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likewife (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own fex, and fubject to fuch momentary confumptions, that in the twinkling of an eye, fhe would fall away from the moft florid complexion, and moft healthful state of body, and wither into a fkeleton. Her recoveries were often as fudden as her decays, infomuch that she would revive in a moment out of a wasting distemper, into a habit of the highest health and vigour.

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 the was exceedingly attentive, fhe 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 so high that they touched the cieling. 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 he 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 pleafed into that precious metal.

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After a little dizzinefs, 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 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 defcribe their habits and perfons, for which reafon I fhall only inform my reader, that the first couple were Tyranny and Anarchy, the fecond were Bigotry and Atheifin, 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 brandished at the act of Settlement; and a citizen, who ftood 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 fun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsalt, that danced together for no other end but to eclipfe one another.

The reader will eafily fuppofe, by what has been before faid, that the lady on the throne would have been almost frighted to distraction, had the feen but any one of these fpectres; what then must have been her condition when the

James Stuart, the pretended prince of Wales, born June 10, 1688. See TAT. No. 187.

To wipe out the national debt.
Rehearsal, A&t V. Sc. 1.

faw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the fight.

Et neque jam color eft mifto candore rubori;

Nec vigor, & vires, & quæ modò vifa placebant;

Nec corpus remanet

Her fpirits faint,

OVID, Met. iii. 491.

Her blooming cheeks affume a palid teint,
And scarce her form remains.

There was as great a change in the hill of money-bags, and the heaps of money, the former fhrinking and falling into fo 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 Eolus. The great heaps of gold on either fide the throne, now appeared to be only heaps of paper, or little piles of notched fticks, bound up together in bundles, like Bathfaggots.

Whilft I was lamenting this fudden defolation that had been made before me, the whole fcene vanished. In the room of the frightful fpectres, there now entered a fecond dance of apparitions very agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms. The firft pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand. The fecond was Moderation leadC 3

ing

ing in Religion; and the third a person whom I had never feen*, 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 guineas and for my own part I was fo tranfported with joy, that I awaked, though I muft confefs, I would fain have fallen afleep again to have clofed my Vision, if I could have done it.

N° 4. Monday, March 5, 1710-11.

·Egregii mortalem altique filentii?

C+.

HOR. 2 Sat. vi. 58. One of uncommon filence and reserve.

A

N 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 fhare of this vanity in my heart, I made it my bufinefs thefe three days to listen after my own fame; and as I have fometimes met with circumstances which did not displease me, I have been encountered by others, which gave me much mortification. It is incredible to think how empty I have in this time obferved fome part of the fpecies to be, what mere blanks they are when they firft come abroad in

The Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I. + By ADDISON, dated, as the fignature is fuppofed to imply, from Chelfea, where he lived much about this time.

the

the morning, how utterly they are at a stand, until they are fet a-going by fome paragraph in a news-paper.

Such perfons are very acceptable to a young author, for they defire no more in any thing but to be new, to be agreeable. If I found confolation among fuch, I was as much difquieted by the incapacity of others. These are mortals who have a certain curiofity without power of reflection, and perufed my Papers like Spectators rather than Readers. But there is fo little pleasure in enquiries that fo nearly concern ourfelves, (it being the worft way in the world to fame, to be too anxious about it) that upon the whole I refolved for the future, to go on in my ordinary way; and without too much fear or hope about the bufinefs of reputation, to be very careful of the defign of my actions, but very negligent of the confequences of them.

It is an endless and frivolous pursuit to act by any other rule, than the care of fatisfying our own minds in what we do. One would think a filent man, who concerned himself with no one breathing, fhould be very little liable to. mifinterpretations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a jefuit, for no other reason but my profound taciturnity. It is from this misfortune that to be out of harm's way, I have ever fince affected crowds. He who comes into affemblies only to gratify his curiofity, and not to make a figure, enjoys the pleasures of retirement in a more exquifite degree, than he poffibly could in his clofet; the lover, the ambiC 4

tious,

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