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.

Oh! may some western tempest sweep
These locusts whom our fruits have fed,
That plague, directors, to the deep,
Driven 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 drown.

The nation then too late will find,
Computing all their cost and trouble,
Directors' promises but wind,
South Sea, at best, a mighty bubble.

[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 cibum portans catulus dum spectat in undis,
Apparet liquido praedae melioris imago:
Dum speciosa diu damna 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 L300 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