It is customary for the proprietor when starting a newspaper or periodical to issue a notice to the public explaining—or purporting to explain—the raison d’être of the new venture, which notices, with very trifling exceptions, are to the effect that the projected journal “will supply a want long felt.” I might, in sending forth the following pages, state something similar with perfect truth, since if the little work be as successful as (I say it with all modesty) it ought to be, it will unquesti

THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY. “I wish the good old times would come again, when we were not quite so rich,” says Bridget Elia. “I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase now that you have money enough. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury, we were used to have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what savings we could hit upon that would be an equi

IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT. It must be admitted that impecuniosity is impartial, the peer and the peasant being equally open to its visits, and the Sovereign, under certain conditions, as liable to its influence as the subject. Edward the Third was compelled to pawn his jewels, and his imperial crown three times, once abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the crown remained eight years. Henry the Fifth was also under the necessity of pawning his crown and the silve

THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY. In 1748 there resided in the wilds of Connaught a lady named Gunning, of whom little is known but that before her marriage she was the Hon. Bridget Bourke, and that after it she became the mother of two exquisitely beautiful daughters, destined to make such a stir in Society, as was unknown before, and has been unequalled since. Before they left Dublin they were invited to some brilliant festivities at the Castle, which were on a scale of magnificence unequalled, it

THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY. Shakespeare, though he says “There’s a divinity doth shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” admits that “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” which certainly looks as if we had something to do with the matter. “Man,” it has been said, “is the architect of his own fortune,” but it is equally a fact that some individuals have many more chances than others of making that fortune, especially those who ar

THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY. In the opening chapter, several instances of considerable ingenuity were referred to; but as the conduct of the individuals in question was not sans peur et sans reproche , the cases came under the head of the immoral effects of the want of money, and were necessarily not illustrations of ingenuity proper, but ingenuity slightly improper. In the present chapter, the majority of the reminiscences related are innocent of the unscrupulous characteristics, and are int

THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS. There is a letter extant, written to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1586, in which the writer speaks “with pious indignation of overcrowded playhouses and deserted churches;” and says “it was a wofull sight to see two hundred proude players jett in their silks where fyve hundred pore people sterve in the streetes.” From this and many similar allusions we glean that actors were not in the infancy of our English dramatic art the shabby impecunious class they afterwards beca

IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS. If there be two things on earth that may be said to have a more direct affinity for each other than aught else, those two things are Painting and Poverty. The artistic records of the past literally teem with sorrowful instances of their close relationship; and unfortunately the alliterative connection is by no means unknown in the present day. Ruskin, who upholds contempt for poverty as a characteristic of our age which is both “just and wholesome,” complains that we st

IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS. That memory of William Makepeace Thackeray upon which I care least to dwell is the low estimate he had of men of genius in his own profession. It may be that this was with him, as it was with Doctor Johnson, a species of mock modesty; but it is none the less unpleasant for one to remember who so enthusiastically admires his great works. Men of letters have never lacked more than enough to slander them and magnify their peccadilloes, to sneer at their pride, and lower th

THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY. Although at first sight the condition of impecuniosity seems more calculated to produce practicality, and render persons matter-of-fact, in the foregoing chapters there have not been wanting illustrations to prove that impecuniosity has been responsible for some romance. The case of Angelica Kauffman may be taken as an example. Owing to the poverty of her father she was compelled to accept the hospitality of an English peer in Switzerland, who insulted her, and afte