[Footnote 1: _Limbo_, any place of misery and restraint.
"For he no sooner was at large,
But Trulla straight brought on the charge,
And in the selfsame _Limbo_ put
The knight and squire where he was shut."
_Hudibras_, Part i, canto iii, 1,000.
Here abbreviated by Swift as a cant term for a pawn shop.--_W. E. B._]
THE PUPPET-SHOW
The life of man to represent,
And turn it all to ridicule,
Wit did a puppet-show invent,
Where the chief actor is a fool.
The gods of old were logs of wood,
And worship was to puppets paid;
In antic dress the idol stood,
And priest and people bow'd the head.
No wonder then, if art began
The simple votaries to frame,
To shape in timber foolish man,
And consecrate the block to fame.
From hence poetic fancy learn'd
That trees might rise from human forms;
The body to a trunk be turn'd,
And branches issue from the arms.
Thus Daedalus and Ovid too,
That man's a blockhead, have confest:
Powel and Stretch[1] the hint pursue;
Life is a farce, the world a jest.
The same great truth South Sea has proved
On that famed theatre, the alley;
Where thousands, by directors moved
Are now sad monuments of folly.
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