Then the good nurse, (who, had she borne a brain, Had sought the cause that made her babe complain,) Has all her efforts, loving soul! applied

To set the cry, and not the cause, aside;

She gave her powerful sweet without remorse,
The sleeping cordial she had tried its force,

Repeating oft: the infant, freed from pain,
Rejected food, but took the dose again,
Sinking to sleep; while she her joy express'd,
That her dear charge could sweetly take his rest :

Soon may she spare her cordial; not a doubt

Remains, but quickly he will rest without.

This moves our grief and pity, and we sigh
To think what numbers from these causes die;
But what contempt and anger should we show,
Did we the lives of these impostors know!

Ere for the world's I left the cares of school,
One I remember who assumed the fool;
A part well suited—when the idler boys

Would shout around him, and he loved the noise;
They called him Neddy; — Neddy had the art

To play with skill his ignominious part;
When he his trifles would for sale display,
And act the mimic for a school boy's pay.
For many years he plied his humble trade,
And used his tricks and talents to persuade;
The fellow barely read, but chanced to look
Among the fragments of a tatter'd book
Where, after many efforts made to spell
One puzzling word, he found it oxymel;
A potent thing, 't was said to cure the ills
Of ailing lungs — the oxymel of squills;

Squills he procured, but found the bitter strong
And most unpleasant; none would take it long;
But the pure acid and the sweet would make
A med'cine numbers would for pleasure take.

There was a fellow near, an artful knave,
Who knew the plan, and much assistance gave;
He wrote the puffs, and every talent plied
To make it sell: it sold, and then he died.

Now all the profit fell to Ned's control,
And Pride and Avarice quarrell'd for his soul;
When mighty profits by the trash were made,
Pride built a palace, Avarice groan'd and paid;
Pride placed the signs of grandeur all about,
And Avarice barr'd his friends and children out.
Now see him Doctor! yes, the idle fool,
The butt, the robber of the lads at school;
Who then knew nothing, nothing since acquired,
Became a doctor, honour'd and admired;
His dress, his frown, his dignity were such, [much;
Some who had known him thought his knowledge
Nay, men of skill, of apprehension quick,

Spite of their knowledge, trusted him when sick: Though he could neither reason, write, nor spell, They yet had hope his trash would make them well; And while they scorn'd his parts, they took his

oxymel.

Oh! when his nerves had once received a shock,
Sir Isaac Newton might have gone to Rock: (1)
Hence impositions of the grossest kind,
Hence thought is feeble, understanding blind;

(1) An empiric who flourished at the same time with this great man.

Hence sums enormous by those cheats are made,
And deaths unnumber'd by their dreadful trade. (1)
Alas! in vain is my contempt express'd,
To stronger passions are their words address'd;
To pain, to fear, to terror their appeal,

To those who, weakly reasoning, strongly feel. What then our hopes?-perhaps there may by law

Be method found, these pests to curb and awe;
Yet in this land of freedom, law is slack
With any being to commence attack;

Then let us trust to science there are those

Who can their falsehoods and their frauds disclose, All their vile trash detect, and their low tricks expose:

Perhaps their numbers may in time confound
Their arts—as scorpions give themselves the wound:
For when these curers dwell in every place,
While of the cured we not a man can trace,
Strong truth may then the public mind persuade,
And spoil the fruits of this nefarious trade.

(1) ["So great are the difficulties of tracing out the hidden causes of the evils to which the frame of man is subject, that the most candid of the profession have ever allowed and lamented how unavoidably they are in the dark. So that the best medicines administered by the wisest heads shall often do the mischief they were intended to prevent. These are misfortunes to which we are subject in this state of darkness; but when men without skill, without education, without knowledge either of the distemper, or even of what they seli, make merchandise of the miserable, and, from a dishonest principle, trifle with the pains of the unfortunate, too often with their lives, and from the mere motive of a dishonest gain, every such instance of a person bereft of life by the hand of ignorance can be considered in no other light than a murder."— STERNE]

(1)

(2)

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER VIIL

TRADES.

Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum: rectius occupat
Nomen Beati, qui Deorum

Muneribus sapienter uti,

Duramque callet pauperiem pati,

HOR. lib. iv. Ode 9. (1)

Non propter vitam faciunt patrimonia quidam,

Sed vitio cæci propter patrimonia vivunt,—JUVENAL, Sat. 12. (2)

["Not he, of wealth immense possess'd,

Tasteless who piles his massy gold,

Among the number of the blest

Should have his glorious name enroll❜d.

He better claims the glorious name, who knows

With wisdom to enjoy what Heaven bestows."— FRANCIS.]

["Few gain to live, Corvinus, few or none,

But, blind with avarice, live to gain alone." — - GIFFORD.]