e prevalent folly. An ingenious
cardmaker published a pack of South-Sea playing-cards, which are now
extremely rare, each card containing, besides the usual figures, of a very
small size, in one corner, a caricature of a bubble-company, with
appropriate verses underneath. One of the most famous bubbles was
"Puckle's Machine Company," for discharging round and square cannon-balls
and bullets, and making a total revolution in the art of war. Its
pretensions to public favour were thus summed up on the eight of spades:

"A rare invention to destroy the crowd
Of fools at home instead of fools abroad.
Fear not, my friends, this terrible machine,
They're only wounded who have shares therein."

[Illustration: TREE CARICATURE[19]]

[19] Tree, surrounded by water; people climbing up the tree. One
of a series of bubble cards, copied from the _Bubblers'
Medley_, published by Carrington Bowles.

The nine of hearts was a caricature of the English Copper and Brass
Company, with the following epigram:

"The headlong-fool that wants to be a swopper
Of gold and silver coin for English copper,
May, in Change Alley, prove himself an ass,
And give rich metal for adultrate brass."

The eight of diamonds celebrated the company for the colonisation of
Acadia, with this doggrel:

"He that is rich and wants to fool away
A good round sum in North America,
Let him subscribe himself a headlong sharer,
And asses' ears shall honour him or bearer."

And in a similar style every card of the pack exposed some knavish scheme,
and ridiculed the persons who were its dupes. It was computed that the
total amount of the sums proposed for carrying on these projects was
upwards of three hundred millions sterling.

[Illustration: MERCHANT'S GATEWAY]

It is time, however, to return to the great South-Sea gulf, that swallowed
the fortunes of so many thousands of the avaricious and the credulous. On
the 29th of May, the stock had risen as high as five hundred, and about
two-thirds of the government annuitants had exchanged the securities of
the state for those of the South-Sea company. During the whole of the
month of May the stock continued to rise, and on the 28th it was quoted at
five hundred and fifty. In four days after this it took a prodigious leap,
rising suddenly from five hundred and fifty to eight hundred and ninety.
It was now the general opinion that the stock could rise n