The ancients had very correct notions on this subject. There was a dun at the very entrance to their "shades below;" how could any place of torment be complete without one? There was Charon, with his skinny hand outstretched for a penny. It was not much, certainly; but it is a great deal more than dutiful sons, affectionate nephews, and disconsolate heirs, can now afford to bestow upon the illustrious departed. It is a good thing for the modern dead that all this about Styx and the ferry-boat is held to be fiction. Detestable as is the dun, there is something heroic about him. It has been matter of dispute among learned commentators whether the assertion respecting this right valourous Thomas Thumb should be construed literally or paraphrastically, "He made the giants first, and then he killed them." There can be no doubt about the deeds of the dun. He actually does "make his giants first, and then he kills them." Without him there would be no debtors to destroy. If debt be a crime, the creditor is more than _particeps criminis_. He is the originator of, and tempter to, the deed. Justice should really punish the dun for drawing his victim into debt. We deny not that lending money is glorious among the virtues: nobody can appreciate that more than ourselves. But to punish a poor devil for affording a fellow-creature an opportunity for exercising the most exalted virtue, ranks next in heinousness to the crime of that man who may degrade himself into a _dun_. But what is a dun? the ignorant affluent may exclaim. It is this that the abomination is: the quintessence of vexation; a single plague, a plaguey deal worse than the whole ten that plagued Egypt. He is a substantial ghost, perpetually haunting a man, and sucking away his substance more eagerly than ever James the First imagined that a hobgoblin sucked a witch. He is far more ravenous than "the horseleech, who always cries 'Give, give!'" In his voice he imitates the cuckoo, having but one note, provided that he gets hold of yours--"Pay, pay! money, money!" He is a troublesome fiend, not to be laid with Protestant prayers, or Papistical holy water, and yet can be exorcised merely by a check.