Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/40

28 You see I won't stop, Till I come to a drop; But I doubt the oraculum Is a poor supernaculum; Tho' perhaps you may tell it For a grace, if we smell it.

STELLA.

MY LORD,

FIRST congratulate with you upon growing rich; for I hope our friend's information is true, Omne solum diti patria. Euripides makes the queen Jocasta ask her exiled son, how he got his victuals? But who ever expected to see you a trader or dealer in stocks? I thought to have seen you where you are, or perhaps nearer: but diis aliter visum. It may be with one's country as with a lady: if she be cruel and ill natured, and will not receive us, we ought to consider that we are better without her. But, in this case, we may add, she has neither virtue, honour, nor justice. I have gotten a metzotinto (for want of a better) of Aristippus, in my drawingroom: the motto at the top is, Omnis Aristippum, &c. and at the bottom, Tantâ fœdus cum gente ferire, commissum juveni. But, since what I heard of Mississippi, I am grown fonder of the former motto. You have heard that Plato followed merchandise three years, to show he knew how to grow rich, as well as to be a philosopher: and I guess, Plato was then about forty,