Poverty:—You’ll not have a bed to lie down on—no goods of the sort will be seen!
Not a carpet to tread on—for who, pray, will weave one, when well stock’d his coffers have been?
Farewell to your essences, perfumes, pastilles! When you lead to the altar your bride
Farewell to your roseate veil’s drooping folds, the bright hues of its glittering pride!
Yet forsooth “to be rich”—say what is it, without all these gew-gaws to swell the detail?
Now with me, every item that wish can suggest springs abundant and never can fail;
For who, but myself, urges on to his toil, like a mistress, and drives the mechanic?
If he flags, I but show him my face at the door, and he hies to his work in a panic!
Chremylus:—Pshaw! What good can you bring but sores, blisters and blains, on the wretch as he shivering goes
From the baths’ genial clime driv’n forth to the cold, at the certain expense of his toes?