self afloat for about fifteen years by means of a black coat alone. How this man got his black coats, we cannot tell; but certain it is, that, come from what quarter they might, he always had one. His brother was also an outcast like himself; but there lay between them this mighty difference, that the one always kept up a good black coat, while the other did not. It was curious to mark the various fortunes which resulted from these various circumstances. Thomas, who kept up the black coat, was able every now and then to push himself into some humble kind of business-to take a shop, to get one or two visionary barrels erected upon shelves, and obtain credit for perhaps a gallon or two of spirits, and a few dozens of strong ale. No matter that he sunk again before the next rent-day; it was always meat and drink to him in the meantime; and his obscuration at Fountainbridge did not prevent his rising again next month, by virtue of the eternal black coat, at the Abbey Hill. Thomas, in short, carried on a war of this kind for the length of time we have stated; and low as his expedients might be, he always had the appearance of a respectable man. Dick, on the other hand, who had not the same philosophical views respecting the efficacy of a black coat, sunk into utter wretchedness and want; or, if he had any resource at all, it was in the somewhat less extreme wretchedness of his brother. It might thus be said that both depended upon one coat: that single useful investment, though in the eye of the world exclusively belonging to Thomas, also served Dick. It did not serve him, indeed, as a garment: Tom had too much regard for it to trust it for a moment off his own back. But it served him indirectly as a means of getting those occasional morsels upon which he lived. Society, it must be confessed, proved at last too many for both of these gentlemen, and their black coat into the bargain-as it always does sooner or later with those who violate its great rule of honest labour; but still it was proved that one man could in a manner half live, and another exist to the extent of perhaps a still

larger fraction, for fifteen years, upon the garment we have alluded to. It was not that the coat was less powerful, but society more, that it at last failed in its grand end of enabling its proprietor and his dependent to use what they did not make.

In a family of the kind described at the beginning of this article-supposing it to have fully got into the habit of living upon the substance of others-it is curious to observe how characteristic is every circumstance connected with it. If either a son or a daughter marries, it is sure to be some person equally unsubstantial with themselves-some denizen of a similar house of misery and vain show-and accumulated wretchedness is the only result. All the outgoings and incomings of the family-every transaction of any of its members-its eating, its drinking, its dressing, its washing-betoken a shabby and unprincipled system, the result of long-continued dependence upon the labour of others. The acquaintances of the family gra dually cease to be of a respectable stamp, and are at last found to be either young and inexperienced persons who have something, or individuals of a maturer age who have nothing. The falling of a person who has any thing into a society such as this which sometimes does happen-is like the falling of a drop of water upon dry sand: his whole substance is almost immediately evaporated away, and he speedily becomes as arid and unproductive as themselves. Of course, no full-grown person who at once possesses sense and pence will trust himself for a moment in the company of such a fraternity. There are some persons, however, who have pence without sense, or at least are entrusted with the administration of pence by other people; and these occasionally fall into the hands of the ungaining spenders, by whom they are generally made a glorious prey. The result is like that which attends the thrusting of a small dead amimal into an ant's nest: if you come back in a day or two, you find it as clean a skeleton as if it had been bleached for centuries by the sun and wind.

FOURTH ARTICLE.

There is yet another class of spenders worthy of our attention. It is composed of those individuals, who, on an unforeseen reduction of their circumstances, prefer picking up a miserable subsistence by a dependence on friends and acquaintances, to earning the means of honest living, by engaging in employment below what they imagine to be the standard of gentility.

Undeserved reduction of circumstances is one of the most respectable of all things, and it will always gain respect in the local circle where it is known. Many misfortunes, however, which are called undeserved, are only called so by the sufferers themselves, through a principle of self-love blinding them to the real causes, or by persons who fear they may, deservedly or undeservedly, come to the same pass, and thus, in pleading for pity to others, only ask it by anticipation for themselves. Even where a reduction of circumstances takes place through guiltless misfortune, it is the first duty of the individuals to adapt themselves at once to their new position-to lay themselves out for the best employment, however humble, which they have a feasible chance of reaching, or of managing successfully-and to reduce their wants, whatever may be the immediate hardship, to the standard of that new employment. Those who, after their misfortunes, continue to live as well as ever, if they only can obtain the means through credit, are guilty of a great crime, the punishment of which will sooner or later overtake them; they will then find that the original misfortune was nothing to the new ones which their imprudence has permitted to follow. Notwithstanding, however, all the evils threatened to him who will not labour, there are many persons who do not seem accessible to a sense of what reduced circumstances demand of them. With a meanness beyond all expression, they will keep up the appearance of their former rank at the expense of all its real dignity-will borrow, beg, and incur undischarge

able debt in all directions, and thús lay themselves open to the contempt and execration of thousands of individuals, rather than, by taking up the next best course of honest industry, make an open confession of their decayed circumstances, which, after all, it is ten chances to one the world is already acquainted with. Families thus sometimes live for years, in what appears a genteel mannerthat is to say, occupy a good house, and generally wear decent clothes-and yet are maintained chiefly by the charity of their own original acquaintances, or by debt incurred without the least prospect or intention of payment: educating their children, too, for learned professions! which they can only accomplish by working upon the pity of all kinds of instructors; a system of mendicancy only differing from the most common that is practised, in so far as it is carried on under the respectable appearance of a desire of knowledge and of advancement in the world. In reality, all bounties that we accept from persons upon whom we have no claim, are of a mean character; for if it were established that the child of a poor person is entitled to gratuitous instruction, why not to any other of the advantages usually bought with money—and why are the honest and independent poor left without these advantages? No, no there is no right or certain principle in the world, but that every one must labour for himself in the way his faculties and capital best admit of, taking of course all the chances of the particular walk of life which he thus assumes. If he do not thus labour, and accommodate himself to his reduced circumstances, then he and his family— no matter how they are connected, no matter how fashionable they were, and would still wish to be—are a drag upon society, and liable to be ranked among the most contemptible classes of spenders.

We sincerely wish that we could, by these observations, give a new turn to the minds of those persons who are reduced by misfortunes, yet who will not accommodate themselves to their reduced circumstances. Abstractly,

there is nothing disgraceful in poverty. It may be, as it frequently has been, the lot of the most wealthy as well as the most dignified. And how noble is it for a man to combat such a misfortune !-how worthy of admiration is the spectacle of an honest and unfortunate individual bearing up under his griefs, and by his own manful exertions relieving himself from the difficulties which surround him !— how far superior, in the estimation of the right-thinking part of mankind, is such conduct to that of him who, coward-like, falls behind in the onward march of society, and suffers himself to be fed by the hand of charity, and trampled at last under foot! It behoves every one, more especially every head of a family, to bear these things in remembrance. As soon as misfortune and poverty overtake him, and when every creditable effort he has made to restore himself to his original situation has failed, let him lose no time in endeavouring to gain a subsistence by an employment below the standard he has been accustomed to. If the exercise of his genius fail, what hinders him from resorting to his physical capacities for support? It is no disparagement for the man who has all his days wielded a palette or a pen, to take up a pick-axe or a shovel : it is at least more respectable than to assume the tone and character of a "gentle beggar." At the same time, he will take care that his family act a part becoming their altered circumstances. Those who were born to be served must now serve others, for in servitude there is nothing degrading to right principle, and the rags of decayed gentility will be well exchanged for the substantial garments congenial to a lowly situation.

It is astonishing how soon a family reduced in circumstances will triumph over their misfortunes, and regain something like their former footing, by pursuing the course we point out. The industry they exert, when governed by intelligence, will in general gain a superiority over that kind of stolid labour which is alike destitute of ambition and genius. Besides, a previous good name has advan