There in full opulence a banker dwelt,
Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt:
His sideboard glitter'd with imagin'd plate,
And his proud fancy held a vast estate.
As on a time he pass'd the vacant hours
In raising piles of straw and twisted bow'rs,
A poet enter'd, of the neighbouring cell,
And with fix'd eye observ'd the structure well:
A sharpen'd skew'r 'cross his bare shoulders bound
A tatter'd rug, which dragg'd upon the ground.
The banker cried, "Behold my castle walls,
My statues, gardens, fountains, and canals,
With land of more than twenty acres round!
All these I sell thee for ten thousand pound."
The bard with wonder the cheap purchase saw,
So sign'd the contract (as ordains the law).
The banker's brain was cool'd: the mist grew clear;
The visionary scene was lost in air.
He now the vanish'd prospect understood,
And fear'd the fancied bargain was not good:
Yet loth the sum entire should be destroy'd,
"Give me a penny, and thy contract's void."
The startled bard with eye indignant frown'd;
"Shall I, ye gods," he cries, "my debts compound!"
So saying, from his rug the skew'r he takes,
And on the stick ten equal notches makes;
With just resentment flings it on the ground;
"There, take my tally of ten thousand pound[1]."
- ↑ Charles II, having borrowed a considerable sum, gave tallies, as a security for the repayment; but, soon after shutting up the Exchequer, these tallies were as much reduced from their original value, as the South Sea had exceeded it.
