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Pounds more of their Ground than they got by it, tho' a little Labour and Art wou'd have done the Thing. When I look'd on my Airings on the wild Wastes of rich Lands unbuilt and untill'd, I sigh'd for the want of Houses and Tenements, of Welders and Plows; and when after ten Miles riding, I found some lame Attempts after such Things, I was still more vex'd to see our Cabbins, and what we call'd our Corn Grounds, no more resembling the Buildings and Tillage of _England_, than an Ape does a Man. I really don't expect that _Ireland_ will ever be properly improv'd, till the _Millennium_ makes the whole Earth a Paradise; and then after a long Struggle between Heaven and Nature, we may chance to come in for a share; tho' at present Heaven is so little minded here, as to Churches or Chapels, or national Piety, that I don't wonder to see the Land running into a Desart every Hour, fill'd with Beasts and a few Savages. PRIOR. I see, _Dean_, you have not forgot your old way of thinking and speaking. It is well there is no Pen and Ink, or Printing allow'd under Ground; or else we shou'd have old work below Stairs---- _Sub Terris tonnuisse putes----_ As the witty Classick expresses it. SWIFT. If there was, I wou'd raise a little Earthquake yet in this Kingdom. But I have not forgot, _Tom_, nor I cannot yet forgive your strange Rant of improving the very Climate in _Ireland_. If it was, I wou'd not curse it, as _Harry_ the Eighth's Fool did the fine Weather, for taking all the good Company abroad from him, but I shou'd rail at it and you for another Cause; for fear of bringing us better Company than I desire in _Ireland_. I must confess honestly, that our Winter begins very late, and hardly appears till about the End of _December_, and is gone before the beginning of _February_. But then it must be own'd, that we have but very little Spring, unless it be of Grass and Weeds; and that our Autumn lasts but very few Weeks, without any Harvest to gather in, but a little pittance of Corn and some half made Hay; and as for our Summers (as we call them) they come as it were by Chance, now and then one, when _Spain_ and _Italy_ have done with them. Nay, even then, we only get them, as Servants do their surfeited Masters broken Meals; half hot, half cold, in little Scraps and Morsels that do us no Good. In short, _Tom_, a Summer in _Ireland_ when it wanders thither, is of as little Service as fair Weather in _Greenland_, where not
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