per cent. Such was the frantic eagerness of people of every class to
speculate in these funds, that in the course of a few hours no less
than a million and a half was subscribed at that rate.

In the mean time, innumerable joint-stock companies started up
everywhere. They soon received the name of Bubbles, the most
appropriate that imagination could devise. The populace are often most
happy in the nicknames they employ. None could be more apt than that
of Bubbles. Some of them lasted for a week, or a fortnight, and were
no more heard of, while others could not even live out that short span
of existence. Every evening produced new schemes, and every morning
new projects. The highest of the aristocracy were as eager in this hot
pursuit of gain as the most plodding jobber in Cornhill. The Prince of
Wales became governor of one company, and is said to have cleared
40,000 pounds by his speculations. [Coxe's Walpole, Correspondence
between Mr. Secretary Craggs and Earl Stanhope.] The Duke of
Bridgewater started a scheme for the improvement of London and
Westminster, and the Duke of Chandos another. There were nearly a
hundred different projects, each more extravagant and deceptive than
the other. To use the words of the "Political State," they were "set
on foot and promoted by crafty knaves, then pursued by multitudes of
covetous fools, and at last appeared to be, in effect, what their
vulgar appellation denoted them to be -- bubbles and mere
cheats." It was computed that near one million and a half sterling was
won and lost by these unwarrantable practices, to the impoverishment
of many a fool, and the enriching of many a rogue.

Some of these schemes were plausible enough, and, had they been
undertaken at a time when the public mind was unexcited, might have
been pursued with advantage to all concerned. But they were