The following sentences graphically tell the state of London and this kingdom at the period referred to:--"From morning till evening, 'Change Alley was filled to overflowing with one dense moving mass of living beings, composed of the most incongruous materials, and in all things, save the mad pursuit wherein they were employed, utterly opposed in their principles and feelings, and far asunder in their stations of life and the professions which they followed. Statesmen and clergymen deserted their high stations to enter upon this grand theatre of speculation and gambling; and churchmen and dissenters left their fierce disputes, and forgot their wranglings upon church government, in this deep and hazardous game they were playing for worldly treasures, and for riches which, even if won, were liable to disappear within the hour of their creation. Whigs and Tories buried their weapons of political warfare, discarded party animosities, and mingled together in kind and friendly intercourse, each exulting as their stocks advanced in price, and murmuring dissatisfaction and disappointment when fortune frowned upon their wild operations; and lawyers, physicians, merchants, and tradesmen, forsook their employments, neglected their business, and disregarded their engagements, to whirl giddily along with the swollen stream, to be at last ingulfed in the wide sea of bankruptcy. Men of the highest rank were deeply engaged in stock-jobbing transactions; and investments in the most worthless bubbles of the age were made by them in heavy sums, and without the least hesitation or previous inquiry. Females mixed with the crowd, and, forgetting the stations and employments which nature had fitted them to adorn, dealt boldly and extensively in the bubbles that rose before them, and, like those by whom they were surrounded, rose from poverty to wealth, and from that were thrust down to beggary and want, and all in one short week, and perhaps before the evening which terminated the first day of their speculations. Ladies of high rank, regardless of every appearance of dignity, and blinded by the prevailing infatuation, drove to the shops of their milliners and haberdashers, and there met stockbrokers whom they regularly employed, and through whom extensive sales were daily negotiated. In the midst of the excitement, all distinctions of party and religion, circumstances and character, were swallowed up. Bubbles were blown into existence on every hand, and stocks of every conceivable name, nature, and description, were issued to an incredible extent."[28] THE FOLLY OF MAN'S WISDOM.