There was as great a change in the hill of money-bags and the heaps
of money, the former shrinking and falling into so many empty bags,
that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with
money.
The rest, that took up the same space and made the same 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 present from AEolus. The great
heaps of gold on either side the throne now appeared to be only
heaps of paper, or little piles of notched sticks, bound up together
in bundles, like Bath faggots.
Whilst I was lamenting this sudden desolation that had been made
before me, the whole scene vanished. In the room of the frightful
spectres, there now entered a second dance of apparitions, very
agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms:
the first pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand; the
second was Moderation leading in Religion; and the third, a person
whom I had never seen, with the Genius of Great Britain. At the
first entrance, the lady revived; the bags swelled to their former
bulk; the piles of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids
of guineas: and, for my own part, I was so transported with joy
that I awaked, though I must confess I would fain have fallen asleep
again to have closed my vision, if I could have done it.
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