“Is a Rational Animal, with a sensitive Understanding. He rises and falls like the ebbing and flowing of the Sea; and his paths are as unsearchable as hers are. He is one of _Pharaoh’s_ lean kine in the midst of plenty; and, to dream of him is, almost, an Indication of approaching Famine. He is ten times more changeable than the Weather; and the living Insect from which the Grasshopper on the Royal Bourse was drawn, never leap’d from one Place to another, as he from one Number to another; sometimes a Hundred and a half is too little for him; sometimes Half a hundred is too much; and he falls seven times a Day, but not like _David_, on his knees, to beg pardon for former Sins, but to be made capable of sinning again. He came in with the _Dutch_, and he had freed us from as great a Plague as they were, had he been so kind as to have went out with them. He lives on the Exchange, but his Dwelling cannot be said to be the Place of his _Abode_, for he _abides_ no where, he is so unconstant and uncertain. Ask him what Religion he professes, he cries, _He’ll sell you as cheap as any Body_; and what Value such an Article of Faith is of, his Answer is, _I’ll give you as much for a Debenture, as the best Chapman thereabout shall_. He is fam’d for Injustice, yet he is a Master of _Equity_ in one particular to perfection, for he cheats every Body alike, and is _Equal_ in all his Undertakings. The Den from which this Beast of Prey bolts out is _Jonathan’s_ Coffee House, or _Garraway’s_; and a Man that goes into either, ought to be as circumspect as if in an Enemy’s country. A Dish of tea there, may be as dear to him as a good Purchase, and a Man that is over reach’d in either, tho’ no Drunkard, may be said to have drank away his Estate. He may be call’d a true Unbeliever, and out of the Pale of the Church, for he has no Faith. Is a meer _Tolandist_ in secular Concerns, at the very minute that he is ready to take up any Goods upon Trust that shall belong to his Neighbour. _St Paul’s_ Cathedral would be a Mansion-House fit for a Deity indeed, in his Opinion, did but the Merchants meet there; and he can give you no subtantialler a Reason for liking _Salter’s Hall_ better than the Church, than because of its being a House of Traffick and Commerce, and the Sale being often held there. He is the Child of God in one Sense only, and that is by reason of his bearing His Image, but the Devil in many, for he fights under his Standard. To make an end of a Subject that is endless; he has the Figure of a Man, but the Nature of a Beast; and either triumphs over his Fellow Adventurers, as he eats the Bread of other People’s Carefulness, and drinks the Tears of Orphans or Widows, or being made himself Food for others, grows, at last, constant to one place, which is the _Compter_, and the fittest House for such an unaccountable Fellow to make up his Accounts in.”