But at his house the hungry's fed, Among the king's great ministers, The change was great; for frugally And by some well-hired clerk be made All places managed first by three, By which some thousands more are gone. Vain cost is shunned as much as fraud; They have no forces kept abroad; And empty glory got by wars; They fight, but for their country's sake, Now mind the glorious hive, and see The price of lands and houses falls; Well-seated household gods would be More pleased t' expire in flames, than see No limner for his art is famed, Those that remain, grown temp'rate, strive, 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 The haughty Chloe, to live great, 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, Are gone. Still peace and plenty reign, As pride and luxury decrease, Makes them admire their homely store, So few in the vast hive remain, The hundredth part they can't maintain Against th' insults of num'rous foes, At last were crowned with victory. 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, 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. 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 |