Allegorical Vision.

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 seve-. ral stations, according to the parts they act, in that just and regular economy. This revived in my memory the 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.

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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.

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.

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Vision allégorique.

DANS une des mes promenades, ou plutôt de mes courses d'observation, je visitai la grande salle où se tient la banque, et j'eus un plaisir extrême d'y voir les directeurs, les secrétaires et les commis, avec tous les autres membres de cette riche société, placés à leurs differens postes, selon les fonctions qu'ils exercent dans ce sage établissement. Cela me rappela tout ce que j'avois lu ou entendu dire sur la dimininution du crédit national, et sur les moyens de le rétablir, que j'ai toujours regardés comme insuffisans, parce qu'ils n'avoient en vue que les intérêts ou les principes de l'un ou de l'autre parti.

Ces idées, qui m'avoient occupé le jour, donnèrent de l'exercice à mon cerveau durant toute la nuit; de sorte que je tombai insensiblement dans un rêve méthodique, que vous pouvez appeler une vision, une allégorie raisonnée, ou tout ce qu'il vous plaira.

Il me sembla que j'étois retourné à la grande salle, où j'avois été le matin; mais, au lieu de la compagnie que j'y avois laissée, je fus bien surpris d'y voir une jeune beauté, assise sur un trône d'or, dans le fond de la salle. J'appris qu'elle se nommoit la Foi publique. Les murailles, au lieu

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. Both of 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 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, shewed a very particular uneasiness 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 constitution, or that she was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one, who I found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour, and startled at every thing 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 momentary consumptions, that, in the twinkling of an eye, she should fall away from the most florid complexion, and most healthful state of

d'être oruées de tableaux ou de cartes de géographie, étoient tendues d'actes du parlement, écrits en lettres d'or. A l'extrémité de la salle on voyoit, sur la droite, la grande charte et l'acte d'uniformité, et sur la gauche l'acte de tolérance. A l'opposite, et en face de la jeune dame qui étoit sur le trône, on voyoit l'acte d'établissement. Les deux côtés dé la salle étoient garnis de divers autres actes passés pour la sûreté des fonds publics. La jeune damé sembloit attacher une si grande importance à ces differentes pièces de tapisserie, que souvent elle y reposoit ses yeux, et sourioit avec un plaisir secret en les regardant; tandis qu'elle marquoit une extrême inquiétude, si quelque chose en approchoit, qui auroit pu les endommager. Il est vrai qu'elle paroissoit fort craintive à tous égards; et, soit que cela vînt de la délicatesse de son tempérament, soit qu'elle fût sujette aux vapeurs, comme uu de ses ennemis voulut me l'insinuer dans la suite, elle changeoit de couleur et tressailloit au moindre bruit. Je vis même bientôt après qu'elle étoit plus valétudinaire qu'aucune autre de son sexe que j'aie jamais connue, et sujette à une consomption si prompte, que dans un clin d'œil elle passoit de l'embonpoint le plus fleuri à la maigreur d'un véritable squelette. Son rétablissement étoit souvent aussi subit, puisqu'on la voyoit revenir, dans une minute, de l'état le plus déses→

body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as sudden as her decays, insomuch that she 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 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 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 vast sums of gold that rose-up in pyramids on either side of her. But this I did not so much wonder 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 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 most