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A member of the Esculapian line,
Lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne;
No man could better gild a pill ;

Or make a bill;

Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister;
Or draw a tooth out of your head;
Or chatter scandal by your bed;

Or spread a plaster.

His fame full six miles round the country ran,

In short, in reputation he was solus !

All the old women called him

His name was Bolus.

66 a fine man!"

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade
(Which oftentimes will genius fetter),
Read works of fancy, it is said,

And cultivated the Belles Lettres.

And why should this be thought so odd?

Can't men have taste who cure a phthysic? Of poetry though patron god,

Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in't, That his prescriptions he resolved to write in't. No opportunity he e'er let pass

Of writing the directions on his labels, In dapper couplets, like Gay's Fables; Or rather like the lines in Hudibras.

Apothecary's verse!—and where's the treason?
'T is simply honest dealing;—not a crime;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

He had a patient lying at Death's door,

Some three miles from the town-it might be four;
To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article,
In pharmacy, that's called cathartical.

And on the label of the stuff

He wrote this verse;

Which one would think was clear enough

And terse,

"When taken,

"To be well shaken."

Next morning, early, Bolus rose;

And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,

Who a vile trick of stumbling had :
It was indeed a very sorry hack :
But that's of course:

For what's expected from a horse
With an apothecary on his back?

Bolus arrived, and gave a double tap,
Between a single and a double rap.

Knocks of this kind

Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance;
By fiddlers, and by opera-singers;

One loud, and then a little one behind,
As if the knocker fell by chance
Out of their fingers.

The servant let him in, with dismal face,
Long as a courtier's out of place—

Portending some disaster ;

John's countenance as rueful looked, and grim,
As if the Apothecary had physicked him,
And not his master.

"Well, how's the patient?" Bolus said: John shook his head.

"Indeed?-hum !-ha!- that's very odd;

"He took the draught? "—John gave a nod.

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Well-how?-What then?-Speak out, you dunce!" Why then," says John, we shook him once."

66

Shook him!-how?" Bolus stammered out:

"We jolted him about."

"Zounds!—shake a patient, man—a skake wont do." No, sir and so we gave him two."

66

66

66

"Two shakes!-odds curse!

""T would make the patient worse."

It did so, sir-and so a third we tried."

Well, and what then?"-" Then, sir, my master

died."

COLMAN.

MISCHIEF-MAKERS.

OH! could there in this world be found
Some little spot of happy ground,
Where village pleasures might go round
Without the village tattling !

How doubly blest that place would be,
Where all might dwell in liberty,
Free from the bitter misery

Of gossips' endless prattling.

If such a spot were really known,
Dame Peace might claim it as her own;
And in it she might fix her throne,

For ever and for ever:

There, like a queen, might reign and live,
While every one would soon forgive
The little slights they might receive,
And be offended never.

"Tis mischief-makers that remove Far from our hearts the warmth of love, And lead us all to disapprove

What gives another pleasure.

They seem to take one's part-but when They've heard our cares, unkindly then They soon retail them all again,

Mix'd with their poisonous measure.

And then they've such a cunning way,
Of telling ill-meant tales: they say
"Don't mention what I've said, I pray;

I would not tell another;

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Straight to your neighbour's house they go,
Narrating everything they know ;

And break the peace of high and low,
Wife,-husband,-friend,-and brother.

Oh! that the mischief-making crew,
Were all reduced to one or two,

And they were painted red or blue,

That every one might known them!

Then would our villagers forget

To rage and quarrel, fume and fret,

And fall into an angry pet,

With things so much below them.

For 'tis a sad degrading part
To make another's bosom smart,

And plant a dagger in the heart

We ought to love and cherish!

Then let us evermore be found

In quietness with all around,

While friendship, joy, and peace abound,-
And angry feelings perish!

F. C. G.

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