o went down with the
'Royal George'.]

[Footnote 8: Will. Honeycomb was by some found in a Colonel Cleland.]

[Footnote 9: Steele's signature was R till No. 91; then T, and
occasionally R, till No. 134; then always T.

Addison signed C till No. 85, when he first used L; and was L or C till
No. 265, then L, till he first used I in No. 372. Once or twice using L,
he was I till No. 405, which he signed O, and by this letter he held,
except for a return to C (with a single use of O), from 433 to 477.]

* * * * *

No. 3. Saturday, March 3, 1711. Addison.

'Quoi quisque fere studio devinctus adhaeret:
Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati:
Atque in qua ratione fuit contenta magis mens;
In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire.'

Lucr. L. 4.

In one of my late Rambles, or rather Speculations, I looked into the
great Hall where the Bank [1] 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 Oeconomy. This revived in
my Memory the many Discourses which I had both read and heard,
concerning the Decay of Publick 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 Surprize, 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 _Publick 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_, [2] with the Act of Uniformity [3] on
the right Hand, and the Act of Toleration [4] on the left. At the Lower
end of the Hall was the Act of Settlement, [5] which was placed full in
the Eye of the Virgin that sat upon the Throne. Both the Sides of