The giant stone that has borne the weight of mountain structures, and the heavier weight of centuries, is equalled in some fates with the frail bud of an April morning! Visitors, too, came who would enforce a gratuity on the employés, but refuse a subscription to the fund. Others, however, repaid the trouble of showing the results of the labor by becoming thoroughly interested in it, and afterwards aiding it by zealous advocacy at home.

We will now mention some particulars of the work. At the western wall of the sanctuary, Capt. Wilson, who, in the year 1864, had gone out to make an ordnance survey of Jerusalem, discovered a large arch, the span of which was forty-two feet, and its width forty-three feet. He considered it to be one of the most perfect and magnificent remains at Jerusalem, and probably of the same age as the wall at the Wailing Place; but from want of the necessary mining apparatus, he was unable to make a thorough investigation. Capt. Warren being better provided, accomplished what was impossible for his predecessor, and discovered a series of arches, forming a viaduct across the Tyropæan valley.

Here it is that we first come upon the great defect of Capt. Warren's otherwise most interesting account, viz., entering into detailed descriptions, which can only weary and bewilder when maps and plans are not supplied. There are through the book constant references to places as shown on the Ordnance Survey, to pencillings sent home, to plans at the Society's rooms, which are only so much aggravation to the perplexed reader. In the account of the vaults at Wilson's Arch, we follow on until “we don't know where we are," and grope about as much confused as the explorer would have been had his lights been extinguished, and he left to make his survey in Cimmerian darkness. Vaults, and arches, and doorways, and viaducts, and causeways, are so massed together, that daylight is quite excluded from the narrative; left hand and right hand are so magically handled that we know not one from the other; passages leading to east and west, north and south, twirl you round until the giddy brain cannot tell the points of the compass. We have tried again and again to follow the description, but all to no purpose, until getting into a secret passage we emerge thus with effect: "Having traced it (the secret passage) to a distance of two hundred and twenty feet from the sanctuary wall, we found a thin wall blocking up the passage; we broke through it, and dropped down about six feet into a continuation of it, stopped up by a wall to west, but opening by a door to south; through this we crept, and then saw light, and getting through into another chamber to south, we found ourselves in a donkey stable, the owner of which happened to be there, and he, on seeing us grimed with dirt, rushed out, swearing he was followed by gins!"

While the work was going on at Wilson's Arch, it was found advisable to construct a pit, sunk some six feet in one of the dark vaults, to act as a mouse-trap to catch certain meddling effendis, if they persisted in visiting the workmen engaged in clearing out the passages. However, the report of what was prepared for them had such deterring power that the capabilities of the trap were not put to the proof.

Capt. Warren does not assign this arch to so early a date as its discoverer, as he only places it in the fifth or sixth century. But the Haram wall, wherever exposed in this excavation, was found evidently to be in situ. There are in it here twenty courses of drafted stones, averaging three feet eight inches to four feet in height, and making in all seventy-five feet six inches above the rock. It is probably one of the oldest portions of the sanctuary now existing, and may have formed part of the original enclosure-wall of the Temple, in accordance with Jewish tradition.

Robinson's Arch, which is the name given to what seemed to be the remains of an ancient arch projecting from the west wall, not far from the south-west angle of the sanctuary, has been a subject of controversy as to whether there ever was a further prosecution of the work than now appears. Capt. Warren determined to set the matter at rest by excavating in search of the other pier. Beginning some distance from and opposite to the arch, he sank shafts at intervals across the valley, until at fifty-four feet from the wall he found the object of his search in fine drafted stone resting in situ on the rock, and forming part of the western pier of Robinson's Arch. The pier was found to be fiftyone feet six inches long and twelve feet two inches thick; two of its courses on the western side, and three on the eastern, remained in situ, the stones being precisely similar to those in the wall at the south-west angle of the sanctuary. The span of the arch was forty-one feet six inches.

Stretching from the base of the pier to the sanctuary wall is a pavement, and working along it they found the fallen voussoirs of the viaduct, which crossed the valley by this arch.

A few feet above the pavement, a low passage was found leading direct to the wall. It was full of mud, and could only be cleared out by the men crawling on their knees, and at times the air was so bad that candles would not burn, and they had to work in the dark at the head of the gallery. They were eventually stopped by shingle pouring in without ceasing; but they were repaid for their trouble by having discovered that the Haram wall extends unbroken from the south-west angle up to the Prophet's Gate, a distance of about three hundred feet. To the height of the pavement it is built of rough-faced stones; the faces of those above it are smooth.

Sinking through this pavement, on which lay the fallen voussoirs of Robinson's Arch, they reached, through twentythree feet of débris and old masonry, the rock, and on it found two voussoirs of a more ancient arch, which in their fall had broken in the roof of a rock-cut canal. This canal runs some distance to the south, but following it to the north, they made the very material discovery that it leads to a circular pool hewn in the rock, of which only half can be seen, as it is cut through by the foundations of the sanctuary wall. Evidence was thus obtained of there having been structures more ancient than the present wall and the viaduct, of which Robinson's Arch is the only remnant visible above-ground.

We turn now to the southern wall of the sanctuary. It is nine hundred and twenty-two feet in length, and is divided into three nearly equal portions, by the Double or Huldah Gate to the west, and the Triple Gate to the east. After examination in nine separate places, Capt. Warren considers the whole to be in situ, but the western third to be less ancient than the rest. His reasons for assigning a later date to it are the following. We have mentioned the evidence of more ancient structures at Robinson's Arch, and also the character of the wall, the stones composing it being rough-faced beneath and smooth-faced above the pavement. This pavement and similar building in the wall, is found to extend round the south-west corner and all along to the Double Gate; while at the south-east angle the wall springs from the rock and has its stones nicely worked from the foundations. There is, also, a very remarkable course of stones, the height of which averages from five feet ten inches to six feet one inch, extending more or less continuously from the south-east angle (where the corner-stone. the largest yet known, weighs one hundred tons) to the Double Gate, but is not found to west of that point. The largest stone at present known is found at the south-west corner, but its bed is four feet above the great course.

Further, the walls of the south-west angle from the Prophet's Gate on the west, and the Double Gate on the south—that is, for nearly three hundred feet on either side are different in construction from the portions of wall they adjoin, being less carefully built, as well as being formed of stones roughly faced up to a certain height, as if they had been sunk underground in debris accumulated over the ruins of more ancient buildings. And lastly, at a

point ninety feet on the south side of this angle, the Haram wall, which is here eighty-five feet below the surface, and built of stones so marvellously fitted together that the joints are scarcely discernible, cuts through (as the west wall the rock-cut pool mentioned above) the remains of an aqueduct running along the lowest part of the Tyropean Valley.

In the excavations of the east wall of the sanctuary, letters in red paint, some five inches long, were discovered, apparently quarry marks, and if so, proving that the stones had been dressed before being brought to the ground. Then "marks of King Solomon," excited great interest among the inhabitants and visitors to Jerusalem. The Pacha could not be persuaded to see them himself, but ordered a party of effendis to report upon them.

Capt. Warren, hearing of the matter, and knowing it would be dangerous to leave such gentlemen to their own will, took care to be at the spot on their arrival, and drew from them an admission that they had come by his Excellency's order. A judicious administration of descents, gradually increasing in length, diminished the number of inspectors to one, a renegade Greek, who persevered through shame of failing under the ordeal. The last and longest shaft was at the south-east angle, where the basement courses were shown to him as belonging to the Haram wall. He thought it was a jest, and reported that a wall of Solomon had been found in front of, and quite distinct from, the Haram. The paint-marks were also shown him, but being too ordinary-looking characters to have attained such notoriety, he took this as a jest also, and quietly with his thumb deprived a Q of its tail, and transfigured it into a commonplace O. Capt. Warren, horrified at such Vandalism, tumbled him over, and he, satisfied with his experiences, begged to return to the surface.

The inspection was over, but effendis could not be trusted to report truthfully, so that a dragoman had to be despatched to confront them in the Pacha's presence, and thus the matter was brought to a favorable issue, and the explorations were allowed to proceed.

Further researches along the east wall were rendered difficult, in consequence of the western tombs which lie close to it. "The same people who see no harm in the destruction of them while quarrying, in using them as stables, and in building the tombstones into their houses, think it desecration for a Frank in any way to examine these interesting relics."

The nearest point available was 143 feet distant from the wall, and at that distance a shaft was sunk opposite the Golden Gate, and a gallery run towards the south side; but it had to be discontinued, as the shingle came rushing in so suddenly as to bury some of the tools and filled it up, rendering further work impossible. It was found that the miners could not be kept in such dangerous places except at intervals, since their nerves became so unstrung as to render necessary a resort to safer labor for a few days.

Of the explorations at the north-east angle the material results appear to be that the wall is discovered of a different construction from that at the other angles of the sanctuary. At the angle it rises upward unbroken, and forms part of the so-called Tower of Antonia, and beyond the angle it continues without any break as the city wall. A valley was found to run under this corner and to emerge from beneath the east wall at 58 feet from the north-east angle, the debris at this point being 125 feet deep. The bottom of the valley is 165 feet below the Sakhra; the wall of the sanctuary is 150 feet in height at this point.

An important discovery seems to have been made in the Haram area. Heavy rains did for the explorers what the royal firman had prevented them doing for themselves, by causing the ground to give way and thereby making an opening at the northern edge of the platform. The opening had been filled up, but Capt. Warren's experienced eye detected a deficiency in the work, and coming early next morning he was not disappointed in his expectation of finding the cavity again in existence. By it he got admittance to a souterrain running east and west. It consists of an arched passage 18 feet in span, with bays to the south, 12 feet by 17 feet. The southern side of these bays is scarped

rock, and on it the wall supporting the northern edge of the mosque platform is built. The arches appear to be Saracenic. On the northern side of the vault the rock could not be discovered. The souterrain was explored for about 70 feet, and it seems to limit the space which was occupied by the sacred courts. "It is suggested that the northern edge of the platform is the northern front of King Herod's Temple."

Having thus finished our brief detail of the excavations, it is expedient to see what conclusion is deduced from the results obtained, what is the net increase in materials for determining the ancient temple site.

It has been observed that two points were especially under investigation, - the present walls, and the lie of the rock about it. The walls being covered to such a height with accumulations of débris, their age could only be ascertained by mining. Capt. Warren has come to the conclusion that a portion of the western wall- that between Wilson's Arch and the Prophet's Gate was the work of Solomon, or of the kings of Judah. The south-west angle, for about 300 feet on either side, he assigns to Herod; the remaining portion of the south wall, and the greater part of the east, he considers to be Solomon's, and the rest of the east wall up to the north-east angle, he sets down as the old wall of the kings of Judah.

What made it appear of such consequence to discover the lie of the rock in and around the Haram area was, that the sanctuary being an artificial plateau constructed on the ridge of the mountain, it was hoped that the knowledge of the natural conformation of the ground would afford some guidance to the true site of the temple.

The ridge of the mountain was found to run nearly in a straight line from the north-west angle to a point in the south wall 300 feet from the south-east angle, the sides sloping down so steeply that the rock near the north-east angle is 162 feet, at the south-east angle 163 feet, and at the south-west angle 150 feet below the sacred rock.

Now Capt. Warren argues that it is incredible that the Temple should have been placed " in a hole, or even along the sides of the hill, or anywhere except on the ridge.' And this argument would no doubt be conclusive if there were no artificial plateau, or if it had been an after construction in that case there would have been an evident propriety, if not necessity, for building the sacred edifice on the ridge of the mountain. But if by massive walls raised from the valleys on either side a level space were obtained, it would surely then be optional, in a great measure, on what portion of it the building should be situated.

The most important aid in the solution of the great problem seems to be derivable from the discovery of the valley under the northern part of the Haram. In Josephus's account of Pompey's attack, a valley is spoken of as being on the north side of the temple courts, and the same is alluded to in his account of the attack of Titus when describing Antonia. The discovery of this valley accordingly proves that the present Haram area extends northwards considerably further than the ancient courts.

The sanctuary, as we have stated, is 1500 feet from north to south, and 900 from east to west. According to the view now propounded, 600 feet of length on the northern side is cut off as being of later addition, leaving a square of 900 feet, of which, again, 300 feet in length of the south end is cut off as having formed Solomon's Palace on the east, and an addition by Herod on the west. The central remaining part of the Haram, 600 feet in length, and stretching across 900 feet from wall to wall, is given as the courts of Solomon's Temple.

We may add, as a confirmation of the view that Solomon's courts did not extend beyond the northern edge of the platform, the fact that none of the ancient rock-roofed tanks are found beyond it either.

It is hardly possible that any real advance in obtaining knowledge to decide the question at issue will be made until liberty be given to carry on the excavations in the Haram area, and the obtaining such liberty seems but a remote prospect.

In conclusion, we cannot withhold our admiration of the courage which nerved the explorer to encounter dangers truly "i' the deadly imminent breach," the tact which gained its point successfully, and the cheerful ardor that never murmured at work in places from which the veriest mudlark might have turned away disgusted. While thinking the present volume too heavy for general reading, we are of opinion that nothing could better extend an interest in the labors, and increase the means at the disposal of the "Palestine Exploration Fund," than a smaller one, presenting the genial, dauntless explorer, and the main results of his work, to the public.

We cannot look upon this as mere antiquarian research. As it catches the attention of the world, it must draw out sympathy for the people who still hold the title-deeds to the land and the city, so that there may be restored to them the better heritage, to which also they have an indefeasible right"The adoption and the glory and the covenants and the promises."

OUT AT INTEREST.

WHEN hard-headed Roger North, the prudent merchant, brother of the brilliant Lord Keeper Guilford, came home from his self-imposed exile at the Grand Turk's capital, nothing annoyed or surprised him more than did the importunity of the London goldsmiths. These auriferous persons followed the new-comer about, cap in hand, bobbing their smug wigs in token of civic courtesy, and begged pertinaciously to know where his worship, brother to Mr. Attorney-General, kept his money. The sturdy Turkey merchant was quite disgusted at their inquisitiveness. "Confound you!" he answered, in his testy way, "where on earth should I keep it, except in my own house?"

The truth was, that during the score of years or so that Roger had spent at Constantinople, a great change, social as well as financial, had begun to dawn upon the horizon of English life. People, as commerce expanded, were beginning to realize the truth that there is not enough of hard money in the world to accommodate the needs of the buyers and sellers, whose name is legion. We cannot, all of us, carry our penny in our hand when we go to buy a pennyworth. Sometimes, no doubt, it is convenient or necessary to provide one's self with the actual coin, real ringing gold, clinking silver, or resonant copper; but in general it is both pleasanter and more easy to give an order on the till of some one else; to convey the right to a thing, rather than the thing itself. The old established practice which Master North remembered was at least entitled to the praise of simplicity. Every well-to-do merchant had his stout oaken coffer or his heavy iron safe, and to the security of this primitive savings-bank he committed the earnings of a lifetime. There is something almost Arcadian in this mode of investment. To lock up one's gold broad pieces and silver ingots, one's double joes, and Spanish pistoles, and French crowns, and to keep this mass of idle specie until the chance of a good bargain turned up, is precisely what would suggest itself to the mind of an unimaginative man, in love with the wary proverb, "Safe bind, safe find."

There were inconveniences in the old hoarding system. It was not only that thieves might break in and steal. There was comparatively little risk of that in a solid mercantile mansion, barred, bolted, and watched, nor were the burglars of the period by any means equal to the accomplished artists of our own time, with their plough-diamonds, and gunpowder, and drills of hardened steel. But kings, until

a comparatively late epoch, had an ugly knack of asking for benevolences, and loans, and subsidies- the mild names of which did but gild the bitter pill of a requisition peremptory as that of a modern army in war-time- and how could the owner of a well-lined money-chest hope to escape the pressure of these royal borrowings and beggings? And then, a long delay might occur before a fresh chance of snapping up a wainload of wool, or a dozen butts of canary, or a freight of Holland napery, came in the trader's way. The heap of inert treasure must often have been as provoking a sight to a bustling alderman as is to a liverystable keeper that of a row of unemployed horses, “cating their heads off" in the stable. It was troublesome, too, to pay or to receive payment when the parties to the transaction had to be attended by brawny porters with sacks wherein to carry bullion, when scales and weights were in constant request, and there was wrangling over light coin, and squabbling over clipped coin, and two stout apprentices were in waiting, cudgel in hand, to escort their master and his money-bags through the cut-purses and brawling bullies who beset the dangerous streets.

One solid reason for hoarding money during the long continuance of the elastic period which we call the Middle Ages, consisted in the great difficulty of finding a convenient investment. The very idea of investing capital, familiar enough to the richer citizens of both republican and imperial Rome, had been forgotten. Capital itself was not recognized as the financial Proteus which we now know it to be capable of assuming all shapes, and of spurring on every kind of industry. Indeed, the medieval spirit was hostile to its very existence. People were supposed to live upon their inconies, not to save them. Whatever surplus remained, it was thought that a good man would give to the poor, or to a convent in want of repairs, or to a church that needed a fresh chancel or a peal of bells. A very thrifty person might bury a crock of coin here and there, but the practice was not commendable. As for the moneymarket, it was anathema. There were usury laws, the principle of which was founded on the Mosaic prohibition to exact interest for a loan, and strong discredit attached to those who availed themselves of the legislators' reluctant toleration. The first lenders of money in medieval Christendom were, of course, Jews, and they were mainly a sort of pawnbrokers, taking in pledge the crown jewels of the monarch, the ruby carcanet of the countess, or the silver hanaps and gilt apostle spoons of his worship the knight. The adventurous capitalist who embarked his means in this traffic was hooted by the street boys, envied by the poor, and despised by the rich. Life for him was full of perils. On any hot August evening, or when the cold and hunger of a medieval winter had made the halfstarved mob wolfish and irritable, a sudden cry might be set up to "rabble the Jews," and then came sack and plunder, a burning house and a scramble for booty, and well for the trembling owner if he and his family escaped with whole bones out of the turmoil. Nor was poor Reuben quite secure from his noblest customers. It a king like John chose to take out his teeth, one by one, until he ransomed his wretched jaw by revealing a secret hoard, or if a baron roasted him into giving a receipt for a debt unpaid, nobody seemed to be very sympathetic with the sufferer. It was thought a sharp way of doing business, a practical joke carried rather far, but that was all.

Presently in western Europe there appeared rivals for the profits which, in spite of riots and confiscation, the Jews had previously monopolized. The substantial burghers of Ypres and Bruges, the rich traders of Venice and Genoa, began not merely to put out their hard cash at interest, but to lend it with the confidence of men who were not ashamed of the transaction. Indeed, the citizens of the mighty commercial republics of middle-aged Italy, to whom banking was a familiar science, when in London and Paris it was unknown, were strictly following in the steps of their remote forefathers. From a very early date in Roman history the patrician houses of the city had discovered that money might be dealt in as easily, and with perhaps more lucrative results, than any other commodity. The yeoman

whose farm could not be tilled without a yoke of oxen to replace those dead of the cattle pest, or driven off by the Samnite raiders, went to Fabius or Claudius for a loan. The petty stall-keeper waited, cap in hand, in the vestibule, while some friendly freedman or humble hanger-on of the great family went in to arrange for an advance from my lord the senator's money-chest. It was a matter of course that yeoman and stall-keeper should pay in person as well as in coin for the accommodation. Henceforth they would be numbered among the clients of their illustrious creditor "boys of the belt," henchmen and retainers, to shout and fight on the Fabian or the Claudian side; to be a body-guard to their patron at stormy election times, and to be ready to back his cause with tongue and cudgel against all Rome. If they were unpunctual with their interest, there were ready means of foreclosure, and a debtor who was hopelessly in arrear went shuddering down, he and his, into the damp dungeons below my lord's mansion, there to suffer from cold and low diet, and perhaps the rack, since the creditor enforced his own jail discipline, and laid down his own rules for the treatment of defaulters. It is not wonderful that under the pressure of such a system as this, combined with the unequal distribution of conquered lands, the Roman nobility -became so strong and wealthy, as almost to defy the combi-nation against them of people and emperor.

It is obvious that, in medieval times, the wheels of the triumphal chariot of progress were sorely clogged and hampered by the awkward traditions of the time. It was possible to be very rich in kind, and to be at the same moment ludicrously ill provided with coin. The healthy and quick flow of the circulating medium in these latter years is apt to make us oblivious or impatient of the troubles of our ancestors. Silver and gold did not then, as now, go like life-blood through the land, answering every beat of the financial pulse. A "yeoman of Kent, with his yearly rent," has a wealthy sound as we hear his station trolled out in the song; but though fifty hams swung in the wood-smoke of his capacious chimney, though the sheep on his leas were to be reckoned by hundreds, and fat red oxen lowed in the wet meadows where the brook ran prattling down, even the enviable Kentish yeoman had very little money stowed away in the blue worsted stocking fast locked in the oaken box. He could feed, and did feed, fifty men and women, and could store up grain and wood and oak timber, but his dealings partook more of the nature of barter, than of genuine buying and selling.

It is remarkable that the Jewish laws, and those of Mahomet's Koran, have forbidden usury, and yet that the principal money-lenders and money-dealers of five centuries ago were Moors and Jews, the faithful of the synagogue and the believers who left their slippers in the porch of the mosque. Spanish Moslems and scattered Israelites furnished funds for the wars and pageants of South Europe, as Milan and Florence replenished the purse of the magnificent and expensive Edward the Third.

Borrowed money was a costly luxury in the Middle Ages. True, there were statutes which limited the interest, but then when one man wants money, and another has got it, it is surely easy to elude the letter of the law. To be nailed to the pillory, to have one's ears clipped, and be branded by the hangman, were disagreeable consequences of an advantageous bargain, but then how seldom could these formidable penalties have been enforced? It was for everybody's benefit that things should go on smoothly. High profits were made, in the days of old, by lending money in pledge, but to the present hour the trade has continued to be coldly regarded by the outside world. Pawnbrokers are not popular. A money-lender of the true stamp comes into courts of justice with somewhat of Shylock's ill repute, and when, as sometimes occurs, a young scamp proves too clever even for the trained cunning of the man of cent-per-cent, the world laughs indulgently, as when some astute wizard of the dark ages cheated the foul fiend. The man who borrows is sure of more sympathy than he who lends. To foreclose is harsh. Distraint is a process disagreeable to the lookers-on. Still more was this the case a few centuries back. The "great 'oneyers," the gold-compelling exchan

gers in whose respectable company Sir John Falstaff vowed in future to quaff his decorous flagons of sack, were thought to earn their gains after a fashion that was intrinsically wicked, and men shook their heads as the usurer's sumptuous funeral went by, let the gray friars chant their loudest, and the tapers flare in endless line.

In the reign of Elizabeth a good deal of cash was borrowed on the security of land, and a good many estates changed hands. Many gentlemen of moderate property were dazzled by the reports as to El Dorado, and either joined companies of adventurers eager to colonize some portion of the New World, or fitted out ships to prey upon Spanish commerce. These semi-piratical enterprises demanded ready money, and many broad acres held in feesimple, with many a gray manor-house nestling among its elms, were melted down in the crucible whence Hope promised to extract the ingots of the wonderful Western Indies. The heavy fines and crushing assessments imposed by Cromwell's major-generals on malignants, compelled numbers of royalists to mortgage estates that they never had the means to redeem, and a large portion of the soil of England passed at that time from the hands of its former proprietors. Almost simultaneously, Britannia herself appeared in the market as a borrower. The first public creditors had very little idea of their own position with respect to the many-headed debtor to whom they lent a few hundred pounds at a time. They trusted the worshipful the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or they obliged his honor the Teller, or they dropped their mite into the ever-ready hand of the Lord High Treasurer, exactly as they would have offered the same accommodation to a great merchant, whose wool has not yet been paid for by his Genoese customers.

The

The theory of the national debt, as of the nation's income and its outlay, was formerly a very simple one. king, out of his own revenues, was supposed to keep up in time of peace the whole machinery of government. It was for him to pay the judges, and such other functionaries, few, indeed, as were directly dependent on the crown, to provide for the civil needs of the country, and to maintain such institutions as were not self-supporting. As these costs and charges gradually increased, Parliament had to vote grants in aid of the royal purse, and as the ministers of state, like other persons, often outran the constable, a little friendly help from London citizens was frequently required.

Gradually, as the nation grew richer and more restless, it became customary to lend spare cash and superfluous savings to his Majesty Charles II. The lenders must have well understood the personal character of this unprincipled recipient of their hard-earned coin. King Charles, as Macaulay tells us, broke faith with the public creditor, but he was one of those princes whose worst deeds are gently done. The king, as king, borrowed, and he could not pay the principal, nor was the interest always forthcoming. There was the French Duchess of Portsmouth, there was Nell Gywnn, there were other daughters of the horseleech, hustling and struggling with importunate courtiers for a share of the royal plunder. Whitehall was as bare of ready money as might be expected from a palace where Barbara Palmer and Maria Mancini were in authority over a weak and lavish monarch, and whence the king could draw upon the exchequer as a country gentleman draws upon his banker. But there was corn in Egypt. There was cash in England, and the newly-established post-office was a paying concern, and the chimney money brought in its solid half-million with a certainty equal to that of the curses with which cottagers pursued those who gathered it, and already the income of England began to show the strange elasticity which has since kept her head above water through long wars and fierce domestic discontent.

Washington Irving, in his "Little Britain," speaks of an English optimist who never failed to prove that the public debt with which his country was burdened was, in effect, a great national bulwark and blessing. More natural, perhaps, to an ill-regulated mind was the surprise expressed by the Persian ambassador that the debt should endure when the unexampled park of artillery at Woolwich was competent, if wisely employed, to blow liabilities and creditors