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So, having had some quarters of school breeding,
They turn'd themselves like other folks, to reading;
And setting out where others nigh have done,
And being ripen'd in the seventh stage,
The childhood of old age,

Began, as other children have begun,—
Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,
Or Bard of Hope,

Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,-
But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,
And then relax'd themselves with Whittington,
Or Valentine and Orson-

But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,
And being easily melted in their dotage,
Slobber'd, and kept

Reading, and wept

Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage.

Thus reading on-the longer

They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim,— If talking Trees and Birds reveal'd to him,

She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly-waggons,

And magic fishes swim

In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons.-
Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons;
When as it fell upon a summer's day,

As the old man sat a-feeding
On the old babe-reading,

Beside his open street-and-parlour door,
A hideous roar

Proclaim'd a drove of beasts was coming by the way.

Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed,
Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels
Ör Durham feed;

With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils
From nether side of Tweed,
Or Firth of Forth;

Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,-
With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,-
When,-whether from a fly's malicious comment
Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank;
Or whether

Only in some enthusiastic moment,—
However, one brown monster, in a frisk,
Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk,
Kick'd out a passage through the beastly rabble;
And after a pas seul,-or, if you will, a
Hornpipe before the Basket-maker's villa,
Leapt o'er the tiny pale,-

Back'd his beef-steaks against the wooden gable,
And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail
Right o'er the page
Wherein the sage

Just then was spelling some romantic fable.

The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce,
Could not peruse,-who could?-two tales at once;
And being huff'd

At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft;
Bang'd-to the door,

But most unluckily enclosed a morsel
Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel :-
The monster gave a roar,

And bolting off with speed increased by pain,
The little house became a coach once more,
And, like Macheath, "took to the road" again!

Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree,
The ancient woman stooping with her crupper
Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should be,
Was getting up some household herbs for supper;
Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale,

And quaintly wondering if magic shifts
Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail,
To turn it to a coach;-what pretty gifts
Might come of cabbages, and curly kale;

Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail, Nor turn'd, till home had turned a corner, quite Gone out of sight!

At last, conceive her, rising from the ground,
Weary of sitting on her russet clothing,
And looking round

Where rest was to be found,

There was no house-no villa there—no nothing! No house!

The change was quite amazing;

It made her senses stagger for a minute,
The riddle's explication seem'd to harden;
But soon her superannuated nous

Explain'd the horrid mystery;-and raising
Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it,
On which she meant to sup,-

"Well! this is Fairy Work! I'll bet a farden, Little Prince Silverwings has ketch'd me up, And set me down in some one else's garden!"

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER.

A MAN, in many a country town, we know,
Professing openly with death to wrestle,
Ent'ring the field against the foe,

Arm'd with a mortar and a pestle.

Yet some affirm no enemies they are,
But meet, just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother;
So (many a suffering patient saith)
Though the apothecary fights with death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

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 chatter scandal by your bed,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,

And with " a twister."

His fame full six miles round the country ran

In short, in reputation, he was All the old women call'd him " a

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solus;" fine man."

His name was Bolus.
Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,
(Which often will the 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 to cure a phthisic!
Of poetry, though patron-god,

Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus lov'd verse, and took so much delight in't,
That his prescriptions he resolv'd 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?
'Tis 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 a 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 loudish rap,
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 lets him in with dismal face

Long as a courtier's out of place,

Portending some disaster;

John's countenance as rueful look'd and grim,
As if th' apothecary had physick'd 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. "Well, how?-what then-speak out, you dunce.' "Why then," says John, we shook him once." "Shook him!-how ?"-Bolus stammer'd out

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"We jolted him about.”

"What? shake a patient, man—a shake won't do." "No, sir-and so we gave him two."

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