No. XCVIII. ON THE GUILT OF INCUR RING DEBTS WITHOUT EITHER A PROS- A MONG the various devices which young men have invented to involve themselves in difficulties and in ruin, none is more frequent than that of incurring debt without any real neceflity. No fooner is the afpiring youth emancipated from his fchool, or his guardian and fuperintendants, than he becomes, in his own idea, a man, and not only fo, but a man of confequence, whom it behoves to drefs and make a figure. To accomplish the purpose of making a figure, fome expensive vices are to be affected or practifed. But as the ftipends of young men, juft entering into life, are ufually inconfiderable, it is neceffary to borrow on the most difadvantageous terms, or to purchase the various requifites of a pleafurable life on credit. The debt foon accumulates from fmall beginnings to a great fum. The young adventurer continues while his credit is good, in the fame wild career; but adieu to real pleasure, to improvement, to honeft induftry, and to a quiet mind. His peace is wounded. A perpetual load feems to weigh him down; and though his feelings may, by length of time and habit, become too callous to be affected by the mifery of his fituation, yet he is loft to all fincere enjoyment; and if he does not fall a victim of defpair, furvives only to gain a precarious existence at the gaming table, to deceive the unwary, and to elude the refearches of perfecuting creditors. Even if he is enabled, by the death of his parents or rich relations, to pay the debts which his youthful folly has contracted: yet he has fuffered long and much, and loft the beginning of life, the season of rational delight and folid improvement, in diftrefs and fears; in fabricating excufes and pretences, and in flying from the eager purfuits of duns and bailiffs. But But this folly, however pregnant with mifery, is entitled to pity, and may, in fome degree, admit of those ufual palliations, youthful ardour, and want of experience. Thousands, and tens of thousands have ruined their fortunes and their happiness by haftily running into debt before they knew the value of money, or the confequence of their embarraffinents. We pity their misfortune, but in the first part of their progrefs we do not ufually accuse them of abfolute dishonesty. But the habit of incurring debt, though in the earlier periods of life it may originate in thoughtleffnefs, commonly leads to a crime most atrocious in itself, and injurious to fociety. He who prayed againft poverty, left he fhould be poor and fteal, understood human nature. Difficulties and diftreffes have a natural tendency to leffen the restraints of confcience. The fortrefs of honour, when ftormed by that fort of poverty which is occafioned by profligacy, and not defended with found principles (fuch as men of the world do not often poffefs), has for the moft part yielded at difcretion. He then who began with incurring debt merely, because he was ftrongly ftimulated by paffion or fancy, and was not able to pay for their gratification, proceeds, when the habit is confirmed, and the first fcruples are difmiffed, to contract debt wherever unfufpecting confidence will afford him an opportunity. If he poffeffes titles, diftinction, or any kind of eminence, he will not find it difficult to gain credit. Young tradefmen, defirous of making connections, are ready to run any rifque; and hope, if it is long before they receive their money, they shall not be without the great man's patronage or recommendation. But here also they are often deceived: for the great man confiders all his creditors as his enemies, and never thinks of them but to contrive methods to avoid and deceive them. If he happens to receive any money, he takes care to expend it among strangers, who have no other demand upon him but for the commodity which he pays for at the time of purchase. The world is wide; and when one set of credulous tradefmen are wearied with expectation and difappointment; the great man migrates to another part of the town or country, and and condefcends to honour fome ambitious but unfortunate mortal, with the honour of dealing with him. Thus the great man goes on during the greater part of his life, and when the creditors are importunate, and the horrors of a gaol impend, he collects his property and withdraws from the kingdom, or living in difguife, enjoys his luxuries, and laughs at his deluded tradefmen. Indeed, as moft ill qualities go together, his pride is fo great that he scarcely vouchfafes to beftow upon them a moment's confideration. But while the builder, the draper, the taylor, the butcher, the baker, and the chandler, remain unpaid, the jockey and the horse-dealer, the mistress and the brother gamefter, receive ready money with oftentatious profufion. Sharpers and proffitutes, with all the qualities of thievery, riot in thofe riches which ought to be paid to honeft men, who, with their families, are reduced to a ftate of ftarving, by feeding, cloathing, and accommodating, in every refpect, fome hardened profligate, and extravagant debauchee. Who but muft feel indignation when he fees a man in high life, as it is called, eating a joint of meat of fome poor tradefman, whose children are at the fame moment begging of their parent a morfel of bread? Who fees, without lifting up his hands, my Lord, or Sir John, fitting joyous at the head of a plentiful table, fupplied, gratis, with every article, by the father of those children? Indeed, the pride and vanity of fome perfons, who value themselves on their birth, or their fashionable mode of life, induces them to look upon themselves as a fuperior order of beings, and to prefume that they have a right to be ftill fupported by their tradefmen in profufion and elegance, even after they are reduced in their circumftances either by misfortune or mifconduct. If an honest man makes his demand, he is impertinent; his infolence is not to be borne; he is difmiffed; but not till he evidently fhews that he will no longer fupply the commodities in which he deals. On his difmiffion, fome exception is taken to his account; a difpute enfues, and that difpute furnishes the fine gentleman or fine lady with a pretence for not paying the bill. In the mean time card parties, vifitings, vifitings, and all fashionable pleasures proceed as ufual -for who would be fo vulgar as to attend to the impertinence of the fcum of the earth, or fuffer one fashionable pleasure to be fet afide by the clamorous importunity of a mean mechanic; though his meanness arifes from his having spent his fubftance in fupplying the perfon who defpifes him, with the inftruments of luxury, or the neceffaries of life? The profligacy, the vanity, the unceasing pursuit of pleasure, and the paffion for external appearance, which characterife the prefent age, are neceffarily productive of expence; expences occafion diftrefs, and diftress, where principles are deficient, difhonefty. No wonder then, that in no age have fharpers, fwindlers, and infolvent contractors of debt, fo much abounded. There is hardly any mode of public life, efpecially in the metropolis, in which you can be engaged, without having your property expofed to the depredations of villains, who have made cheating a profession, and reduced the art of robbery to a system. Many of the perfons who live on the substance of 'others, by borrowing, purchafing, or employing without intending, and without being able to pay, make a fplendid figure, and pafs for gentlemen and men of honour. But however they may felicitate themselves on their fuccefs, and in the gratification of their pride and vanity, I fhall not hesitate to pronounce them more criminal and deteftable than highwaymen and housebreakers, because, to the crime of actual theft, they add a moft ungenerous breach of confidence. No. XCIX. CURSORY REMARKS ON THE LIFE, STYLE, GENIUS, AND WRITINGS OF PETRARCH. NE of the firft and brightest luminaries which appeared in the literary horizon, after a long and difmal night, was the illuftrious Francefco Petrarch. He was born at Arezzo, as he informs us himself, though though Voffius denies it. He became archdeacon of Parma, and canon of the cathedral church of Padua, and might have arrived at the highest preferments which the popes can bestow, if he had not difdained some difhoneft and humiliating compliances. To form an adequate idea of the merit of the writers who arrived at excellence in the dawn of literature, it is neceffary to confider, with attention, thofe peculiar circumftances which rendered even a mediocrity of learning a difficult attainment. Books were fcarce, judicious instructors ftill more uncommon, and the powerful inftigation of cotemporary models in a great measure deficient. Petrarch's claim to entire originality is not however univerfally allowed. He certainly imitated Cino de Piftoja; and Bayle fays, he ftole many of his fentiments from him. Dante, indeed, preceded Petrarch, but I do not find that he made Dante his model. With real difficulties and impediments, and with few circumstances to excite a fpirit of enterprife, fufficiently ardent and perfevering to furmount the very formidable obftacles, it is really wonderful that any individual could afcend, by his own efforts, the eminent heights of fuperior excellence. Such, however, was the native force of Petrarch's genius, that in the middle of an unenlightened age, he became celebrated throughout the civilized nations of Europe, as an orator, philofopher, and poet. His poetical fame is, indeed, the most diftinguished. Formed with the fineft fenfibility of foul, he had the peculiar felicity of being born in a country whofe language is the language of love. The ardour, the conftancy, and the romantic nature of his paffion, rendered him univerfally popular in an amorous and romantic age. In our own country he became the pattern of one of our earliest poets, Henry Howard earl of Surrey. And, amidst all the disadvantages of a Northern and Gothic language, the English poet has celebrated his lovely Geraldine, in ftrains which are faid, by fome, to dif play more of the genuine tenderness of nature, than those in which the great Italian fung his Laura. "In the fonnets of Surrey, fays Mr. Warton, we are furprised to find nothing of the metaphyfical caft which marks the Italian poets, his fuppofed mafters, efpecially Petrarch. |