But at his house the hungry's fed,
The hireling finds unmeasured bread,
The needy trav'ler board and bed.

Among the king's great ministers,
And all th' inferior officers,

The change was great; for frugally
They now lived on their salary:
That a poor bee should ten times come
To ask his due, a trifling sum,

And by some well-hired clerk be made
To give a crown, or ne'er be paid,
Would now be called a downright cheat,
Though formerly a perquisite.

All places managed first by three,
Who watched each other's knavery,
And often for a fellow-feeling
Promoted one another's stealing,
Are happily supplied by one,

By which some thousands more are gone.
No honor now could be content,
To live and owe for what was spent;
Liv'ries in brokers' shops are hung,
They part with coaches for a song;
Sell stately horses by whole sets;
And country-houses, to pay debts.

Vain cost is shunned as much as fraud;

They have no forces kept abroad;
Laugh at th' esteem of foreigners,

And empty glory got by wars;

They fight, but for their country's sake,
When right or liberty's at stake.

Now mind the glorious hive, and see
How honesty and trade agree.
The show is gone, it thins apace;
And looks with quite another face:
For 'twas not only that they went,
By whom vast sums were yearly spent,
But multitudes that lived on them,
Were daily forced to do the same.
In vain to other trades they'd fly;
All were o'erstocked accordingly.

The price of lands and houses falls;
Mirac'lous palaces, whose walls,
Like those of Thebes, were raised by play,
Are to be let; whilst the once gay,

Well-seated household gods would be

More pleased t' expire in flames, than see
The mean inscription on the door
Smile at the lofty ones they bore.
The building trade is quite destroyed,
Artificers are not employed;

No limner for his art is famed,
Stone-cutters, carvers, are not named.

Those that remain, grown temp'rate, strive,
Not how to spend, but how to live;
And when they paid their tavern score,
Resolved to enter it no more.

No vintner's jilt in all the hive

Could wear now cloth of gold, and thrive;

Nor Torcol such vast sums advance

For Burgundy and ortolans.

The courtier's gone, that with his miss
Supped at his house on Christmas peas;
Spending as much in two hours' stay,
As keeps a troop of horse a day.

The haughty Chloe, to live great,
Had made her husband rob the state:
But now she sells her furniture,

Which th' Indies had been ransacked for;

Contracts th' expensive bill of fare,

And wears her strong suit a whole year:

The slight and fickle age is past,
And clothes, as well as fashions, last.
Weavers, that joined rich silk with plate,
And all the trades subordinate,

Are gone. Still peace and plenty reign,
And ev'rything is cheap, though plain:
Kind Nature, free from gard'ners' force,
Allows all fruits in her own course;
But rarities cannot be had,
Where pains to get 'em are not paid.

As pride and luxury decrease,
So by degrees they leave the seas.
Not merchants now, but companies
Remove whole manufactories.
All arts and crafts neglected lie;
Content, the bane of industry,

Makes them admire their homely store,
And neither seek nor covet more.

So few in the vast hive remain,

The hundredth part they can't maintain

Against th' insults of num'rous foes,
Whom yet they valiantly oppose;
'Til some well-fenced retreat is found,
And here they die, or stand their ground.
No hireling in their army's known;
But bravely fighting for their own,
Their courage and integrity

At last were crowned with victory.
They triumphed not without their cost,
For many thousand bees were lost.
Hardened with toils and exercise,
They counted ease itself a vice;
Which so improved their temperance,
That, to avoid extravagance,

They flew into a hollow tree,

Blest with content and honesty.

THE MORAL.

Then leave complaints: fools only strive

To make a great an honest hive.

T' enjoy the world's conveniencies,
Be famed in war, yet live in ease,
Without great vices, is a vain
UTOPIA, seated in the brain.
Fraud, luxury, and pride, must live,
Whilst we the benefits receive.
Hunger's a dreadful plague, no doubt,
Yet who digests or thrives without?
Do we not owe the growth of wine
To the dry, shabby, crooked vine?
Which, whilst its shoots neglected stood,
Choked other plants, and ran to wood;

But blest us with its noble fruit,

As soon as it was tied and cut:

So vice is beneficial found,

When 'tis by justice lopped and bound; Nay, where the people would be great, As necessary to the state

As hunger is to make 'em eat.

Bare virtue can't make nations live

In splendor; they that would revive

A golden age, must be as free

For acorns as for honesty.

THE FAMILY OF SULLEN.

(From "The Beaux' Stratagem.")

BY GEORGE FARQUHAR.

[GEORGE FARQUHAR, one of the four great comic dramatists of the Restoration, was a clergyman's son, born in Londonderry, Ireland, in 1678; attended Trinity College, Dublin, as a "poor scholar," but left in disgust at the humiliations, and became an actor in Dublin; nearly killing a fellow-actor by accident, left the stage, and became by favor a lieutenant in the army; at twenty wrote "Love and a Bottle," whose remarkable success turned him into a playwright for good. He next produced "The Constant Couple" (1700); its sequel, “Sir Harry Wildair" (1701); a volume of poems, letters, and an essay on Comedy (1702); "The Inconstant" (1703); "The Stage Coach" (with Motteux; an adaptation: 1704); "The Twin Rivals" (1705); "The Recruiting Officer " (1706); "The Beaux' Stratagem" (the last two his masterpieces), written when dying in 1707, at twenty-nine. He was a shy man, free only with his pen ; and was entrapped, to his disaster, into a penniless marriage in 1703.]

SCENE: A Gallery in LADY BOUNTIFUL'S House. Enter MRS. SULLEN and DORINDA, meeting.

Dorinda-Morrow, my dear sister are you for church this

morning?

Mrs. Sullen Anywhere to pray; for Heaven alone can help me. But I think, Dorinda, there's no form of prayer in the liturgy against bad husbands.

Dorinda- But there's a form of law in Doctors Commons: and I swear, sister Sullen, rather than see you thus continually discontented, I would advise you to apply to that: for besides the part that I bear in your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband and friend to the wife, your example gives me such an impression of matrimony that I shall be apt to condemn my person to a long vacation all its life. But supposing, madam, that you brought it to a case of separation, what can you urge against your husband? My brother is, first, the most constant man alive.

Mrs. Sullen-The most constant husband, I grant ye.
Dorinda He never sleeps from you.

Mrs. Sullen-No, he always sleeps with me.

Dorinda He allows you a maintenance suitable to your quality.

Mrs. Sullen- A maintenance! do you take me, madam, for an hospital child, that I must sit down and bless my benefactors

for meat, drink, and clothes? As I take it, madam, I brought your brother ten thousand pounds, out of which I might expect some pretty things, called pleasures.

Dorinda - You share in all the pleasures that the country affords.

Mrs. Sullen-Country pleasures! Country pleasures! racks and torments! Dost think, child, that my limbs were made for leaping of ditches, and clambering over stiles? or that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed me in rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale, playing at whisk [now whist], and smoking tobacco, with my husband? or of spreading plasters, brewing of diet-drinks, and stilling rosemary-water, with the good old gentlewoman my mother-in-law?

Dorinda- I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined. But pray, madam, how came the poets and philosophers, that labored so much in hunting after pleasure, to place it at last in a country life?

Mrs. Sullen-Because they wanted money, child, to find out the pleasures of the town. Did you ever see a poet or philosopher worth ten thousand pounds? if you can show me such a man, I'll lay you fifty pound you'll find him somewhere within the weekly bills. Not that I disapprove rural pleasures, as the poets have painted them: in their landscape, every Phillis has her Corydon, every murmuring stream and every flowery mead gives fresh alarms to love. Besides, you'll find that their couples were never married; but yonder I see my Corydon, and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows! Come, Dorinda, don't be angry he's my husband and your brother, and between both, is he not a sad brute?

Dorinda-I have nothing to say to your part of him: you're the best judge.

Mrs. Sullen-O sister, sister! if ever you marry, beware of a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but never thinks. There's some diversion in a talking blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little. Now you shall see, but take this by the way he came home this morning at his usual hour of four, wakened me out of a sweet dream of something else by tumbling over the tea-table, which he broke all to pieces; after his