ou'd quench the
Conflagration, if the _Pyrenees_ with all their Forests were on Fire,
as we Read they once were. All the _Dublin_ Society did, was to shew
what we wanted, and to set an Example, of what might be done, to help
our dreadful Ailments: But you might as well expect to work Miracles,
and to feed Thousands, like our Saviour, with a few Loaves, as to
retrieve a Nation, by throwing a few Widow's Mites into the Treasury.
It is true, Nations, with their many Hands, make light Work; but where
can the Power be found, to animate and employ Millions, but in the
Omnipotence of him who made them, or the force and weight of Monarchs,
(the Representatives of Heaven) who Rule and Govern them. All you and
your Society cou'd do, was to shew you understood the miserable
Condition of _Ireland_, and to manifest your sincere desire to assist
with some Care and Judgment in the Cure; but you cou'd as well remove
Mountains by your Faith, as the Ills we groaned under, by so adequate a
Remedy, as your impoverish'd stinted Fund.

PRIOR. Why you will make me lose all Patience, Mr. _Dean_! Do you think
because I have laid aside Flesh and Blood, that I can bear any Thing?
Did not I lay before you, a long delightful Account, of almost infinite
Services which the Society did _Ireland_, in improving old
Manufactures, or introducing new Ones; in advancing our Husbandry, in
encouraging every Art and every Branch of Industry? As I am now a truly
rational thinking Creature, I wou'd not willingly lose my Temper, but I
solemnly declare, that the Rules the Society prescrib'd, and the
Labours they set on Foot, the Fields which they sow'd or they planted,
the Houses they got Built, the Rivers they bank'd in, the Bogs which
they drain'd, the Marshes they laid dry, and the Lands they gain'd from
the Ocean, have alter'd the very Nature and Face of the Country, and
chang'd even the Air and the Climate for the better!

SWIFT. Stuff, Nonsense, Madness! One wou'd think you were alive still,
_Tom_, by your furious flourishing on Nothing, or Trifles next to
nothing. The Nature and Face of the Country alter'd, and even the Air
and the Climate chang'd for the better! Have you a Mind to talk my
Reason away, or make a Jest of my zeal for Truth? This is the old way
of prating and vaunting in _Ireland_, that used to make me, and every
Friend to it sick of such unmeaning Declamations. We are such Fools as
ever to be bragging of our Soil and our Linens, our Wealth a