566 PORTRAIT-GALLERY OF OLD BACHELORS. 



dies he mentions, as having been tried at that distant day, and judge 

 if much has been added since : 



" Plantain they bruise, and parsley's odorous herb 

 The lenient lettuce, and the purslain wild. 

 These, bitter horehound, and the watery plant 

 That on the verdant banks of rivers grows, 

 These, nettles crush, and comfrey's viscid root ; 

 And pluck the lentils in the standing pools. 

 Some parsnips some the glossy leaves apply, 

 That shade the downy peach benumbing henbane 

 The poppy's soothing gum the emollient bulb, 

 Kind of the Punic apple flea-wort hot 

 The costly frankincense, and searching root 

 Of potent hellebore soft fenugreek 

 Temper'd with rosy wine 

 Nitre and spawn of frogs the cypress-cone, 

 And meal of bearded barley, and the leaf 

 Of colewort, unprepared, and ointment made 

 Of pickled garus and (O vain conceit !) 

 The dung of mountain-goats 

 The flower of beans, and hot sarcophagus 

 The poisonous red-toad some the shrew-mouse boil 

 The weasel some the frog, the lizard green, 

 The fell hyena, and the wily fox 

 And branching stone-buck, bearded like a goat. 

 What kind of metal has been left untried ? 

 What juice ? what weeping tree's medicinal tear ? 

 What beasts ? what animals have not bestow'd 

 Their bones, or nerves, or hides, or blood, or marrow, 

 Or milk, or fat? 



The draught of four ingredients some compose- 

 Some eight, but more from seven expect relief 

 Some from the purging hiera seek their cure, 

 On mystic verses vainly some depend ; 

 While to the cooling fountains others fly, 

 And in the crystal current seek for health." 



Here then is a catalogue surely long enough, and embracing every 

 remedy new and old, for we believe colchicum to be contained in it ; 

 and all declared null and void. If any among them doubt this 

 sweeping condemnation, let them begin at one end, and try every 

 recipe, and so satisfy themselves: if they are any better for them, 

 we shall be glad ; and if not, it is only so much labour lost. 



Let them therefore bear the load lightly and cheerfully, and con- 

 sider it as a proper drawback upon their felicity. 



" Cease then, ah ! cease, poor mortals, to repine 



At laws which nature wisely did ordain. 

 Pleasure, what is it? rightly to define, 



'Tis but a short-lived interval from pain ; 

 Or rather each, alternately renew'd, 

 Give to your lives a sweet vicissitude." 



