Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/211

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PROLOGUE.
199

For which I think it reason to conclude
That clothes may change our temper like our food.
Chintses are gawdy, and engage our eyes
Too much about the partycolour'd dyes:
Although the lustre 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!
Should our fair ladies dress like her in wool,
How much more lovely, and how beautiful,
Without their Indian drapery, they'd prove!
While wool would help to warm us into love!
Then, like the famous Argonauts of Greece,
We'd all contend to gain the Golden Fleece!





EPILOGUE, BY THE DEAN.


SPOKEN BY MR. GRIFFITH.


WHO dares affirm this is no pious age,
When charity begins to tread the stage?
When actors, who, at best, are hardly savers,
Will give a night of benefit to weavers?
Stay — let me see, how finely will it sound!
Imprimis, From his grace[1] a hundred pound.
Peers, clergy, gentry, all are benefactors;
And then comes in the item of the actors.
Item, The actors freely give a day —
The poet had no more who made the play

O 4
But