at ten shillings a week,--the
repayments commencing the very first week after the advance has been
made. But though ten shillings are repaid weekly until the debt is wiped
off, interest at five per cent, is charged upon the whole amount until
the last instalment is paid off. So that, though the nominal interest is
five per cent., it goes on increasing until, during the last week, it
reaches the enormous rate of one hundred per cent.! This is what is
called "eating the calf in the cow's belly."

Men of genius are equally facile in running into debt. Genius has no
necessary connection with prudence or self-restraint, nor does it
exercise any influence over the common rules of arithmetic, which are
rigid and inflexible. Men of genius are often superior to what Bacon
calls "the wisdom of business." Yet Bacon himself did not follow his own
advice, but was ruined by his improvidence. He was in straits and
difficulties when a youth, and in still greater straits and difficulties
when a man. His life was splendid; but his excessive expenditure
involved him in debts which created a perpetual craving for money. One
day, in passing out to his antechambers, where his followers waited for
his appearance, he said, "Be seated, my masters; your rise has been my
fall." To supply his wants, Bacon took bribes, and was thereupon beset
by his enemies, convicted, degraded, and ruined.

Even men with a special genius for finance on a grand scale, may
completely break down in the management of their own private affairs.
Pitt managed the national finances during a period of unexampled
difficulty, yet was himself always plunged in debt. Lord Carrington, the
ex-banker, once or twice, at Mr. Pitt's request, examined his household
accounts, and found the quantity of butcher's meat charged in the bills
was one hundredweight a week. The charge for servants' wages, board
wages, living, and household bills, exceeded L2,300 a year. At Pitt's
death, the nation voted L40,000 to satisfy the demands of his creditors;
yet his income had never been less than L6,000 a year; and at one time,
with the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, it was nearly L4,000 a year
more. Macaulay truly says that "the character of Pitt would have stood
higher if, with the disinterestedness of Pericles and De Witt, he had
united their dignified frugality."

But Pitt by no means stood alone. Lord Melville was as unthrifty in the
management of his own affairs, as he was of the money of