h Porson once jestingly said he would write in five hundred
volumes! Interspersed are sketches of some lighter matters,--amusing
instances of the imitativeness and wrongheadedness of the people,
rather than examples of folly and delusion.

Religious matters have been purposely excluded as incompatible with
the limits prescribed to the present work; a mere list of them would
alone be sufficient to occupy a volume.

[Illustration: JOHN LAW.]

MONEY MANIA.--THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.

Some in clandestine companies combine;
Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line;
With air and empty names beguile the town,
And raise new credits first, then cry 'em down;
Divide the empty nothing into shares,
And set the crowd together by the ears.--_Defoe_.

The personal character and career of one man are so intimately connected
with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the
Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the
life of its great author John Law. Historians are divided in opinion as to
whether they should designate him a knave or a madman. Both epithets were
unsparingly applied to him in his lifetime, and while the unhappy
consequences of his projects were still deeply felt. Posterity, however,
has found reason to doubt the justice of the accusation, and to confess
that John Law was neither knave nor madman, but one more deceived than
deceiving, more sinned against than sinning. He was thoroughly acquainted
with the philosophy and true principles of credit. He understood the
monetary question better than any man of his day; and if his system fell
with a crash so tremendous, it was not so much his fault as that of the
people amongst whom he had erected it. He did not calculate upon the
avaricious frenzy of a whole nation; he did not see that confidence, like
mistrust, could be increased almost _ad infinitum_, and that hope was as
extravagant as fear. How was he to foretell that the French people, like
the man in the fable, would kill, in their frantic eagerness, the fine
goose he had brought to lay them so many golden eggs? His fate was like
that which may be supposed to have overtaken the first adventurous boatman
who rowed from Erie to Ontario. Broad and smooth was the river on which he
embarked; rapid and pleasant was his progress; and who was to stay him in
his career? Alas for him! the cataract was nigh. He saw, when it was too
late, that