as I shall see occasion. In the meantime, when I consider how much I have seen, read and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate 5 the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of Io a silent man. For this reason therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my contemporaries; and if I can any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I 15 am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. 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 20 for some time: I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellish25 ment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which 30 have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise, 7 7 1711, pains I can suffer, are the being, etc. that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken. After having been thus particular upon myself, I 5 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 en- Ic gaged 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 LittleBritain. For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays and 15 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. No. 3. SATURDAY, MARCH 3. [1711.] Quoi quisque fere studio devinctus adhæret: -LUCR. L. iv. IN one of my late rambles, or rather specula- 20 tions, 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 25 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 5 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 10 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, 15 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 20 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, 25 which was placed full in the eye of the virgin that sat upon the throne. Both the sides of the hall were covered with such acts of parliament as had been made for the establishment of public funds. The lady seemed to set an unspeakable value upon 30 these several pieces of furniture, insomuch that she often refreshed her eye with them, and often smiled with a secret pleasure, as she looked upon them; but, at the same time, showed a very particular uneasiness, as if she saw anything 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 5 told by one who I found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour, and startled at everything she heard. She was likewise (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own sex, and subject to such 10 momentary consumptions, 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 sudden as her decays, insomuch that she 15 would revive in a moment out of a wasting distemper, into a habit of the highest health and vigour. I had very soon an opportunity of observing these quick turns and changes in her constitution. There sat at her feet a couple of secretaries, who 20 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 she heard, to which she was exceedingly attentive, she changed colour, and discovered many 25 symptoms of health or sickness. 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 30 vast sums of gold that rose up in pyramids on either side of her. But this I did not so much wonder 1 1711, uneasiness, if she saw. at, when I heard, upon inquiry, that she had the same virtue in her touch, which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly possessed of: and that she could convert whatever she pleased into that 5 precious metal. After a little dizziness, and confused hurry of thought, which a man often meets with in a dream, methoughts the hall was alarmed, the doors flew open, and there entered half a dozen of the most Io 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 dissociable manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance. It would be tedious to describe their habits and per15 sons, 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, whose name I could 20 not learn. He had a sword in his right hand, which in the dance he often brandished at the Act of Settlement; and a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he saw a sponge in his left hand. The dance of so many jarring natures put me in 25 mind of the sun, 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 said, that the lady on the throne would have. 30 been almost frighted to distraction, had she seen. 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 sight. |