You'll owe your ruin to your bulk:
Your foes already waiting stand,
To tear you like a founder'd hulk,
While you lie helpless on the sand

Thus, when a whale has lost the tide,
The coasters crowd to seize the spoil;
The monster into parts divide,

And strip the bones, and melt the oil.

O! may some western tempest sweep
These locusts whom our fruits have fed,
That plague, directors, to the deep,
Driv'n from the South Sea to the Red.

May he, whom Nature's laws obey,

Who lifts the poor, and sinks the proud, "Quiet the raging of the sea,

"And still the madness of the crowd!"

But never shall our isle have rest,

Till those devouring swine run down,

(The devils leaving the possest)

And headlong in the waters down.

The nation then too late will find,
Computing all their cost and trouble,
Directors promises but wind,

South Sea at best a mighty bubble.

то

TO A FRIEND,

WHO HAD BEEN MUCH ABUSED IN MANY

DIFFERENT LIBELS.

THE

greatest monarch may be stabb'd by night, And fortune help the murderer in his flight; The vilest ruffian may commit a rape, Yet safe from injur'd innocence escape; And Calumny, by working under ground, Can, unreveng'd, the greatest merit wound. What's to be done? Shall Wit and Learning choose To live obscure, and have no fame to lose? By Censure frighted out of Honour's road, Nor dare to use the gifts by Heaven bestow'd? Or fearless enter in through Virtue's gate, And buy distinction at the dearest rate?

EPIGRAM.

GREAT folks are of a finer mould;
Lord! how politely they can scold!
While a coarse English tongue will itch,
For whore and rogue; and dog and bitch.

PROLOGUE*

TO A PLAY FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE

DISTRESSED WEAVERS.

BY DR. SHERIDAN.

Spoken by Mr. ELRINGTON. 1721.

GREAT cry and little wool-is now become
The plague and proverb of the weaver's loom:
No wool to work on, neither weft nor warp;
Their pockets empty, and their stomachs sharp.
Provok'd, in loud complaints to you they cry:
Ladies, relieve the weavers: or they die!
Forsake your silks for stuffs; nor think it strange,
To shift your clothes, since you delight in change.
One thing with freedom I'll presume to tell-
The men will like you every bit as well.

See I am dress'd from top to toe in stuff;

And, by my troth, I think I'm fine enough:
My wife admires me more, and swears she never,
In any dress, beheld me look so clever.

And if a man be better in such ware,

What great advantage must it give the fair!
Our wool from lambs of innocence proceeds:
Silks come from maggots, calicoes from weeds:
Hence 'tis by sad experience that we find
Ladies in silks to vapours much inclin'd—
And what are they but maggots in the mind?

}

* An answer to this Prologue and Epilogue is printed in the Works of Concanen.

For

For which I think it reason to conclude

That clothes may change our temper like our food.
Chintses are gawdy, and engage our eyes
Too much about the partycolour'd dyes:
Although the lustre is from you begun,
We see the rainbow, and neglect the sun.

How sweet and innocent's the country maid,
With small expense in native wool array'd;
Who copies from the fields her homely green,
While by her shepherd with delight she's seen!
Should our fair ladies dress like her in wool,
How much more lovely, and how beautiful,
Without their Indian drapery, they'd prove!
While wool would help to warm us into love!
Then, like the famous Argonauts of Greece,
We'd all contend to gain the Golden Fleece!

EPILOGUE, BY THE DEAN.

SPOKEN BY MR. GRIFFITH.

WHO dares affirm this is no pious age,

When charity begins to tread the stage?
When actors, who, at best, are hardly savers,
Will give a night of benefit to weavers ?
Stay-let me see, how finely will it sound
Imprimis, From his grace a hundred pound.
Peers, clergy, gentry, all are benefactors;
And then comes in the item of the actors.
Item, The actors freely give a day-
The poet had no more who made the play

But whence this wondrous charity in players? They learn it not at sermons, or at prayers: Under the rose, since here are none but friends, (To own the truth) we have some private ends. Since waiting-women, like exacting jades,

Hold up

the prices of their old brocades; We'll dress in manufactures made at home; Equip our kings and generals at the Comb *. We'll rig from Meath street Ægypt's haughty queen, And Antony shall court her in ratteen. In blue shalloon shall Hannibal be clad, And Scipio trail an Irish purple plaid. In drugget drest, of thirteen pence a yard, See Philip's son amid his Persian guard; And proud Roxana, fir'd with jealous rage, With fifty yards of crape shall sweep the stage. In short, our kings and princesses within Are all resolv'd this project to begin; And you, our subjects, when you here resort, Must imitate the fashion of the court.

O! could I see this audience clad in stuff, Though money's scarce, we should have trade enough: But chints, brocades, and lace, take all away, And scarce a crown is left to see the play. Perhaps you wonder whence this friendship springs Between the weavers and us playhouse kings; But wit and weaving had the same beginning; Pallas first taught us poetry and spinning: And, next, observe how this alliance fits, For weavers now are just as poor as wits: Their brother quillmen, workers for the stage, For sorry stuff can get a crown a page;

* A street famous for woollen manufactures.

But