ng of many thousand Pounds every
Year to _Ireland_.

SWIFT. Here is a fine Bundle of Hopes for a Man in Despair to live
comfortably on! But pray now _Tom_, have you done reckoning up all your
mighty Projects to make _Ireland_ another _Utopia_? I am almost at the
End of my Patience, for to say Truth, _Tom_, the List of the Ships in
_Homer_'s Iliad is not more tedious.

PRIOR. Why, Mr. _Dean_, to teize you as little as I can, I will drop a
Number of others, and only touch cursorily on the Advancement of our
Silk Manufactures of every Kind, as well as our Tapestry. I would have
encouraged our Salt-works, and our Ship-building, and I would have set
on Foot a Society, to have set up and directed our Fisheries both in
the North and South Coasts of this Island. If I durst take in smaller
Matters, I would have set up an experimental Farm and Garden, and in
Time allowed a Salary for a Professor in Agriculture, which _Columella_
you know so much laments the Want of, and I would have given an yearly
Praemium of 100 _l._ for the best annual Invention in Arts and
Husbandry, as much for the best Book yearly in any of the Sciences, and
the same for the best _English_ Poem; as Nations are apt to judge of
each other's Genius and Talents (I will not say how justly) by the
Performances they produce this Way. Nay, Mr. _Dean_, I would have
advis'd a Praemium of at least 100 _l._ annually, to be given by the
Society for the best Picture, and also, as much for the best Piece of
Sculpture, or Statue; as these two Arts have ever been consider'd as
the chief Marks and Characteristics of a polite and sensible Nation,
and have always flourish'd where ever Arts or Learning have been
encouraged. I had Thoughts of stopping the vast drain of our People to
_America_, by hiring Ships which trade thither, to bring back every
_Irishman gratis_, who disliked the Country, and would rail at it when
he got Home. Nay, I had even Thoughts of printing a Collection in
Folio, of all the best _Irish_ Pamphlets, or at least, of all the best
Hints in them, relating to the Service of our Country. I would have
done my utmost to have gotten the best and noblest Members of the
Society (as great and good Men communicate Virtue to their Friends as
the Loadstone invigorates the Needle it touches) to have petitioned the
Parliament for sumptuary Laws, for Hospitals in every County Town, for
establishing a national Bank, for illuminating our Coasts, with
Light-houses as care