Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

SIR,

TO MR. METHUEN.*

Parts of human life, that it is impossible for the least misrepresentation of them to escape your notice. It is your Lordship's particular distinction Ir is with great pleasure I take an opportunity of that you are master of the whole compass of busi-publishing the gratitude I owe you for the place you ness, and have signalised yourself in all the different allow me in your friendship and familiarity. I will scenes of it. We admire some for the dignity, not acknowledge to you that I have often had you in others for the popularity of their behaviour; some my thoughts, when I have endeavoured to draw, in for their clearness of judgment, others for their hap some parts of these discourses, the character of a piness of expression; some for the laying of schemes, good-natured, honest, and accomplished gentleman. and others for the putting of them into execution. But such representations give my readers an idea of It is your Lordship only who enjoys these several a person blameless only, or only laudable for such talents united, and that too in as great perfection as perfections as extend no farther than to his own others possess them singly. Your enemies acknow- private advantage and reputation. ledge this great extent in your Lordship's character, at the same time that they use their utmost industry and invention to derogate from it. But it is for your honour that those who are now your enemies were always so. You have acted in so much consistency with yourself, and promoted the interests of your country in so uniform a manner, that those who would misrepresent your generous designs for the public good cannot but approve the steadiness and intrepidity with which you pursue them. It is a most sensible pleasure to me that I have this opportunity of professing myself one of your great admirers, and, in a very particular manner, My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged, And most obedient, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR.

1712-13.

TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND.
MY LORD,
VERY many favours and civilities (received from
you in a private capacity) which I have no other
way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this pre-
sumption; but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe
your character, places me above the want of an ex-
cuse. Candour and openness of heart, which shine
in all your words and actions, exact the highest
esteem from all who have the honour to know you;
and a winning condescension to all subordinate to
you, made business a pleasure to those who exe-
cuted it under you, at the same time that it height-
ened her Majesty's favour to all those who had the
happiness of having it conveyed through your
hands. A secretary of state, in the interest of man-
kind joined with that of his fellow-subjects, accom-
plished with a great facility and elegance in all the
modern as well as ancient languages, was a happy
and proper member of a ministry, by whose services
your sovereign is in so high and flourishing a con-
dition, as makes all other princes and potentates
powerful or inconsiderable in Europe, as they are
friends or enemies to Great Britain. The importance
of those great events which happened during that
administration in which your Lordship bore so im-
Dortant a charge, will be acknowledged as long as
time shall endure. I shall not therefore attempt to
rehearse those illustrious passages, but give this ap-
plication a more private and particular turn, in de-
siring your Lordship would continue your favour
and patronage to me, as you are a gentleman of the
most polite literature, and perfectly accomplished in
he knowledge of books and men, which makes it
necessary to beseech your indulgence to the follow.
ing leaves, and the author of them; who is, with the
greatest truth and respect,

My Lord, your Lordship's obliged,
Obedient, and humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.
His lordship was the founder of the splendid and truly
saluable library at Althorp.

But when I speak of you, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of possessing also those qualities which make a man useful to society, and of having had opportunities of exerting them in the most conspicuous manner.

The great part you had, as British ambassador, in procuring and cultivating the advantageous commerce between the courts of England and Portugal, has purchased you the lasting esteem of all who understand the business of either nation.

Those personal excellences which are overrated by the ordinary world, and too much neglected by wise men, you have applied with the justest skill and judgment. The most graceful address in horsemanship, in the use of the sword, and in dancing, has been used by you as lower arts; and as they have occasionally served to cover or introduce the talents of a skilful minister.

But your abilities have not appeared only in one nation. When it was your province to act as her Majesty's minister at the court of Savoy, at that time encamped, you accompanied that gallant prince through all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and shared by his side the dangers of that glorious day in which he recovered his capital. As far as it regards personal qualities, you attained, in that one hour, the highest military reputation. The behaviour of our minister in the action, and the good offices done the vanquished in the name of the Queen of England, gave both the conqueror and the captive the most lively examples of the courage and generosity of the nation he represented.

Your friends and companions in your absence frequently talk these things of you; and you cannot hide from us (by the most direet silence in any thing which regards yourself) that the frank entertainment we have at your table, your easy condescension in little incidents of mirth and diversion, and general complacency of manners, are far from being the greatest obligations we have to you. I do assure you, there is not one of your friends has a greater sense of your merit in general, and of the favours you every day do us, than, Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,
RICHARD STEELE.

TO WILLIAM HONEYCOMBE, ESQ.t THE seven former volumes of the Spectator having been dedicated to some of the most celebrated persons of the age, I take leave to inscribe this eighth

Afterwards Sir Paul Methuen, Knight of the Bath. This very ingenious gentleman, whilst ambassador at the court of Portugal, concluded the famous commercial treaty which bears his name; and in the same capacity, at the court of Savoy. exerted himself nobly as a military hero.

↑ Generally supposed to be Colonel Cleland.

This dedication is supposed to have been written hy Eus tace Budgell, who might have better dedicated it to Wil Wimble.

B 2

not indeed pretend to an ancient family, but nas certainly as many forefathers as any lady in the land, if she but reckons up their names.

I must own I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the moment that you confessed your age, and from eight-and-forty (where you had stuck so

and last to you, as to a gentleman who hath ever been ambitious of appearing in the best company. You are now wholly retired from the busy part of mankind, and at leisure to reflect upon your past achievements; for which reason I look upon you as a person very well qualified for a dedication. I may possibly disappoint my readers, and your-many years) very ingeniously stepped into your self too, if I did not endeavour on this occasion to make the world acquainted with your virtues. And here, Sir, I shall not compliment you upon your birth, person, or fortune, nor on any other the like perfections which you possess whether you will or no; but shall only touch upon those which are of your acquiring, and in which every one must allow you have a real merit.

Your jaunty air and easy motion, the volubility of your discourse, the suddenness of your laugh, the management of your snuff-box, with the whiteness of your hands and teeth (which have justly gained you the envy of the most polite part of the male world, and the love of the greatest beauties in the female) are entirely to be ascribed to your personal genius and application.

grand climacteric. Your deportment has since been very venerable and becoming. If I am rightly informed, you make a regular appearance every quarter-sessions among your brothers of the quorum; and if things go on as they do, stand fair for being a colonel of the militia. I am told that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it ever did in the gallantries of the town; and that you now take as much pleasure in the planting of young trees, as you did formerly in the cutting down of your old ones. In short, we hear from all hands that you are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty acres, and have not too much wit to look into your own estate.

After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an author in saying someYou are formed for these accomplishments by a thing of myself. I shall therefore beg leave to add, happy turn of nature, and have finished yourself in that I have purposely omitted setting those marks them by the utmost improvements of art. A man to the end of every paper, which appeared in my that is defective in either of these qualifications former volumes, that you may have an opportunity (whatever may be the secret ambition of his heart,) of shewing Mrs. Honeycombe the shrewdness of your must never hope to make the figure you have done, conjectures, by ascribing every speculation to its among the fashionable part of his species. It is proper author; though you know how often many therefore no wonder we see such multitudes of as- profound critics in style and sentiments have very piring young men fall short of you in all these beau-judiciously erred in this particular, before they were ties of your character, notwithstanding the study let into the secret. I am, Sir, and practice of them is the whole business of their lives. But I need not tell you, that the free and disengaged behaviour of a fine gentleman makes as many awkward beaux, as the easiness of your favourite hath made insipid poets.

Your most faithful humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. In the six hundred and thirty-second Spectator, the reader will find an account of the rise of this eighth and last volume.

I have not been able to prevail upon the several gentlemen who were concerned in this work to let me acquaint the world with their names.

At present you are content to aim all your charms at your own spouse, without farther thought of mischief to any others of the sex. I know you had formerly a very great contempt for that pedantic race of mortals who call themselves philosophers; and yet, to your honour be it spoken, there is not a sage Perhaps it will be unnecessary to inform the of them all could have better acted up to their pre-reader, that no other papers which have appeared cepts in one of the most important points of life: I mean, in that generous disregard of popular opinion which you shewed some years ago, when you chose for your wife an obscure young woman, who doth

under the title of the Spectator, since the closing of this eighth volume, were written by any of those gentlemen who had a hand in this or the former volumes.

THE SPECTATOR.

No. 1.] THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11.
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,

this curiosity, which is so natural in a reader, I de sign this paper and my next as prefatory dis courses to my following writings, and shall give HOR. Ars. Poet. ver. 143. some account in them of the several persons that

One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke; Another out of smoke brings glorious light, And (without raising expectation high) Surprises us with dazzling miracles.-RoscOMMON. I HAVE observed, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author To gratify

are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting, will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history.

I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from father to son..

whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of Drury-lane and the Haymarket. I have b.en taken a single field or meadow, during the space of for a merchant upon the exchange for above these six hundred years. There runs a story in the fa- ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the as mily, that, when my mother was gone with child of sembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, me about three months, she dreamed that she was wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might with them, though I never open my lips but in my proceed from a law-suit which was then depending own club. in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my first appearance in the world, and at the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it.

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband, or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe a strict neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass over it in silence. find that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say, "that my parts were solid, and would wear well." I had not been long at the university, before I distinguished myself I have given the reader just so much of my hisby a most profound silence; for during the space of tory and character, as to let him see I am not altoeight years, excepting in the public exercises of the gether unqualified for the business I have undercollege, I scarce uttered the quantity of a hundred taken. As for other particulars in my life and adwords; and indeed do not remember that I ever ventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as spoke three sentences together in my whole life. I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I with so much diligence to my studies, that there are begin to blame my own taciturnity; and since I very few celebrated books, either in the learned or have neither time nor inclination to communicate the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with. the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the before I die. I have been often told by my friends, university with the character of an odd, unaccount- that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I able fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I have made should be in the possession of a silent would but show it. An insatiable thirst after know-man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a ledge carried me into all the countries of Europe sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit in which there was any thing new or strange to be of my contemporaries; and if I can in any way seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, contribute to the diversion or improvement of the that having read the controversies of some great country in which I live, I shall leave when I am men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the mea- thinking that I have not lived in vain. sure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.*

There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least I have passed my latter years in this city, where I for some time: I mean an account of my nam, am frequently seen in most public places, though age, and lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify there are not above half-a-dozen of my select friends my reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a for these three particulars, though I am sensible more particular account. There is no place of ge- they might tend very much to the embellishment of neral resort wherein I do not often make my ap- my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of compearance. Sometimes I am seen thrusting my head municating them to the public. They would indeed into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed with great attention to the narratives that are made for many years, and expose me in public places to in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I several salutes and civilities, which have been always smoke a pipe at Child's,† and while I seem attentive very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversa-suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It tion of every table in the room. I appear on Sun- is for this reason, likewise, that I keep my comday nights at St. James's coffee-house, and some- plexion and dress as very great secrets; though it times join the little committee of politics in the is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both inner room, as one who comes there to hear and im- in the progress of the work I have undertaken. prove. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-tree, and in the theatres both of

* A sarcasm on Mr. Greaves, and his book entitled Pyrami dographia.

Child's coffee-house was in St. Paul's church-yard, and the resort of the clergy: St. James's stood then where it does now; Jonathan's was in Change-alley; and the Rose tavern was on the outside of Temple bar.

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work: for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters

to the Spectator, at Mr. Buckley's, in Little Bri. understanding; but he has chosen his place of retain. For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal. C.

No. 2.] FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1710-11.

Ast alii sex

sidence rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions re lating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures in the neighbourhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the Et plures, uno conclamant ore.-Juv. Sat. vii. 167. lump. He is studying the passions themselves when Six more, at least, join their consenting voice. he should be inquiring into the debates among men THE first of our society is a gentleman of Wor- which arise from them. He knows the argument of cestershire, of an ancient descent, a baronet, his each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but name Sir Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfa- not one case in the reports of our own courts. No ther was inventor of that famous country-dance one ever took him for a fool; but none, except his which is called after him. All who know that shire intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. are very well acquainted with the parts and merits This turn makes him at once both disinterested and of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very sin- agreeable: as few of his thoughts are drawn from gular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed business, they are most of them fit for conversation from his good sense, and are contradictions to the His taste for books is a little too just for the age he manners of the world only as he thinks the world lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. is in the wrong. However, this humour creates His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness and writings of the ancients, makes him a very deor obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes | licate observer of what occurs to him in the present and forms makes him but the readier and more world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of capable to please and oblige all who know him. the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he When he is in town, he lives in Soho-square. It passes through New-Inn, crosses through Russellis said, he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of he has his shoes rubbed and his perriwig powdered the next county to him. Before this disappointment, at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman, had the good of the audience when he is at a play, for often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir the actors have an ambition to please him. George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked bully Dawsont in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a-half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterward. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. It is said Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gipsies: but this is looked apon, by his friends, rather as matter of raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed.

His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause, by explaining a passage in the game act.

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man of great probity, wit, and

At that time the genteelest part of the town.

↑ This fellow was a noted sharper, swaggere, and debauchee about town, at the time here pointed at: he was well known in Blackfriars, and its then infamous purlieus.

The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London. A person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms: for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortune himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass, but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.

[ocr errors]

Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great courage, good under standing, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward

It has been said, that the real person aliuded to under this name was C. Kempenfelt, father of the Admiral Kempenfelt who deplorably lost his life, when the Poyal George of 10 guns sank at Spithead, Aug. 29, 1752.

present Lord Such a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a livery thing in the house, he starts up, "He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirable begot him; the rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man, who is usually 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 visits us but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently, cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor 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 seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in

at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he had talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty, and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the same end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will, however, in his way of talk excuse generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to ex-years, that he observes, when he is among us, an pect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same 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 accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from a habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humourists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, and of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history 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-whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such an occasion, he will tell you, when the Duke of Monmouth danced at rourt, such a woman was then smitten-another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the

It has been said that a Colonel Cleland was supposed to have been the real person alluded to under this character,

earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.-R.

No. 3.

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1710-11.

Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhæret,
Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati,
Atque in qua ratione fut contenta magis mens,
In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire.

LUCR. 1. iv. 959.

-What studies please, what most delight,
And fill men's thoughts, they dream them o'er at night.
CREECH

IN one of my rambles, or rather speculations, I looked into the great hall, where the bank is kept, and was not a little pleased to see the directors, secretaries, 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 discourses 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 a whole night, so that I fell insensibly into a kind of methodical dream, which disposed all my contemplations into a vision, or allegory, or what else the reader shall 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 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.

1

« AnteriorContinuar »