Next to making a business for one’s-self, the best way of growing rich undoubtedly is to purchase the business of one who has done well for himself, but who leaves a few ears of corn for his successors to glean. When Mr. Barclay, who purchased the property of Mr. Thrale’s brewery, &c., asked Dr. Johnson, who was one of the executors, what it was that he was going to purchase—how many were the brewing-tubs, drays, horses, and so forth—the latter replied, “Sir, I cannot enumerate them; but it is of more consequence to you to know that you have the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” And, as it turned out, Johnson was correct in his surmise. The name of Gideon is now little heard; but at one time, most assuredly, he was one of our merchant princes. I refer to Simeon Gideon, who knew how to make himself the friend of Robert Walpole, who was tolerant enough to avail himself of the help of a Jew in those financial complications in which he was necessarily concerned. One of the principal sources of revenue for the State were lotteries, and it was thus Gideon made his money. But he made his masterstroke in 1745, when the great Jacobite insurrection threw the British world, and the mercantile public especially, into the wildest consternation. The panic on ’Change was universal. The funds fell with incredible rapidity, and men wanted to sell at any price. Simeon Gideon was almost the only man who did not lose his head. Instead of selling, he spent every penny he had, or could borrow, in buying. This was in the month of November. During the following month, the public mind oscillated between hope and fear. At length, at the end of April, 1746, the news arrived of the battle of Culloden, of the complete defeat of the insurgent army, of the flight of the Pretender, and of the triumphant suppression of the rebellion by the Duke of Cumberland. It was then Simeon Gideon began to sell, and found himself in possession of something like a quarter of a million—a sum which, in the course of fourteen or fifteen years, quadrupled itself. Gideon’s ambition was to found an English house. He was too old, he said, to change his religion, but he had his children baptized; and through Walpole’s instrumentality, his eldest son was made a baronet when in his eleventh year. It was hard work for Gideon _père_ to make a Christian of the lad. “Who made thee?” on one occasion he asked the boy. “God,” was the proper reply. “Who redeemed thee?” was the next question, to which the boy replied, “Jesus Christ.” Then came a third question, which the father had unfortunately forgotten. “Who—who,” he stammered; and then, nothing better occurring to him, he asked, “Who has given you this hat?” The young catechumen is reported to have confidently replied, “The Holy Ghost.” Gideon, senior, died in the faith of his fathers in 1762. He left behind him, as heirs of his immense fortune, a son and a