“I saw towards the Upper End of the Hall [in the Bank of England] a beautiful Virgin…Her Name was Publick Credit….Both the Sides of the Hall….were covered with such Acts of Parliament as had been made for the Establishment of the Publick Funds….behind the Throne was a prodigious heap of Bags of Money….But this I did not so much wonder at, when I heard, upon Enquiry, that she had the same virtue in her Touch, which the Poets tell us a Lydian King was formerly possessed of; and that she could convert whatever she pleas’d into that precious Metal.”