defty, and affift his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper affurance in his own vindication. He fays it is a civil cowardice to be back ward in afferting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be flow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the Gentleman fpeak of himself and others. The fame frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accuftomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obfequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him. He can But that our fociety may not appear a fet of humourifts unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant WILL HoNEYCOMB, a Gentleman, who according to his years fhould be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his perfon, and always had a very eafy fortune, time has made but very little impreffion, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His perfon is well turned, of a good height He is very ready at that fort of discourse with which men ufually entertain women. He has all his life dreffed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. fmile when one fpeaks to him, and laughs eafily. He knows the hiftory of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whofe frailty was covered by fuch a fort of petticoat, and whofe vanity to fhew her foot made that part of the drefs fo short in fuch a year. In a word, all his converfation and knowledge has been in the female world: As other men of his age will take notice to you what fuch a minifter faid upon fuch and fuch an occafion, he will tell you, when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, fuch a woman was then fmitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In.all these important relations, he has ever about the fame time ceived a kind glance or a blow of a fan from fome cele celebrated beauty, mother of the prefent Lord fuch-aone. If you fpeak of a young commoner that faid a lively thing in the house, he starts up, He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirabell begot him, the rogue cheated me in that affair, that young fellow's mother ufed me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to.' This way of talking of his very much enlivens the converfation among us of a more fedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myfelf, who rarely fpeak at all, but fpeaks of him as of that fort of man who is ufually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he vifits us but feldom, but when he does it adds to every man elfe a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philofophick man, of general learning, great fanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak conftitution, and confequently cannot accept of fuch cares and bufinefs as preferments in his function would oblige him to : He is therefore among divines what a chamber-counfellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He feldom introduces the fubject he speaks upon; but we are fo far gone in years, that he obferves when he is among us, an earneftnefs to have him fall on fome divine topick, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interefts in this world, as one who is haftening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions. Saturday N° 3 Saturday, March 3. Et quoi quifque ferè ftudio devinctus adhæret, Lucr. 1. 4. ver. 959. What ftudies please, what most delight, And fill mens thoughts, they dream them o'er at night, CREECH N one of my late rambles, or rather speculations, 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 feveral ftations, 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 publick 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 fe parate 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 contempla tions into á 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 furprife, in ftead of the company that I left there, I faw towards the upper end of the hall, a beautiful virgin, feated on a throne of gold. Her name (as they told me) was Publick Credit. The walls, inftead 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 ઘરી 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 fettlement, which was 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 publick funds. The Lady feemed to fet an unfpeakable value upon these feveral pieces of furniture, infomuch that the often refreshed her eye with them, and often smiled with a fecret pleasure, as fhe looked upon them; but, at the fame time, fhewed a very particular uneafinefs, if she saw 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, fhe changed colour, and ftartled at every thing 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, she would fall away from the most florid complexion, and the most healthful state of body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as fudden as her decays, infomuch that fhe would revive in a moment out of a wasting distemper 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 she was exceedingly attentive, fhe changed colour, and difcovered many symptoms of health or fickness. Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags. of money, which were piled upon one another fo high that they touched the cieling. 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 enquiry, that she had the fame virtue in her touch, which which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly poffeffed of: and that she could convert whatever the pleased into that precious metal. After a little dizzinefs, 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 seen (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 reason I shall only inform my reader, that the first couple were tyranny and anarchy, the second were bigotry and atheism, 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 fettlement; and a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he faw a fpunge 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 eclipfe 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 fhe feen but any one of these spectres; what then must have been her condition when she saw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the fight. Et neque jam color eft mifto candore rubori ; Her fpirits faint, Her blooming cheecks affume a palid teint, There was as great a change in the hill of moneybags, and the heaps of money, the former fhrinking, and falling into fo many empty bags, that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The rest that took up the fame space and made the |