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Yet loth the fum intire should be destroy'd, "Give me a penny, and thy contract's "void."

The ftartled bard with eye indignant frown'd:

"Shall I, ye Gods, (he cries) my debts compound !"

So faying, from his rug the skew'r he takes, And on the stick ten equal notches makes; With just resentment flings it on the ground; “There, take my * tally of ten thousand "pound."

The SOUTH-SEA.

YE wife philofophers! explain

1721.

What magick makes our money rife,
When dropt into the Southern main?
Or do thefe jugglers cheat our eyes?

Put in your money fairly told;
Prefto be gone---'Tis here agen;
Ladies and gentlemen, behold,
Here's ev'ry piece as big as ten.

* Charles II, having borrowed a confiderable fum, gave tallies as a fecurity for the repayment; but foon after, fhut

ting up the Exchequer, these tallies were as much reduced from their original value, as the South-Sea had exceeded it. Thus

Thus in a bafon drop a fhilling,

Then fill the veffel to the brim;
You shall obferve, as you are filling,
The pond'rous metal feems to swim.

It rises both in bulk and height;
Behold it fwelling like a fop!
The liquid medium cheats your fight;
Behold it mounted to the top!

In ftock three hundred thousand pound;
I have in view a lord's estate ;
My manors all contiguous round;
A coach and fix, and ferv'd in plate.

Thus the deluded bankrupt raves,
Puts all upon a desp’rate bet;
Then plunges in the Southern waves,
Dipt over head and ears---in debt.

So, by a calenture misled,

The mariner with rapture fees
On the smooth ocean's azure bed
Enamel'd fields, and verdant trees.

With eager hafte he longs to rove

In that fantaftick scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And in he leaps, and down he finks. Two

M

Two hundred chariots, just bespoke,
Are funk in these devouring waves,
The horses drown'd, the harness broke;
And here the owners find their graves.

Like Pharaoh, by directors led,

They with their spoils went fafe before; His chariots, tumbling out the dead, Lay shatter'd on the Red-fea fhore.

Rais'd up on hope's afpiring plumes,
The young advent'rer o'er the deep
An eagle's flight and state affumes,
And scorns the middle way to keep.

On paper wings he takes his flight;
With wax the father bound them fast;
The wax is melted by the height,
And down the tow'ring boy is caft.

His wings are his paternal rent;
He melts his wax at ev'ry flame;
His credit funk, his money spent,
In Southern feas he leaves his name.

Inform us, you that beft can tell,

Why in your dang'rous gulph profound, Where hundreds and where thousands fell, Fools chiefly float, the wife are drown'd?

So have I seen from Severn's brink
A flock of geefe jump down together,
Swim where the bird of Jove would fink,
And swimming never wet a feather.

One fool may from another win,
And then get off with money ftor'd:
But, if a harper once comes in,

He throws at all, and sweeps the board.

As fishes on each other prey,

The great ones fwall'wing up the fmall; So fares it in the Southern fea;

The whale directors eat up all.

When Stock is high, they come between, Making by fecond-hand their offers; Then cunningly retire unseen,

With each a million in his coffers.

So, when upon a moon-fhine night
An afs was drinking at a stream,
A cloud arose, and stopt the light
By intercepting ev'ry beam.

The day of judgment will be foon,
(Cries out a fage among the crowd;)
An afs hath fwallow'd up the moon:
The moon lay fafe behind the cloud.
M 2

Each

Each poor fubfcriber to the sea

Sinks down at once, and there he lies: Directors fall as well as they ;:

Their fall is but a trick to rife.

So fishes rifing from the main

Can foar with moiften'd wings on high; The moisture dry'd, they fink again, And dip their fins again to fly.

Undone at play, the female troops
Come here their loffes to retrieve;
Ride o'er the waves in fpacious hoops,
Like Lapland witches in a fieve..

Thus Venus to the fea defcends,

As poets feign; but where's the moral ? It fhews the queen of love intends

To fearch the deep for pearl and coral.

A fhilling in the Bath you fling,
The filver takes a nobler hue
By magick virtue in the fpring,
And feems a guinea to your view.

But, as a guinea will not pass

At market for a farthing more, Shewn through a multiplying glafs, Than what it always did before;

So

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