While fome build castles in the air,
Directors build them in the feas;
Subfcribers plainly fee 'em there,
For fools will fee as wife men please.
Thus oft by mariners are shown,
(Unless the men of Kent be liars),
Earl Godwin's castles overflown,
And palace-roofs, and steeple-spires.
Mark where the fly directors creep,
Nor to the fhore approach too nigh!
The monsters neftle in the deep,
To feize you in your paffing by.
Then, like the dogs of Nile, be wife,
Who taught by inftinct how to fhun
The crocodile, that lurking lies,
Run as they drink, and drink and run.
Antaeus could, by magick charms,
Recover ftrength whene'er he fell;
Alcides held him in his arms,
And fent him up in air to hell.
Directors thrown into the fea,
Recover ftrength and vigour there
be tam'd another way,
Sufpended for a while in air.
Directors! for 'tis you I warn,
By long experience we have found,
What planet rul'd, when you were born
We fee you never can be drown'd.
Beware, nor over-bulky grow,
Nor come within your cully's reach; For if the fea fhou'd fink fo low,
To leave you dry upon the beach ;
You'll owe your ruin to your bulk :
Your foes already waiting stand,
To tear you like a founder'd hulk,
While you ly helpless on the fand.
Thus, when a whale hath loft the tide,
The coafters crowd to feize the spoil;
The monster into parts divide,
And ftrip the bones and melt the oil.
Oh! may fome Weftern tempeft fweep
Thefe locufts, whom our fruits have fed,
That plague, directors, to the deep,
Driv'n from the South-fea to the Red.
May he, whom nature's laws obey;
Who lifts the poor, and finks the proud,
Quiet the raging of the sea,
And fill the madness of the crowd.
But never fhall our ifle have reft,
Till thofe devouring wine run down,
(The devils leaving the poffeft),
And headlong in the waters drown.
The nation then too late will find,
Computing all their coft and trouble,
Directors promifes but wind,
South-fea at beft a mighty bubble.
Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vafto,
Arma virúm, tabulaque, & Troia gaza per
EPILOGUE to a PLAY for the Benefit of the WEAVERS in IRELAND..
Written in the Year 1721..
HO dares affirm this is no pious age,
When charity begins to tread the stage? When actors, who, at beft, are hardly favers, Will give a night of benefit to weavers ?
Stay - let me fee, how finely will it found!'
Imprimis, from his Grace an hundred pound.
Peers, clergy, gentry, all are benefactors;
And then comes in the item of the actors.
Item, the actors freely gave a day,
The Poet had no more, who made the play.
BUT whence this wond'rous charity in play'rs ? They learnt it not at fermons, or at pray'rs : Under the rofe, fince here are none but friends, (To own the truth) we have fome private ends. * Dr. KING, Archbishop of Dublins
Since waiting-women, like exacting jades,
Hold up the prices of their old brocades;
We'll drefs in manufactures made at home;
Equip our Kings and Gen'rals at the * Comb ;
We'll rig in Meath-street Egypt's haughty Queen,
And Antony fhall court her in rateên.
In blue falloon fhall Hannibal be clad,
And Scipio trail an Irish purple plad.
In drugget drest, of thirteen pence a yard,
See Philip's fon amidst his Perfian guard;
And proud Roxana, fir'd with jealous rage,
With fifty yards of crape, fhall sweep the stage.
In fhort, our Kings and Princeffes within
Are all refolv'd the project to begin;
And you, our fubjects, when you here resort,
Muft imitate the fashion of the court.
OH! cou'd I fee this audience clad in fluff, Tho' money's fcarce, we fhould have trade e-nough:
But chints, brocades, and lace, take all away,
And scarce a crown is left to fee a play.
Perhaps you wonder whence this friendship springs
Between the weavers and us play-houfe Kings:
But wit and weaving had the fame beginning;
Pallas first taught us poetry and spinning:
And next obferve how this alliance fits,
For weavers now are just as poor as wits:
* A street in Dublin, famous for woollen manufactures.
Their brother quill-men, workers for the stage,
For forry fluff can get a crown a page;
But weavers will be kinder to the play'rs,
And fell for twenty pence a yard of theirs.
And, to your knowledge, there is often lefs in
The Poet's wit, than in the Player's dreffing.
Written in the Year 1723,
ROM Venus born, thy beauty shows; But who thy father, no man knows; Nor can the fkilful herald trace
The founder of thy antient race.
Whether thy temper, full of fire,
Difcovers Vulcan for thy fire;
The God, who made Scamander boil,
And round bis margin findg'd the foil;
(From whence Philofophers agree,
An equal pow'r defcends to thee).
Whether from dreadful & Mars you claimo
The high defcent from whence you came,
And,
as a proof,. fhew num'rous scars,
By fierce encounters made in wars;
(Thofe honourable wounds you bore
From head to foot, and all before)
And fill the bloody field frequent,
Familiar in each leader's tent.
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