ve pain, he sought to soften the harsh lines of life, abate its
follies, and inspire the temper that alone can overcome its wrongs.

Politics, in which few then knew how to think calmly and recognise the
worth of various opinion, Steele and Addison excluded from the pages of
the _Spectator_. But the first paper in this volume is upon "Public
Credit," and it did touch on the position of the country at a time when
the shock of change caused by the Revolution of 1688-89, and also the
strain of foreign war, were being severely felt.

H. M.

PUBLIC CREDIT.

--_Quoi quisque fere studio devinctus adhaeret_
_Aut quibus i rebus multum sumus ante morati_
_Atque in quo ratione fuit contenta magis mens_,
_In somnis cadem plerumque videmur obire_.

LUCR., 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 the 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.

Methoughts 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 placed full in the eye of the
virgin that sat upon the throne. Bo