compting-houses, took their original from the Lombard language, unless
perhaps that of Ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning Detto or
Sudetto, as that which was already said before: but this place has
afforded me an opportunity of discovering what the people meant, who
called a large portion of ground in Southwark some years ago a _plant_,
above all things. The ground was destined to the purposes of extensive
commerce, but the appellation of a _plant_ gave me much disturbance,
from my inability to fathom the meaning of it. I have here found out,
that the Lombards call many things a _plant_; and say of their cities,
palaces, &c. in familiar discourse--_che la pianta è buona, la pianta è
cattiva_[Footnote: The _plant_ is a good or a bad one], &c.

Thus do words which carry a forcible expression in one language, appear
ridiculous enough in another, till the true derivation is known. Another
reflection too occurs as curious; that after the overthrow of all
business, all knowledge, and all pleasure resulting from either, by the
Goths, Italy should be the first to cherish and revive those
money-getting occupations, which now thrive better in more Northern
climates: but the chymists say justly, that fermentation acts with a
sort of creative power, and that while the mass of matter is fermenting,
no certain judgment can be made what spirit it will at last throw up: so
perhaps we ought not to wonder at all, that the first idea of banking
came originally from this now uncommercial country; that the very name
of _bankrupt_ was brought over from their money-changers, who sat in
the market-place with a bench or _banca_ before them, receiving and
paying; till, unable sometimes to make the due returns, the enraged
creditors broke their little board, which was called making
_bancarotta_, a phrase but too well known in the purlieus, which because
they first settled there in London was called _Lombard Street_, where
the word is still in full force I believe.