And read thy lot in yon celestial sign,
Where thou art weigh'd, and shewn how light, how weak,
If thou resist." The fiend look'd up and knew
His mounted scale aloft; nor more: but fled
Murm'ring, and with him fled the shades of night.

These several amusing thoughts having taken possession of my mind some
time before I went to sleep, and mingling themselves with my ordinary
ideas, raised in my imagination a very odd kind of vision. I was,
methought, replaced in my study, and seated in my elbow-chair, where I
had indulged the foregoing speculations, with my lamp burning by me, as
usual. Whilst I was here meditating on several subjects of morality, and
considering the nature of many virtues and vices, as materials for those
discourses with which I daily entertain the public; I saw, methought, a
pair of golden scales hanging by a chain in the same metal over the
table that stood before me; when, on a sudden, there were great heaps of
weights thrown down on each side of them. I found upon examining these
weights, they showed the value of everything that is in esteem among
men. I made an essay of them, by putting the weight of wisdom in one
scale, and that of riches in another, upon which the latter, to show its
comparative lightness, immediately "flew up and kicked the beam."

But, before I proceed, I must inform my reader, that these weights did
not exert their natural gravity, till they were laid in the golden
balance, insomuch that I could not guess which was light or heavy,
whilst I held them in my hand. This I found by several instances, for
upon my laying a weight in one of the scales, which was inscribed by the
word Eternity; though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction,
wealth, poverty, interest, success, with many other weights, which in my
hand seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite
balance, nor could they have prevailed, though assisted with the weight
of the sun, the stars, and the earth.

Upon emptying the scales, I laid several titles and honors, with pomps,
triumphs, and many weights of the like nature, in one of them, and
seeing a little glittering weight lie by me, I threw it accidentally
into the other scale, when, to my great surprise, it proved so exact a
counterpoise, that it kept the balance in an equilibrium. This little
glittering weight was inscribed upon the edges of it with the word
Vanity. I found there were several other weights which wer