hat 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
throughout life. Hence, of what more avail is the virtue of the Roman
fathers, or are the amiable friendships of Scipio and Lelius, than
as so many amusing fictions to exercise the imaginations of schoolmen
in drawing outlines of character, which experience does not finish.
Friends, like certain flowers, bloom around us in the sunshine of
success; but at night-fall or at the approach of storms, they shut up
their hearts; and thus, poor victims being rifled of their mind's
content, with their little string of enjoyments broken up for ever,
are abandoned to the pity or scorn of bystanders. It is impossible to
reflect for a moment on such a crisis, without dropping a tear for the
self-created infirmities of man: but there are considerations at which
he shudders, and which he would rather varnish over with the sophistry
of his refinement, and the fallacies of self-conceit.

I fear that I am breaking my rule in not confining myself to a few
shades of debt and conscience, with a view of determining how far they
are usually reconciled among us. The task may not prove altogether
fruitless; notwithstanding, to find honest men, would require the
lantern of Diogenes, and perhaps turn out like Gratiano's wheat