Or to that “Duke of Limbs" so super-
-Eminent-aye, Sir Ashley Cooper!
Or him who wrote, so I've heard tell,
A Book which merits great abhorrence,
He cuts one up extremely well,
And, I believe, his name is Lawrence!
Or that most soft and unalarming
Surgeon, the ladies think so charming-
Who, (pray to God he leave no pupils!)
Black-brows his patients into blue pills!
Who, if your temple or your thumb ache,
Vents all his wrath upon your stomach !*
Who, like a Garrick or a Kemble,
Awes your whole frame into a tremble;
And, having steeped you in submission,
Next starves you-into plump condition !+
No! none of these he is, and yet
He's just as clever, for a bet :
* Qui stomachum regem totius corporis esse
Contendunt, vera niti ratione videntur.
Q. SERENI SAMONICI DE MEDECINA, &c. If it be true that the stomach is the king of the body, what a difference in the physical empire and the political. In the former, if any of the subjects are out of order," the king" is made the first to suffer for it; -in the latter, if the king be worse than he should be, it is the subjects alas! who are physicked!
Every one knows how Mr. Abernethy, in his "Book," recommends the meagre to pursue famine, in order to arrive at fat.
In short, whatever him you term, he's
An honour to the sons of Hermes!
And Mary, with an anxious brow,
And earnest accent, tells him how
Her heart had sunk, when she had seen
With such a strange and haggard mien,
After so long a time had past,
The weary Twins return at last.
She told how (his desire obeyed)
The opium draught had been convey'd
Unseen, into the wine-cup's draught---
And, how unsparingly they quafft.
She told him, how with fairy foot,
Unto their chamber's threshold creeping,
She'd listened, and when all was mute,
Had glided in, and mark'd them sleeping.
She spoke, and wiped the soft eyes, glistening
With tears, where doubt, and fear intruded.
Stiff in his chair the doctor listening,
Was very glad when she'd concluded.
And now he rose: "Tis vastly well, ma'am,
"The College ought you to prefer to me:
"I'll just step out--nay! but to tell, maʼam,
"My young men some things that occur to me.”
"Stay, stay---their life, you're sure? Nay, more, "Their sufferings ?---"
“Trust to my sagacity,”
He said, and smiled, and shut the door---
Your doctors can't endure loquacity!
Well, Reader! now the veil is lifted!
And Mary's plot, I fear, is sifted.
I fear you see how to relieve
The brothers from a thrall of late,
Which seemed so dark and loathed a fate,
One only course she could perceive.
But in that strange imperiled course,
What fear, and, haply, what remorse !
What hazard in the bold endeavour,
Those bonds which birth had knit, to sever!
To break the seal so dreadly set
Upon their common doom!-to unbind
The claims which, tho' unnatural, yet
Nature herself had round them twined!
Peril there was, and dread!--yet still
The gain seemed weightier than the ill ;
And the chill memory of that hour,
When one against the other raised
His guilty hand, had still the power
To' appal her spirit; and to sink ·
Doubt in the deepness of a feeling,
That Fate had stifled Choice :---she gazed
On the dark, sullen, unrevealing
Abyss of doom,--and on the brink,
If her soft spirit paused to shrink,
She still thought Fate left no retreating,
And conscience lulled the weak heart's beating. And now the leach hath with his mates
Softly the chamber entered ;---Without the anxious Maiden waits--All's still!--Eternity devours,
Silent, and dark, his offspring Hours--The Hours within whose hearts we see
Life, moving in its mystery, centered!
Those separate drops in Time's great sea,
In which we Animalcules leap
To life, from Matter's working sleep;
And, after that brief span of strife,
In which we play the fool with life;
Not by one millionth of the mass
In the same globule seen-or seeing;
In which to death what millions pass!
Their death-the ripeness of new being!
Oh! dark, yet not all starless doom,
The blessing twin-born with the curse!
That frameth one eternal Tomb
From the all-teeming universe!
Yet, from the reeking jaws of Death,
Calleth again the unquenching breath,
Making an Universal Soul,
For green Decay but to absorb it,
And Life's rejoicing Circle roll
For ever, thro' Corruption's orbit!
Who hath not some time past the hours
In that suspense, o'erwrought, unresting, When one loved dearly, with the Powers
Of Death's dark angel lies contesting?
How awfully the moments roll
To-what unknown and shadowy goal!
While he perchance unconscious sleeps
For whom thy spirit's bitterest trial-
How the Clock's solemn chiming keeps
Dread note upon
the heart's cold dial!
As scarce you catch the languid moan
That marks the progress of the strife,
How agonizing seems your own
Intensity and stir of life!
How idle all the arts and powers,
The boasted fruit of learned hours!
Nought there to save-nay, more, to ease, One pang, one shiver, of disease!
To gather on the black abyss
Balm for thy heart, or strength for his; Or with thy worst foe, Thought, to cope, Save that poor Impotence-called Hope! Say--who is fated not to be
A watcher on that bridge of gloom,
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