I No. III. SATURDAY, MARCH 3. Et quoi quifque ferè ftudio devinctus adhæret, LUCR. -What studies pleases, what most delight, None of my late rambles, or rather fpeculations, I looked into the great hall where the bank is kept, and was not a little pleafed to fee the directors, fecretaries, and clerks, with all the other members of that wealthy corporation, ranged in their several stations, according to the parts they act in that just and regular economy. This revived in my memory the many difcourfes which I had both read and heard concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of reftoring it, and which, in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to feparate interefts, and party principles. The thoughts of the day gave my mind employment for the whole night, fo that I fell infenfibly into a kind of methodical dream, which difpofed all my contemplations into a vifion or allegory, or what elfe the reader fhall pleafe to call it. Methought I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before, but, to my surprise, instead of the company that I left there, I saw, towards the upper end of the hall, a beautiful virgin, seated on a throne of gold. Her name (as they told me) was Public Credit. The walls, instead of being adorned with pictures and maps, were hung with many acts of parliament written in golden letters. At the upper end of the hall was the Magna Charta, with the act of uniformity on the right hand, and the act of toleration on the left. At the lower end of the hall was the act of Settlement, which was D placed placed full in the eye of the virgin that fat upon the throne. Both the fides of the hall were covered with fuch.. acts of parliament as had been made for the establishment of public funds. The Lady feemed to fet an unfpeakable value upon thefe feveral pieces of furniture, infomuch that the often refreshed her eye with them, and often finiled with a fecret pleasure as she looked upon them; but, at the fame time, fhewed a very particular uncafinefs, if the faw any thing approaching that might hurt them. She appeared indeed infinitely timorous in all her behaviour; and, whether it was from the delicacy of her conftitution, or that she was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I found was none of her well-wishers, the changed colour, and ftartled at every fhe heard. She was likewife (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with even in her own fex, and fubject to fuch momentary confumptions, that, in the twinkling of an eye, fhe would fall away from the moft fiorid complection, and the most healthful ftate of body, and whither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as fudden as her decays, infomuch that he would revive in a moment out of a wafting diftemper into a habit of the highest health and vigour. I had very foon an opportunity of obferving these quick turns and changes in her conftitution. There fat at her feet a couple of fecretaries, who received every hour letters from all parts of the world, which the one or the other of them was perpetually reading to her; and according to the news fhe heard, to which the was exceedingly attentive, the changed colour, and difcovered many fymptoms of health or ficknefs. Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags of money, which were piled upon one another fo high that they touched the ceiling. The floor, on her right hand and on her left, was covered with vaft fums of gold that rofe up in pyramids on either fide of her: but this I did not fo much wonder at, when I heard, upon inquiry, that he had the fame virtue in her touch, which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly poffeffed of; and and that she could convert whatever the pleased into that precious metal. After a little dizziness, and confufed hurry of thought, which a man often meets with in a dream, methought the hall was alarmed, the doors flew open, and there entered half a dozen of the most hideous phantoms that I had ever feen, even in a dream, before that time. They came in two by two, though matched in the most diffociable manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance. It would be tedious to defcribe their habits and perfons; for which reafon, I shall only inform my reader that the first couple were Tyranny and Anarchy, the fecond were Bigotry and Atheifin, the third, the Genius of a Commonwealth, and a young man of about twenty-two years of age, whofe name I could not learn. He had a fword in his right hand, which in the dance he often brandished at the Act of Settlement; and a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he faw a fponge in his left hand. The dance of fo many jarring natures put me in mind of the fun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsal, that danced together for no other end but to eclipse one another. The reader will eafily fuppofe, by what has been before faid, that the Lady on the throne would have been almost frighted to distraction, had the feen but any one of these fpectres; what then must have been her condition when the faw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the fight; Et neque jam color eft mifto candore rubcri; Nex vigor, U vires, & quæ modò vifa placebant; Her fpirits faint, Her blooming checks affume a palid teint, Ovid. There was as great a change in the hill of money-bags, and the heaps of money, the former shrinking and falling into fo many empry bags, that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The reft that took up the fame space, and made the fame figure as the bags that were really filled with money, had been blown up with air, and called into my memory the bags full of wind, which Homer tells us his hero received as a prefent from Eolus. The great heaps of gold on either fide the throne now appeared to be only heaps of paper, or little piles of notched fticks, bound up together in bundles like Bath-faggots. Whilft I was lamenting this fudden defolation that had been made before me, the whole fcene vanifhed; In the room of the frightful spectres, there now entered a second dance of apparitions, very agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms. The firft pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand; the fecond was Moderation, leading in Religion; and the third a perfon whom I had never feen, with the genius of Great Britain. At the first enterance the Lady revived, the bags fwelled to their former bulk, the piles of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids of guineas: and for my own part, I was fo tranfported with joy, that I awaked, though, I must confefs, I would fain have fallen afleep again to have clofed my vifion, if I could have done it. A No. IV. MONDAY, MARCH 5. One of uncommon filence and referve. HOR. N author, when he firft appears in the world, is very apt to believe it has nothing to think of but his performances. With a good share of this vanity in my heart, I made it my bufinefs thefe three days to liften after my own fame; and as I have fometimes met with circumstances which did not displease me, I have been encountered by others which gave me as much mortification. It is incredible to think how empty I have in this time obferved observed fome part of the species to be, what mere blanks they are when they firft come abroad in the morning, how utterly they are at a stand until they are fet a going by fome paragraph in a news-paper: fuch perfons are very acceptable to a young author, for they defire no more in any thing but to be new to be agreeable. If I found confolation among fuch, I was as much difquieted by the incapacity of others. Thefe are mortals who have a certain curiofity without power of reflection, and perufed my papers like fpectators rather than readers. But there is fo little pleasure in inquiries that fo nearly concern ourfelves (it being the work way in the world to fame, to be too anxious about it) that upon the whole I refolved for the future to go on in my ordinary way; and without too much fear or hope about the business of reputation, to be very careful of the defign of my actions, but very negligent of the confequence of them. It is an endless and frivolous purfuit to act by any other rule than the care of fatisfying our own minds in what we do. One would think a filent man, who concerns himfelf with no one breathing, fhould be very little liable to mifinterpretations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a Jefuit, for no other reafon but my profound taciturnity. It is from this misfortune, that to be out of harms way, I have ever fince affected crowds. He who comes into affemblies only to gratify his curiofity, and not to make a figure, enjoys the pleafures of retirement in a more exquifite degree than he poffibly could in his closet; the lover, the ambitious, and the mifer, are followed thither by a worfe crowd than any they can withdraw from. To be exempt from the paflions with which others are tormented, is the only pleafing folitude. I can very jufty fay with the ancient fage, "I am never lefs alone than when alone." As I am infignificant to the company in public places, and as it is vifible I do not come thither, as most do, to fhew myself. I gratify the vanity of all who pretend to make an appearace, and have often as kind looks from well-drefs'd Gentlemen and Ladies, as a poet would bestow upon one of his audience. There are fo many gratifications attend this public fort of obfcurity, D 3 that |