of debtor and creditor;" although no kind of slavery is so easily
endured, as that of being in debt. Luxury and expensive habits, which
are commonly thought to enlarge our liberty by increasing our
enjoyments, are thus the means of its infringement; whilst, in nine
cases out of ten, the lessons taught by this rigid experience lead to
the bending and breaking of our spirits, and the unfitting of us for the
rational pleasures of life. All ranks of mankind seem to fall into this
fatal error, from the voluptuous Cleopatra to the needy philosopher, who
doles out a mealsworth of morality for his fellow-creatures, and who
would fain live according to his own precepts, had he not exhausted his
means in the acquisition of his experience.

I blush to confess, that I have often thought the _habit of debt_
to be our national inheritance--from that bugbear of out-of-place men,
the Sinking Fund, to the parish-clerk, who mortgages his fees at the
chandler's; and that my countrymen seem to have resolved to increase
their own enjoyments at the expense of posterity, with whose provision,
even Swift thinks we have no concern. Again; I have thought that we are
apt to over-rate our national advancement, by supposing the present race
to be wiser than the previous one, without once looking into our
individual contributions to this state of enlightenment. Proud as we are
of this distinction in the social scale, we can record few instances of
contemporary genius, and we are bound to confess that men are not a whit
the better in the present than in the previous generation. Thus we
hoodwink each other till social outrages become every-day occurrences,
and every thing but sheer violence is protected by its frequency; and in
this manner we consent to compromise our happiness, and then affect to
be astonished at its scarcity. In the later ages of the world, men have
learned to temporize with principles, and to sacrifice, at the shrine
of passing interest, as much real virtue as would bear them harmless