Pounds more of their Ground than they got by it,
tho' a little Labour and Art wou'd have done the Thing. When I look'd
on my Airings on the wild Wastes of rich Lands unbuilt and untill'd, I
sigh'd for the want of Houses and Tenements, of Welders and Plows; and
when after ten Miles riding, I found some lame Attempts after such
Things, I was still more vex'd to see our Cabbins, and what we call'd
our Corn Grounds, no more resembling the Buildings and Tillage of
_England_, than an Ape does a Man. I really don't expect that _Ireland_
will ever be properly improv'd, till the _Millennium_ makes the whole
Earth a Paradise; and then after a long Struggle between Heaven and
Nature, we may chance to come in for a share; tho' at present Heaven is
so little minded here, as to Churches or Chapels, or national Piety,
that I don't wonder to see the Land running into a Desart every Hour,
fill'd with Beasts and a few Savages.

PRIOR. I see, _Dean_, you have not forgot your old way of thinking and
speaking. It is well there is no Pen and Ink, or Printing allow'd under
Ground; or else we shou'd have old work below Stairs----

_Sub Terris tonnuisse putes----_

As the witty Classick expresses it.

SWIFT. If there was, I wou'd raise a little Earthquake yet in this
Kingdom. But I have not forgot, _Tom_, nor I cannot yet forgive your
strange Rant of improving the very Climate in _Ireland_. If it was, I
wou'd not curse it, as _Harry_ the Eighth's Fool did the fine Weather,
for taking all the good Company abroad from him, but I shou'd rail at
it and you for another Cause; for fear of bringing us better Company
than I desire in _Ireland_. I must confess honestly, that our Winter
begins very late, and hardly appears till about the End of _December_,
and is gone before the beginning of _February_. But then it must be
own'd, that we have but very little Spring, unless it be of Grass and
Weeds; and that our Autumn lasts but very few Weeks, without any
Harvest to gather in, but a little pittance of Corn and some half made
Hay; and as for our Summers (as we call them) they come as it were by
Chance, now and then one, when _Spain_ and _Italy_ have done with them.
Nay, even then, we only get them, as Servants do their surfeited
Masters broken Meals; half hot, half cold, in little Scraps and Morsels
that do us no Good. In short, _Tom_, a Summer in _Ireland_ when it
wanders thither, is of as little Service as fair Weather in
_Greenland_, where not