting to recant a course of cruelty and persecution, by mixing up his merited sufferings with the distresses of his abused companions.

      Goldsmith has said, that "every man is the architect of his own fortune;" and perhaps there are few men, who, in the moments of their deepest suffering, have not felt the force of this assertion. In high life, embarrassments are generally to be attributed to the love of gambling, prodigality, or some such sweeping vice, which no station can control. Bankruptcies, or failures in trade, being common occurrences, are seldom traced to their origin, too often found to be in expensive habits, and overreaching or misguided speculations, and sometimes in the treachery and villany of partners; and, amidst this bad system, so nicely is credit balanced, that a run of ill luck, or a mere idle whisper, is often known to destroy commercial character of a century's growth. But in these cases it should be recollected, that the reputation of the parties has probably been already endangered by some great stretch of enterprize, calculated to excite envy or suspicion.

      Debts of fashion, or those contracted in high life, are usually the most unjust, probably the result of honesty being more a virtue of necessity than of choice, and of the disgraceful system of imposing on the extravagant and wealthy. Experience, it is granted, is a treasure which fools must purchase at a high price; but however largely we may hold possession of that commodity, it will not excuse that scheme of bare-weight honesty, which some are apt to make the standard of their dealings with the rich. A man of family, partly from indiscretion, and from various other causes, becomes embarrassed; the clamours of his creditors soon magnify his luxuries, but not a word is said about their innumerable extortions, in the shape of commissions, percentages, and other licensed modifications of cheatery, nor are they reckoned to the advantage of the debtor. These may be practices of experience, custom, and money-getting, but they are not rules of conscience. In truth, there is not a more painful scene than the ruin of a young man of family. There is so much vice and unprincipled waste opposed to indignant and rapacious clamour, often accompanied with idle jests. Here again is food for the vitiated appetites of scandalmongers, and that miserable but numerous portion of mankind, who rejoice at the fall of a superior. The name of debtor is an odium which a proud spirit can but ill support; cunning and avarice come in a thousand shapes, not to retrieve lost credit, but to swell the list of embarrassments;—friends have fled at the approach of the crisis, and associates appear but to pluck the poor victim of the wrecks of his fortune! Absenteeism, the curse of England, is the only alternative of wretched and humiliating imprisonment. An entire change of habit ensues: ease and elegance of manners dwindle into coldness and neglect, liberality to meanness, and good-natured simplicity to chicanery and cunning. In society, too, how changed; once the gay table companion, full of gallantry and wit, now solitary and dejected, with the weeds of discomfort and despair rankling around his heart. If fortune ever enable him to regenerate from such obscurity, perhaps custom may have habituated him to privation till the return of comfort serves little more than to awaken recollections of past error or obligation, and to embitter future enjoyment. Such a change may, however, empower him to adjust his conscience with men, of all satisfaction the most valuable; notwithstanding that the world is readier to exaggerate error, than recognise such sterling principle. It is alike obvious, that men who are under the stigma of debt, do not enjoy that ease which they are commonly thought to possess. The horrors of dependance, in all its afflicting shapes, are known to visit them hourly, although in some instances, buoyancy of spirits, and affected gaiety may enable them to appear happy; and ofttimes would they be awakened to a sense of these fallacies, and thus become reformed, were it not for the rigour of persecution, which renders them reckless of all that may ensue, and callous to the honourable distinctions of man. This of a truth, is tampering with human weakness, and is too often known to prove the upshot of industry, by sacrificing principle to vindictive passion.