himself been the victim of misplaced confidence. So Mr Samuel having given large orders to the English houses for goods, at a pretty long credit, got himself in debt to an amount proportioned to the sum he wished to make by his failure. There is no place in the world where a man may get more easily in debt than in Scotland. We go for a decent, composed, shrewd, honest people; and, though we are very adequately and sufficiently hated by the volatile English, whom we so often beat on their own ground, and at their own weapons, we enjoy a greater share of their confidence in mercantile matters than their own countrymen. Vouchsafe to John the privilege of abusing Sawney, and calling him all manner of hard names, and he will allow his English neck to be placed in the Scottish noose with a civility and decorum that is just as commendable as his abuse of our countryman is ungenerous and unmanly. Mr Thriven's warehouses were accordingly soon filled with goods from both England and Scotland; and it is no inconsiderable indication of a man's respectability that he is able to get pretty largely in debt. When a man is to enter upon the speculation of failing, the step we have now mentioned is the first and most important preliminary. Debt is the Ossa from which the successful speculator rolls into the rich vale of Tempe. There are some rugged rocks in the side of his descent to independence--such as the examinations under the statutes--that are next to be guarded against, and the getting over these is a more difficult achievement than the getting himself regularly constituted a debtor. The running away of a trusty servant with a hundred pounds, especially if he has forged the cheque, may be the making of a good speculator in bankruptcy, because the loss of a thousand or two may be safely laid to the charge of one who dare not appear to defend himself. The failure and flight of a relation, to whom one gives a hundred pounds to leave him in his books a creditor in a thousand, is also a very good mode of overcoming some of the difficulties of failing; and a clever man, with a sharp foresight, ought to be working assiduously for a length of time in collecting the names of removing families, every one of whom will make a good "bad debtor." These things were not unknown to Mr Thriven; but accident did what the devil was essaying to do for him, or rather, speaking in a more orthodox manner, the great enemy, taking the form of the mighty power yclept Chance, set the neighbouring uninsured premises, belonging to Miss Fortune, the milliner, in a blaze; and a large back warehouse, in which there was scarcely anything save Mr Thriven's ledgers, was burned so effectually, that no person could have told whether they were full of Manchester goods or merely atmospheric air of the ordinary weight--that is, thirty-one grains to a hundred cubic inches.