The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D Volume I Part 21

[Footnote 1: Phaethon. Ovid, "Metam.," lib. ii.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: See the fable of Midas. Ovid, "Metam.," lib.

xi.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: Ecclesiastes, xi, I.]

[Footnote 4: Psalm cvii, 26, 27.]

[Footnote 5: Garraway's auction room and coffee-house, closed in 1866.--_W. E. B._]

FABULA CANIS ET UMBRAE

ORE cib.u.m portans catulus dum spectat in undis, Apparet liquido praedae melioris imago: Dum speciosa diu d.a.m.na admiratur, et alte Ad latices inhiat, cadit imo vortice praeceps Ore cibus, nee non simulacrum corripit una.

Occupat ille avidus deceptis faucibus umbram; Illudit species, ac dentibus aera mordet.

A PROLOGUE

BILLET TO A COMPANY OF PLAYERS SENT WITH THE PROLOGUE

The enclosed prologue is formed upon the story of the secretary's not allowing you to act, unless you would pay him 300 per annum; upon which you got a license from the Lord Mayor to act as strollers.

The prologue supposes, that upon your being forbidden to act, a company of country strollers came and hired the playhouse, and your clothes, etc. to act in.

Our set of strollers, wandering up and down, Hearing the house was empty, came to town; And, with a license from our good lord mayor, Went to one Griffith, formerly a player: Him we persuaded, with a moderate bribe, To speak to Elrington[1] and all the tribe, To let our company supply their places, And hire us out their scenes, and clothes, and faces.

Is not the truth the truth? Look full on me; I am not Elrington, nor Griffith he.

When we perform, look sharp among our crew, There's not a creature here you ever knew.

The former folks were servants to the king; We, humble strollers, always on the wing.

Now, for my part, I think, upon the whole, Rather than starve, a better man would stroll.

Stay! let me see--Three hundred pounds a-year, For leave to act in town!--'Tis plaguy dear.

Now, here's a warrant; gallants, please to mark, For three thirteens, and sixpence to the clerk.

Three hundred pounds! Were I the price to fix, The public should bestow the actors six; A score of guineas given underhand, For a good word or so, we understand.

To help an honest lad that's out of place, May cost a crown or so; a common case: And, in a crew, 'tis no injustice thought To ship a rogue, and pay him not a groat.

But, in the chronicles of former ages, Who ever heard of servants paying wages?

I pity Elrington with all my heart; Would he were here this night to act my part!

I told him what it was to be a stroller; How free we acted, and had no comptroller: In every town we wait on Mr. Mayor, First get a license, then produce our ware; We sound a trumpet, or we beat a drum: Huzza! (the schoolboys roar) the players are come; And then we cry, to spur the b.u.mpkins on, Gallants, by Tuesday next we must be gone.

I told him in the smoothest way I could, All this, and more, yet it would do no good.

But Elrington, tears falling from his cheeks, He that has shone with Betterton and Wilks,[2]

To whom our country has been always dear, Who chose to leave his dearest pledges here, Owns all your favours, here intends to stay, And, as a stroller, act in every play: And the whole crew this resolution takes, To live and die all strollers, for your sakes; Not frighted with an ignominious name, For your displeasure is their only shame.

A pox on Elrington's majestic tone!

Now to a word of business in our own.

Gallants, next Thursday night will be our last: Then without fail we pack up for Belfast.

Lose not your time, nor our diversion miss, The next we act shall be as good as this.

[Footnote 1: Thomas Elrington, born in 1688, an English actor of great reputation at Drury Lane from 1709 till 1712, when he was engaged by Joseph Ashbury, manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. After the death of Ashbury, whose daughter he had married, he succeeded to the management of the theatre, and enjoyed high social and artistic consideration. He died in July, 1732.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: Two celebrated actors: Betterton in tragedy, and Wilks in comedy. See "The Tatler," Nos. 71, 157, 167, 182, and notes, edit. 1786; Colley Cibber's "Apology "; and "Dictionary of National Biography."--_W. E. B._]

EPILOGUE[1]

TO MR. HOPPY'S BENEFIT-NIGHT, AT SMOCK-ALLEY

HOLD! hold, my good friends; for one moment, pray stop ye, I return ye my thanks, in the name of poor Hoppy.

He's not the first person who never did write, And yet has been fed by a benefit-night.

The custom is frequent, on my word I a.s.sure ye, In our famed elder house, of the Hundreds of Drury.

But then you must know, those players still act on Some very good reasons, for such benefaction.

A deceased poet's widow, if pretty, can't fail; From Cibber she holds, as a tenant in tail.

Your emerited actors, and actresses too, For what they have done (though no more they can do) And sitters, and songsters, and Chetwood and G----, And sometimes a poor sufferer in the South Sea; A machine-man, a tire-woman, a mute, and a spright, Have been all kept from starving by a benefit-night.

Thus, for Hoppy's bright merits, at length we have found That he must have of us ninety-nine and one pound, Paid to him clear money once every year: And however some think it a little too dear, Yet, for reasons of state, this sum we'll allow, Though we pay the good man with the sweat of our brow.

First, because by the King to us he was sent, To guide the whole session of this parliament.

To preside in our councils, both public and private, And so learn, by the by, what both houses do drive at.

When bold B---- roars, and meek M---- raves, When Ash prates by wholesale, or Be----h by halves, When Whigs become Whims, or join with the Tories; And to himself constant when a member no more is, But changes his sides, and votes and unvotes; As S----t is dull, and with S----d, who dotes; Then up must get Hoppy, and with voice very low, And with eloquent bow, the house he must show, That that worthy member who spoke last must give The freedom to him, humbly most, to conceive, That his sentiment on this affair isn't right; That he mightily wonders which way he came by't: That, for his part, G.o.d knows, he does such things disown; And so, having convinced him, he most humbly sits down.

For these, and more reasons, which perhaps you may hear, Pounds hundred this night, and one hundred this year, And so on we are forced, though we sweat out our blood, To make these walls pay for poor Hoppy's good; To supply with rare diet his pot and his spit; And with richest Margoux to wash down a t.i.t-bit.

To wash oft his fine linen, so clean and so neat, And to buy him much linen, to fence against sweat: All which he deserves; for although all the day He ofttimes is heavy, yet all night he's gay; And if he rise early to watch for the state, To keep up his spirits he'll sit up as late.

Thus, for these and more reasons, as before I did say Hop has got all the money for our acting this play, Which makes us poor actors look _je ne scai quoy_.

[Footnote 1: This piece, which relates, like the former, to the avaricious demands which the Irish Secretary of State made upon the company of players, is said, in the collection called "Gulliveriana," to have been composed by Swift, and delivered by him at Gaulstown House. But it is more likely to have been written by some other among the joyous guests of the Lord Chief Baron, since it does not exhibit Swift's accuracy of numbers.--_Scott_. Perhaps so, but the note to this piece in "Gulliveriana" is "Spoken by the _Captain_, one evening, at the end of a private farce, acted by gentlemen, for their own diversion at _Gallstown_"; the "Captain" being Swift, as the leader of the "joyous guests." This is very different from "composed."--_W. E. B._]

PROLOGUE[1]

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.

Provoked, in loud complaints to you they cry; Ladies, relieve the weavers; or they die!

Forsake your silks for stuff's; 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 inclined-- And what are they but maggots in the mind?

For which I think it reason to conclude, That clothes may change our temper like our food.

Chintzes are gawdy, and engage our eyes Too much about the party-colour'd dyes; Although the l.u.s.tre 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!