There in full opulence a banker dwelt, Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt: His fide-board glitter'd with imagin'd plates And his proud fancy held a vaft eftate. As on a time he pass'd the vacant hours In raifing piles of ftraw and twisted bow'rs, A poet enter'd of the neighbouring cell, And with fix'd eye obferv'd the structure well: A fharpen'd skew'r'crofs his bare fhoulders bound. A tatter'd rug, which dragg'd upon the ground. The banker cry'd, "Behold my castlewalls, My ftatues, gardens, fountains, and canals, "With land of more than twenty acres "round! "All these I fell thee for ten thousand pound." The bard with wonder the cheap purchase faw, So fign'd the contract (as ordains the law.) The banker's brain was cool'd; the mist grew clear; The vifionary fcene was loft in air. He now the vanish'd profpect understood, And fear'd the fancy'd bargain was not good: Yet Yet loth the fum intire should be deftroy'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 juftrefentment flings it on the ground; “There, take my tally of ten thousand "pound. The SOUTH-SEA. 1721. YE wife philofophers! explain What magick makes our money rife, Put in your money fairly told; Charles II, having bor rowed 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, It rifes both in bulk and height; In stock three hundred thousand pound; A coach and fix, and ferv'd in plate. Thus the deluded bankrupt raves, So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture fees With eager hafte he longs to rove M Two Two hundred chariots, juft befpoke, Like Pharaoh, by directors led, They with their poils went fafe before; Rais'd up on hope's afpiring plumes, On paper wings he takes his flight; His wings are his paternal rent; : Inform us, you that best can tell, Why in your dang'rous gulph profound, Where hundreds and where thoufands fell, Fools chiefly float, the wife are drown'd? So |