money and what can be a greater argument of its worth, than when every one courts it, and languishes because of its absence: and seems to say,

Return, return, thou charming Nymph, again:
For of thy absence all men do complain,
From quality, down to the humble swain:
For unto thee they all do homage pay:
For thee they strive, for thee they pray:
And grow impatient of thy longer stay.

For thee the Ladies of delight,

Do amble round the streets hy night:
And, unashamed, often do

In Bridewell suffer for it too:

Even from the plain stuff gown,
To Whores of quality and high renown.
They are thy humble slaves:

Nor can the dreadful fire,

By which they often times expire,
Tumbling half rotten to their graves;

Nor yet the Surgeon's powdering-tub,
Where their old sores they scrub,

Fright them from their allegiance; till they be
Devoted slaves and subjects unto thee.

For thee, the Soldiers, with heroic grace,
Do death in all its horrid forms out-face:
It is for thee they valiantly do fight;

March all the day, and lie i'th' fields all night:
For thee the Lawyer too his lungs does spend,
For whilst thou stayest, the cause will never end.

Vintners for thee (so custom does enjoin)

To please their guests, drink their own poisoned wine

Thou mak'st Physicians to their patients go:
Who but for thee, would no compassion show.
Nay, the Divine, whose duty 'tis to teach,
Wer't not for thee, would hardly ever preach.

Not so

Thus persons of all qualities and all pro fessions make their court to Money; the gaining of which, as if it were the great Diana of the world, is the chief mark they aim at in all their undertakings: and therefore to inform them how they may catch this coy Mistress, and embrace her in their own arms, must needs be a very pleasant art. And so much, I doubt not, every one will be so civil as to grant me. But then their next question will be, How must this be done? fast, Gentlemen, it is a matter of great moment, and must not be slightly huddled over: and therefore I hope you do not expect I should tell you in the Preface; for I am sure I do not intend it: for then the reading of the book would be needless. But this I will assure you, that whatever I have promised in the Title, I will make good in the book. With several other useful and necessary instructions; which if tradesmen and others would

diligently peruse and put into practice, they would get more than they do, and not be in danger of losing so much; for here they may see so many several ways of Turning a Penny, that if they do not thrive, it will be their own faults: and whether they be like to thrive or not, they may also know, if they will but give themselves the trouble of comparing their own management with the rules contained in the following Treatise. Which if they had been sooner known, or at least better followed, might have prevented many of those statutes of Bankruptcy, which have every week taken up so much room in our Gazettes. And if such a subject do not please I will even fling my pen away.

FAREWELL.

THE

PLEASANT ART

OF

Money Catching!

CHAP. I.

Of the original and Invention of Money.

WHEN commerce and traffic was first be gun in the world, and men came to trade one with another, there was no use of Money, nor no need of it; for men bartered their goods in exchange with each other; and as in the infancy of the world, some were tillers of the ground, and others were keepers of sheep; the one gave the other corn, and took of their sheep in exchange for it. And this sort of trading is now generally in use in our foreign Plantations, to supply the want of Money: but in process of time, as trading increased, so did, luxury begin to abound; and as luxury abounded, so men's wants grew greater: which begat a necessity of some other way of commerce: and this was Money; which is of that antiquity, that

Josephus tells us, That Cain (the son of Adam, and the first-born of men) was very greedy in gathering of money together; though of what metal that money was made, and whether it was coined or not, he is sileut. Herodotus writeth, That the first that coined silver and gold to buy and sell with, were the Lydians: for silver and gold being the most precious of metals, was so much valued, that whatever any man wanted, might be purchased for it. Homer indeed tells us, That before the siege of Troy, men used to change or barter one commodity for another. But it is undeniable, that money was in use long before that time: for when Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah, and the field in which it was, for a burying place for his family, he gave 400 shekels of silver for it; which the sacred text tells us, , was current money with the merchant: and this about the year of the World 2088, which was near 700 years before the destruction of Troy but though the money was current with the merchant, yet I question whether it was coined or not; for it rather appears that it received its value from its weight, than from any stamp that was upon it: their weight of a shekel being a quarter of an ounce, and the true value of it fifteen-pence of our money, so at that rate Abraham paid twenty-five pounds of our English money for that burying-place.