pair of stocks erected near it
as early as the year 1281. Sir Robert Viner here erected, in 1675, his
white marble statue of Charles II., that he bought a bargain at Leghorn.
It was a statue of John Sobieski trampling on a Turk, which had been
left on the sculptor's hands, but his worship the Mayor caused a few
alterations to be made for the conversion of Sobieski into Charles, and
the Turk (still with a turban on his head) into Oliver Cromwell. After
the building of the Mansion House this statue lay as lumber in an inn
yard till, in 1779, the Corporation gave it to a descendant of the
Mayor, who had the reason above given for reverencing Charles II.]

[Footnote 3: Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.]

* * * * *

No. 463. Thursday, August 21, 1712. Addison.

'Omnia quae sensu volvuntur vota diurno
Pectore sopito reddit amica quies.
Venator defessa toro cum membra reponit
Mens tamen ad sylvas et sua lustra redit.
Judicibus lites, aurigis somnia currus,
Vanaque nocturnis meta cavetur equis.
Me quoque Musarum studium sub nocte silenti
Artibus assuetis sollicitare solet.'

Claud.

I was lately entertaining my self with comparing _Homer's_ Ballance, in
which _Jupiter_ is represented as weighing the Fates of _Hector_ and
_Achilles_, with a Passage of _Virgil_, wherein that Deity is introduced
as weighing the Fates of _Turnus_ and _AEneas_. I then considered how the
same way of thinking prevailed in the Eastern Parts of the World, as in
those noble Passages of Scripture, wherein we are told, that the great
King of _Babylon_ the Day before his Death, had been weighed in the
Ballance, and been found wanting. In other Places of the Holy Writings,
the Almighty is described as weighing the Mountains in Scales, making
the Weight for the Winds, knowing the Ballancings of the Clouds, and in
others, as weighing the Actions of Men, and laying their Calamities
together in a Ballance. _Milton_, as I have observed in a former Paper,
had an Eye to several of these foregoing Instances, in that beautiful
Description [1] wherein he represents the Arch-Angel and the Evil Spirit
as addressing themselves for the Combat, but parted by the Ballance
which appeared in the Heavens and weighed the Consequences of such a
Battel.

'Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray
Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Sc