TO DR. SCARBOROUGH.

I.

How long, alas! has our mad nation been
Of epidemick war the tragick scene,
When Slaughter all the while

Seem'd, like its sea, embracing round the ifle,
With tempefts and red waves, noife and affright? 5
Albion no more, nor to be nam'd from White!
What province or what city did it spare ?
It, like a plague, infected all the air.

Sure the unpeopled land

Would now untill'd, defert, and naked stand,

Had God's almighty hand

At the fame time let loose Disease's rage,
Their Civil wars in man to wage:

But thou by Heav'n wert fent

This defolation to prevent,

A med'cine and a counter-poifon to the age;

Scarce could the fword dispatch more to the grave

Than thou didst save;

By wondrous art, and by fuccessful care,

ΤΟ

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The ruins of a Civil war thou doft alone repair. 20

II.

The inundations of all liquid Pain,
And deluge Dropfy thou doft drain:
Fevers fo hot, that one would fay
Thou might't as foon hell-fires allay,
Volume II.

S

(The damn'd fcarce more incurable than they) 25 Thou doft fo temper, that we find, Like gold, the body but refin'd,

No unhealthful drofs behind:

The fubtle Ague, that, for fureness' fake,
Takes its own times th' affault to make,

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And at each battery the whole fort does shake,

When thy strong guards and works it spies,
Trembles for itself, and flies.

The cruel Stone, that reftlefs pain,

That's fometimes roll'd away in vain,

But ftill, like Sifyphus his ftone, returns again, Thou break'ft and melteft by learned juices' force, (A greater work, tho' short the way appear, 'Than Hannibal's by vinegar)

Oppreffed Nature's neceffary courfe

It flops in vain, like Mofes, thou

Strik'st but the rock, and straight the waters flow.

The Indian fon of Luft, (that foul disease

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Which did on this his new-found world but lately

Yet fince a tyranny has planted here,

[feize,

As wide and cruel as the Spaniard there)

Is fo quite rooted out by thee,

That thy patients feem to be

Reftor'd, not to health only, but virginity.
The Plague itfelf, that proud imperial ill,

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Which deftroys towns, and does whole armies kill,

If thou but fuccour the befieged heart,

Calls all its poifons forth, and does depart,
As if it fear'd no less thy art

Than Aaron's incense, or than Phineas' dart.

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What need there here repeated be by me

The vaft and barbarous lexicon

Of man's infirmity?

At thy ftrong charms it must be

gone,

Tho' a disease, as well as devil, were called Legion.

IV.

From creeping mofs to foaring cedar thou

Doft all the pow'rs and feveral portions know,
Which father-Sun and mother-Earth below

On their green infants here bestow,

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Can'st all those magick virtues from them draw, 65 That keep Difeafe and Death in awe;

Who, whilst thy wondrous skill in plants they see, Fear left the tree of Life should be found out by thee: And, thy well-travell'd knowledge, too, does give No lefs account of th' empire sensitive,

Chiefly of man, whose body is

That active foul's metropolis.

As the great artist, in his sphere of glass,

Saw the whole fcene of heav'nly motions pass,

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So thou know'ft all fo well that 's done within, 75 As if fome living cryftal man thou 'dft feen.

V.

Nor does this fcience make thy crown alone,
But whole Apollo is thine own:

His gentler arts, belov'd in vain by me,
Are wedded and enjoy'd by thee.
Thou 'rt by this noble mixture free
From the phyficians' frequent malady,
Fantaftick incivility:

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There are who all their patients' chagrin have, 84 As if they took each morn worfe potions than they And this great race of learning thou hast run, [gave: Ere that of life be half yet done:

Thou fee'ft thyfelf fill fresh and strong,

And like t enjoy the conquefts long.

The firft fam'd aphorifm thy great master spoke, 99 Did he live now he would revoke,

And better things of man report;

For thou doft make life long, and art but short.

VI.

Ah! learned Friend! it grieves me when I think

That thou, with all thy art, muft die

As certainly as I;

And all thy noble reparations fink

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Into the fure-wrought mine of treach'rous mortality. Like Archimedes, honourably in vain,

Thou holdit out towns that must at last be ta'en, ICO

And thou thyfelf, their great defender, flain.
Let's c'en compound, and for the prefent live,
'Tis all the ready money Fate can give;
Unbend fometimes thy reflefs care,

And let thy friends so happy be
T' enjoy at once their health and thee:

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Some hours at least to thine own pleasures spare;
Since the whole stock may soon exhausted be,
Bestow it not all in charity.

Let Nature and let Art do what they please,
When all is done, life 's an incurable difeafe.

LIFE AND FAME,.

I.

OH, Life! thou Nothing's younger brother!
So like, that one might take one for the other!
What's Somebody, or Nobody?

In all the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade,
We no fuch nice diftinction woven fee

As 't is To be, or Not to be.

Dream of a fhadow! a reflection made

From the falfe glories of the gay-reflected bow

Is a more folid thing than thou.

III

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Vain, weak-built ifthmus, which doft proudly rife ro Up betwixt two eternities,

Yet canft not wave nor wind fuftain,

[again.

But, broken and o'erwhelm'd, the endless oceans meet

II.

And with what rare inventions do we strive

Ourselves then to furvive?

Wife fubtle arts, and such as well befit

That nothing, man's no wit;

Some with vaft coftly tombs would purchase it,
And by the proofs of death pretend to live.

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