O thou, whose penetrative wisdom found
The South-Sea rocks and shelves, where thousands drown'd,
When credit sunk, and commerce gasping lay,
Thou stood'st; nor sent one bill unpaid away.
When not a guinea chink'd on Martin's boards,
And Atwill's self was drain'd of all his hoards,
Thou stood'st (an Indian king in size and hue)
Thy unexhausted shop was our Peru.

Why did 'Change-Alley waste thy precious hours,
Among the fools who gaped for golden showers?
No wonder if we found some poets there,
Who live on fancy, and can feed on air;
No wonder they were caught by South-Sea schemes
Who ne'er enjoy'd a guinea but in dreams;
No wonder they their third subscription sold,
For millions of imaginary gold:
No wonder that their fancies wild can frame }
Strange reasons, that a thing is still the same, }
Tho' changed throughout in substance and in name. }
But you (whose judgment scorns poetic flights)
With contracts furnish boys for paper kites.

One of the immediate results of the disaster was Gay's inability to
fulfil his obligations to one of the publishers of his "Poems on Several
Occasions":--


JOHN GAY TO JACOB TONSON.