For these, and more reasons, which perhaps you may hear,
Pounds hundred this night, and one hundred this year,
And so on we are forced, though we sweat out our blood,
To make these walls pay for poor Hoppy's good;
To supply with rare diet his pot and his spit;
And with richest Margoux to wash down a tit-bit.
To wash oft his fine linen, so clean and so neat,
And to buy him much linen, to fence against sweat:
All which he deserves; for although all the day
He ofttimes is heavy, yet all night he's gay;
And if he rise early to watch for the state,
To keep up his spirits he'll sit up as late.
Thus, for these and more reasons, as before I did say
Hop has got all the money for our acting this play,
Which makes us poor actors look _je ne scai quoy_.
[Footnote 1: This piece, which relates, like the former, to the
avaricious demands which the Irish Secretary of State made upon the
company of players, is said, in the collection called "Gulliveriana," to
have been composed by Swift, and delivered by him at Gaulstown House. But
it is more likely to have been written by some other among the joyous
guests of the Lord Chief Baron, since it does not exhibit Swift's
accuracy of numbers.
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