serfdom; but they only exchange the stable basis of well-being for an unstable one, for commerce is proverbially of a fleeting nature.

   The age in which Gay wrote was eminently what we now designate as conservative. Excise was hateful then; as customs are denounced now, so home taxation was denounced then. So wonderfully do systems change, that in the monthly table of the revenue of this period (December, 1870), the customs do not raise one-third of the revenue, of which the other two-thirds are raised by home taxation.

   From ministers proceed we to the misers. I doubt whether any domestic changes have wrought so great an amelioration in our well-being as banks and banking. It has saved us from burglars; it has, by cheques, redeemed us from the tyranny of tradesmen's books. It has put personal property on a stronger foundation than it held, and the banker keeps an excellent private account, gratuitously, of your receipts and expenditure. The trouble that the possession of gold gave to its possessor before this wonderful institution was brought to bear, may be told by a few instances of divers epochs. There is a tale of a man who was supposed to have discovered the treasures of Crœsus, in the treasury—such as is shown now at Mycenæ and Orchomenos as the treasuries of old. The hero of the tale having discovered the crypt and its hoard, built another, and spent half of his life in secretly removing the treasures of Crœsus to his new treasury; which was no sooner a deed accomplished than he perceived the original treasury was superior to the new, and he spent an equal amount of years in secretly restoring the treasures to their original crypt, where doubtless they are now, for he died whilst he was the slave to the gold. Herodotus has stories quite as marvellous as this, of the fortunate finder of the treasures of Crœsus. But our friend Mr. Pepys—who, I believe, has given us more amusement than any other Englishman, be he whom he may—is more amusing and instructive. His story is written in 1667, the year after the fire of London, and whilst the invasion of the Dutch was apprehended, and we will see how Mr. Pepys fulfilled the adage of "as much trouble as all my money." On 30th March, 1666, we find him write:—"I to Lombard St., and there received 2200

    l.

   , and brought it home, and, contrary to expectation, received 35

    l.

   for the use of 2000

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