concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which, in my opi-. nion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interefts, 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 elfe the reader shall please to call it. Methought I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before, but to my furprife, instead 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 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 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 public funds. The lady feemed to fet an unspeakable value upon these feveral pieces of furniture, infomuch that the often refreshed her eye with them, and often fmiled with a fecret pleasure, as fhe looked upon them; but at the same time, fhewed a very particular uneafiness, if she saw VOL. I. C 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 wellwifhers, the changed colour, and startled at every thing the heard. She was likewise (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own fex, and fubject to fuch momentary consumptions, that in the twinkling of an eye, the fhould fall away from the most florid complexion, and most healthful state of body, and wither into a skeleHer recoveries were often as fudden as her decays, infomuch that the would revive in a moment out of a wasting diftemper, into a habit of the highest health and vigour. ton. I had very foon an opportunity of obferving thefe 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 fhe was exceedingly attentive," the 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 fo high that they touched the ceiling. The floor on her right hand, and on her left, was covered with vast fums of gold that rose 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 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 dizziness, and confused 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 moft hideous phantoms that I had ever seen (even in a dream) before that time. They came in two by two, though matched in the moft diffociable manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance. It would be tedious to describe their habits and perfons, for which reafon I fhall 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 brandifhed 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 sun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsal", that danced together for no other end but to eclipse one another. n James Stuart the pretended Prince of Wales, born June 10, 1688. See Tat. N° 187. • To wipe out the national debt. Rehearsal, act v. fc. I. The reader will eafily fuppofe, by what has been before said, 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 she faw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the fight. 6 Et neque jam color eft mifto candore rubori; Nec vigor, et vires, et quæ modò vifa placebant ; Her fpirits faint, OVID, Met. iii. 491. Her blooming cheeks affume a pallid teint, There was as great a change in the hill of money bags, and the heaps of money, the former shrinking and falling into so many empty 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 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. Whilst I was lamenting this fudden desolation 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 fecond was Moderation leading in Religion; and the third a person whom I had never seen 9, with the Genius of Great Britain. At the first entrance the lady revived, the bags fwelled to their former bulk, the pile of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids of guincas: 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 vifion, if I could have done it. Cr. N° 4. Monday, March 5, 1710-11. -Egregii mortalem altique filentii? HOR. 2 Sat. vi. 58. One of uncommon filence and reserve. 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 bufinefs these three days to liften after my own fame; and as I have fometimes met with circumstances which did not difpleafe me, I have been encountered by others, which gave me much mor r The Elector of Hanover, afterwards George J. By Addifon, dated, as the fignature is fuppofed to imply, from Chelsea, where he lived much about this time." |