“Usury bringeth the treasures of a realm or state into a few hands; for the usurer being at certainties, and others at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box; and ever a state flourisheth when wealth is more equally spread.”
This quotation is from the essay “Of Usury,” by that wisest of philosophers, Francis Bacon. The reader must bear in mind that while nowadays the term “usury” is applied generally only to excessive interest, in Bacon’s time the word was used for any rate of premium or interest for the use of money. The word _usance_, now obsolete in that sense, conveyed the same meaning, and is used in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” The provocation which Antonio first gave Shylock was that—
“He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice.”
All are familiar with the conditions which Shylock exacted of Antonio:
_Shylock._ This kindness will I show. Go with me to a notary, seal me there Your single bond; and, in a merry sport, If you repay me not on such a day, In such a place, such sum or sums as are Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me.
_Antonio._ Content i’ faith: I’ll seal to such a bond And say there is much kindness in the Jew.
_Bassanio._ You shall not seal to such a bond for me: I’ll rather dwell in my necessity.
_Antonio._ Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it; Within these two months, that’s a month before This bond expires, I do expect return Of thrice three times the value of this bond.... Come on; in this there can be no dismay; My ships come home a month before the day.
But Antonio’s ships did not come in—just as the farmer’s crop often fails and the artisan’s employment gives out just when the mortgage is due—and Shylock claimed his pound of flesh. “The Merchant of Venice” is a comedy, and Shylock, Bassanio and Antonio are mere creatures of imagination; but there are thousands of tragedies enacted every day in real life in which real Shylocks play a part. The Shylocks of to-day are quite unlike the Shylocks of fiction, however. Banker Morgan, who negotiated with Grover Cleveland the star-chamber bond deal by which the American government sold to the Rothschilds at a premium of only 4½ per cent. $100,000,000 of interest-bearing gold bonds which were immediately after quoted at a premium of 21 per cent., is a philanthropist. As soon as possible after the deal was made his portrait appeared in many of the great dailies with a fulsome account of his many charities! It will take many a pound of human flesh, many a drop of life’s blood, to pay the interest on the bonds which he negotiated, and out of the sale of which he made a cool million in one day.