dame grow

THE PROGRESS OF POETRY.
THE farmer's goose, who in the stubble

Has fed without restraint or trouble,
Grown fat with corn, and fitting still,
Can scarce get o'er the barn-door fill;
And hardly waddles forth to cool
Her belly in the neighbouring pool ;
Nor loudly cackles at the door ;
For cackling shews the goose is poor.

But, when the must be turn'd to graze,
And round the barren common strays,
Hard exercise and harder fare
Soon make my

lank and spare :
Her body light, she tries her wings,
And scorns the ground, and upward springs ;
While all the parish, as she flies,
Hear sounds harmonious from the skies.

Such is the poet fresh in pay
(The third night's profits of his play);
His morning-draughts till noon can swill
Among his brethren of the quill :
With good roast beef his belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull,
Deep funk in plenty and delight,
What poet e'er could take his flight ?
Or, stuff'd with phlegm up to the throat,
What

poet e'er could fing a note ? Nor Pegasus could bear the load Along the high celestial road;

The

The steed, oppress’d, would break his girila,
To raise the luinber from the earth.

But view him in another scene,
When all his drink is Hippocrene,
His money spent, his patrons fail,
His credit out for cheese and ale ;
His two-years coat so smooth and bare,
'Through every thread it lets in air;
With hungry meals his body pin’d,
His

guts and belly full of wind;
And, like a jockey for a race,
His flesh brought down to flying case :
Now his exalted fpirit loaths
Incumbrances of food and cloaths;
And up he rises, like a vapour,
Supported high on wings of paper ;
He finging flics, and flying fings,
While from below all Grubstreet rings.

THE SOUTH SEA PROJECT. 1721.
“ Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vafto,
“ Arina virum, tabulæque, et Troïa gaza per undas."

VIRG.
YE
E wise philosophers, explain

What magick makes our moncy rise,
When dropt into the Southern main ;

Or do these jugglers cheat our eyes?
Put in your money fairly tolu;
Presto! be gone

- 'Tis here again :
Ladies and gentlemen, behold,
Here's every piece as big as ten.

TIES

Thus in a bason drop a shilling,

Then fill the veílel to the brim ; You shall observe, as you are filling,

The ponderous metal seems to swim : It rises both in bulk and height,

Behold it swelling like a sop; The liquid medium cheats your fight ; Behold it mounted to the

top ! In stock three hundred thousand pounds;

I have in view a lord's estate ; My manors all contiguous round;

A coach and fix, and serv'd in plate ! Thus, the deluded bankrupt raves ;

Puts all upon a desperate 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 haste he longs to rove In that fantastic scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove ;

And in he leaps, and down he sinks. Five hundred chariots, just bespoke,

Are funk in these devouring waves, The horses drown'd, the harness broke, And here the owners find their

Like Pharaoh, by direétors led;

They with their spoils went safe before ;
His chariots, tumbling out the dead,

Lay shatter'd on the Red-Sea fhore.
Rais'd up on Hope's aspiring plumes,
The
young

adventurer o'er the deep An eagle's flight and state assumes,

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 towering boy is cast. A moralist might here explain

The rashness of the Cretan youth ; Describe his fall into the main,

And from a fable form a truth. His wings are his paternal rent,

He melts the wax at every flame ; His credit funk, his money spent,

In Southern Seas he leaves his name. Inform us, you that beft can tell,

Why in yon' dangerous 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 geef jump down together : Swim, where the bird of Jove would fink,

And, swimming, never wet a feather.

But, But, I affirm, 'tis falfe in fact,

Directors better knew their tools; We fee the nation's credit crackt,

Each knave hath made a thoufand fools. One fool

may from another win, And then get off with money stor'd ; But, if a sbarper once comes in,

He throws at all, and sweeps the board. As fishes on each other prey,

The great ones fwallowing up the small;
So fares it in the Southern Sea;

The whale directors cat up all.
When fock 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-thine night

An afs was drinking at a stream;
A cloud arose, and stop the light,

By intercepting every beam :
The day of judgement will be foon

(Cries out a fage among the croud); An ass hath swallowd up the moon !

(The moon lay safe behind the cloud), Each poor subscriber to the sea

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

Their fall is but a trick to rise.

So