Another and a very common loss of liberty is by pleasure and the love of fame, especially by the slaves of fashion and the lovers of great place;

  Whose lives are others’ not their own.

Pleasure for the most part, consists in fits of anticipation; since, the extra liberty or license of a debauch must be repaid by the iron fetters of headache, and the heavy hand of ennui on the following day:  even the purblind puppy of fashion will tell you, if you make free with your constitution, you must suffer for it; and this by a species of slavery.  To dance attendance upon a great man for a small appointment, and to boo your way through the world, belongs to the worst of servitude.  Congreve compares a levee at a great man’s to a list of duns; and Shenstone still more ill-naturedly says, “a courtier’s dependant is a beggar’s dog.”

Making free, or taking liberties with your fortune, brings about the slavery, if not the sin, of poverty; and to take a liberty with the wealth of another is about as sure a road to slavery as picking pockets is to house-breaking.  Debt is another of those odious badges which mark a man as a slave, and let him but go on to recovery, that like a snake in the sunshine, he may be the more effectually scotched and secured.  Gay says to Swift, “I hate to be in debt; for I can’t bear to pawn five pounds worth of my liberty to a tailor or a butcher.  I grant you, this is not having the true spirit of modern nobility; but it is hard to cure the prejudice of education;” and every man will own that a greater slave-master is not to be found at Cape Coast than the law’s follower, who says, “I ’rest you;” and then “brings you to all manner of unrest.”  One of these fellows is even greater than the sultan of an African tribe in till his glory; though he neither bears the insignia of rank nor power—­none of the little finery which wins allegiance and honour—­yet he constrains you “by virtue,” and brings about a compromise and temporary cessation of your liberty.

Taking liberties with the pockets or tables of one’s relations and friends, is at best, but a dangerous experiment.  It cannot last long before they beg to be excused the liberty, &c., and like the countryman with the golden goose, you get a cold, fireless parlour, or a colder hall reception for your importunity; and, perchance, the silver ore being all gone, you must put up with the French plate.  One of the most equivocal, if not dangerous, forms of correspondence is that beginning with “I take the liberty;” for it either portends some well tried “sufferer” as Lord Foppington calls him; a pressing call from a fundless charity; or at best but a note from an advertising tailor to tell you that for several years past you have been paying 50 per cent. too high a price for your clothes; but, like most good news, this comes upon crutches, and the loss is past redemption.