Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Poor as Lazarus may be, let him not envy the position of Dives. Even
in this world, riches cannot purchase happiness. Any pecuniary loss
was enough to drive Rothschild to despair. His existence was further
embittered by the dread of assassination--no uncommon symptom, when
the mind is rarely at ease; and those who knew him best, said that he
was often troubled with such thoughts, and that they haunted him at
moments when he would willingly have forgotten them. "Happy!" he said,
in reply to the compliment of a guest--"me happy! what! happy when,
just as you are going to dine, you have a letter placed in your hands,
saying, 'If you do not send me £500, I will blow your brains out?'
Happy!--me happy!" We are not compassionate enough to wish that it had
been otherwise. Such thoughts are the foreshadowing of the end of those
who have prospered beyond their deserts, and have failed in making even
that negative expiation, which conscience sometimes extorts from the
apprehensions of unscrupulous men.
And here we shall close our remarks. There is still a fertile field
before us, on which we might be tempted to enter; but that discussion
would bring us too near our own days, and involve the resumption of
topics which have already been handled in Maga. The time doubtless
will come, when, after the cessation of some new fit of speculation,
and when men are cursing their folly, and attempting by late industry
to repair their shattered fortunes, some historian like Mr Francis
shall take up the pen, and chronicle our weakness, as that of our
fathers is already chronicled. In the meantime, it would be well for
all of us seriously to lay to heart the lesson which may be drawn from
this interesting record. Speculation, carried beyond due bounds, is
neither more nor less than a repetition of the old game of BEGGAR MY
NEIGHBOUR, under another form. To fair and legitimate enterprise we
owe much of our modern improvement; which has been further rendered
necessary by the pressure which has increased, and is increasing upon
us. To unfair and illegitimate enterprise, undertaken for the sole
purpose of immediate gain, we owe nothing save periods of great misery
and desolation. The game of BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR may be played privately
or publicly. Some of us have taken a hand in it privately, with what
results we shall keep to ourselves. For several years back, our
statesmen have played the public game, and played it well. They have
succeeded in inflicting successively a blow upon each great interest
of the country, by dealing with each separately, and by alienating the
sympathy of the others. The game is now pretty well played out; and
when we come to reckon our counters, it is evident from the result,
that not one of the parties so dealt with has been a winner! Who, then,
are the gainers? We think the answer is plain. They are the Capitalist
and the Foreigner.
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART II.
CHAPTER IV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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