Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/271

Rh having altogether applied his studies that way, and travelled full many a league, by sea and land, for this his profound knowledge. With that view alone he has visited all the courts and cities in Europe, and has been at more pains than I shall speak of, to take an exact draught of the playhouse at the Hague, as a model for a new one here. But what can a private man do by himself in so publick an undertaking? It is not to be doubted but, by his care and industry, vast improvements may be made, not only in our playhouse (which is his immediate province), but in our gaming ordinaries, groom-porters, lotteries, bowling-greens, ninepin alleys, bear-gardens, cockpits, prizes, puppets and rareeshows, and whatever else concerns the elegant divertisements of this town. He is truly an original genius; and I felicitate this our capital city on his residence here, where I wish him long to live and flourish, for the good of the commonwealth.

Once more: if any farther applications shall be made on the other side, to obtain a charter for a bank here, I presume to make a request, that poetry may be a sharer in that privilege, being a fund as real, and to the full as well grounded, as our stocks; but I fear our neighbours, who envy our wit as much as they do our wealth or trade, will give no encouragement to either. I believe also, it might be proper to erect a corporation of poets in this city. I have been idle enough in my time, to make a computation of wits here; and do find we have three hundred performing poets and upward, in and about this town, reckoning six score to the hundred, and allowing for demies, like pint bottles; including also the several denominations of imitators, translators, and Rh