No. III. SATURDAY, MARCH 3. Et quoi quisque ferè ftudio devinctus adhæret, LUCR. -What studies pleases, what most delight, IN one of my late rambles, or rather fpeculations, I looked into the great hall where the bank is kept, and was not a little pleased to fee the directors, fecretaries, and clerks, with all the other members of that wealthy corporation, ranged in their feveral stations, according to the parts they act in that just and regular economy. This revived in my memory the many difcourses which I had both read and heard concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which, in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interests, and party principles. The thoughts of the day gave my mind employment for the whole night, so that I fell infenfibly into a kind of methodical dream, which difpofed all my contemplations into a vifion or allegory, or what else the reader fhall please 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 faw, 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 goiden 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 placed D 1 1 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 seemed to fet an unspeakable value upon these several 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, shewed a very particular uneafiness, 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 constitution, or that she was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour, and startled at every the 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, she would fall away from the most florid complection, and the most healthful ftate of body, and whither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as fudden as her decays, infomuch that she 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 efe 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 the heard, to which the was exceedingly attentive, she changed colour, and discovered many fymptoms of health or fickness. Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags of money, which were piled upon one another so high that they touched the ceiling. The floor, on her right hand and on her left, was covered with vast 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 she had the fame virtue in her touch, which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly possessed of; and and that the could convert whatever she pleased into that precious metal. After a littie 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 disfociable manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance. It would be tedious to describe their habits and perfons; for which reafon, I shall only inform my reader that the first couple were Tyranny and Anarchy, the second were Bigotry and Atheifim, the third, the Genius of a Commonwealth, and a young man of about twenty-two years of age, whose 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 ftood by me, whifpered in my ear, that he saw a sponge 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 easily suppose, 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 spectres; 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 est misto candore rubcri; Her fpirits faint, Her blooming cheeks 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 empty bags, that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The reft D2 that i that took up the same 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 present from Æolus. The great heaps of gold on either fide the throne now appeared to be only heaps of paper, or little piles of notched sticks, bound up together in bundles like Bath-faggots. Whilft I was lamenting this fudden defolation that had been made before me, the whole scene vanished; In the room of the frightful spectres, there now entered a fecond dance of apparitions, very agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms. The first pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand; the second was Moderation, leading in Religion; and the third a person 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 so transported with joy, that I awaked, though, I must confefs, I would fain have fallen afleep again to have closed my vision, if I could have done it. No. IV. MONDAY, MARCH 5. -Egregii mortalem altique filenti? One of uncommon filence and referve, HOR. AN author, when he first 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 business these three days to listen after my own fame; and as I have fometimes met with circumstances which did not difplease 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 first come abroad in the morning, how utterly they are at a stand until they are set 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 disquieted by the incapacity of others. These are mortals who have a certain curiosity without power of reflection, and perused my papers like spectators rather than readers. But there is so little pleasure in inquiries that so nearly concern ourfelves (it being the worst 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 design of my actions, but very negligent of the confequence of them. It is an endless and frivolous pursuit 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, should be very little liable to mifinterpretations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a Jefuit, for no other reason 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 pleasures of retirement in a more exquifite degree than he possibly could in his closet; the lover, the ambitious, and the miser, are followed thither by a worse crowd than any they can withdraw from. To be exempt from the paffions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude. I can very justy say with the ancient sage, "I am never less alone than when alone." As I am infignificant to the company in public places, and as it is visible I do not come thither, as most do, to shew myself. I gratify the vanity of all who pretend to make an appearace, and have often as kind looks from well-dress'd Gentlemen and Ladies, as a poet would bestow upon one of his audience. There are so many gratifications attend this public fort of obscurity. D3 that |