Our clothes are rent, our bills unpaid,
Our house is in disorder,
And all because my lady-wife
Has taken to embroider!”
Private subscriptions to a book, “for the benefit of the author,” is one way of paying creditors by taxing your friends. There have been some curious specimens of this kind of “raising the wind,” in this same big metropolis of Gotham, which have proved what is called at the West “a caution;” a caution which the victims found, to their mortification, that they needed beforehand. “All honor to the sex,” we say, of course, but not the same honor to all of the sex; for there have been instances, hereabout, of inveterate feminine book-purveyors, who have reflected little honor upon themselves, and less upon “the sex;” as certain public functionaries could bear witness—in fact, have borne witness, upon the witness-stand. There is a laughable instance recorded of a new method of giving a subscription, which we shall venture to quote in this connection. Many years ago, a worthy and well-known English nobleman, having become embarrassed in his circumstances, a subscription was set on foot by his friends, and a letter, soliciting contributions, was addressed, among others, to Lord Erskine, who immediately dispatched the following answer:
“My dear Sir John:
“I am enemy to subscriptions of this nature; first, because my own finances are by no means in a flourishing plight; and secondly, because pecuniary assistance thus conferred, must be equally painful to the donor and the receiver. As I feel, however, the sincerest gratitude for your public services, and regard for your private worth, I have great pleasure in subscribing—[Here the worthy nobleman, big with expectation, turned over the leaf, and finished the perusal of the note, which terminated as follows]: in subscribing myself,
“My dear Sir John,
“Yours, very faithfully,