nnibal. His deep-toned objurgations at the
degeneracy of Rome are brought to mind by the increased dissipation and
licentiousness of American youth.

Who can read lines like these without thinking of our concert-saloons
and other facilities of vice? (the former happily suppressed.)

Damnasa quid non immmuit dies.

The history of capitalists would be interesting, if only as showing this
single feature, namely, that the secret of great success lies in one's
placing himself in some channel where the stream must soon flow, and
thus anticipating the future.

Johnson, in the midst of his cheerless poverty, had some golden dreams,
was sensible of this fact, and illustrates it in one of those Oriental
apologues which occur in the _Rambler_, where he shows the tiny rivulet
gradually filling a lake. With the same idea permeating his mind, he
exclaims, when Thrale's brewery was to be sold: 'Here are the means of
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.'

The history of rich men also proves that it is not so much the art of
getting as that of keeping which insures success. New-York and other of
our great cities contain thousands of poor men who, but a few years ago,
were heavy operators, and whose future seemed brilliant with promise.
Yet here they are, now struggling for mere bread.

Riches are winged creatures, which break cage with strange facility and
are not to be whistled back again. The array of agents, brokers,
book-keepers, and decayed gentlemen who but lately were numbered among
merchants, bankers, and ship-owners, is quite a moving spectacle. Thus
A. B----, for thirty years connected with trade, during most of which
period he was a leading member of the great cloth house of----, has been
worth two hundred thousand dollars, but is now a book-keeper for a
concern in John street. I. S---- has been forty years in trade, and was
considered successful beyond all liability to future risk; and for many
years ranked among the rich men of the street, but has since failed, and
is now poor. B---- and M----, princes in the dry-goods line, built two
palatial stores in Broadway, have been immensely rich, but after
battling honorably with adverse fortune, have failed. J. R----, a
retired merchant, estimated at five hundred thousand dollars, holding at
one time fifty thousand dollars in Delaware and Hudson Canal stock,
subsequently got involved and lost all. Instances like these might be
multiplied to volumes, but they are sufficient