THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

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 draw a tooth out of your
head;

Or chatter scandal by your bed;

Or give a clyster.

His fame full six miles round the country ran;
In short, in reputation he was solus:
All the old women called him a fine man!'
His name was Bolus.

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,

(Which oftentimes will 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 who cure a phthisic? Of poetry, though patron God,

Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus loved verse ;-and took so much delight in 't, All his prescriptions he resolved 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.

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 this verse,

Next morning early Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,

Who a vile trick of stumbling had :
But he arrived, and gave a tap,
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 looked and grim,
As if the Apothecary had physicked 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.'

66

Shook him! how? how?" friend Bolus stammered out.We jolted him about.”

'What! shake the patient, man!—why that won't do." No, Sir, (quoth John) and so we gave him two." Two shakes! oh, luckless verse!

"Twould make the patient worse!"

"It did so, Sir,—and so a third we tried."

66

'Well, and what then?"-" Then, Sir, my master-died."

COLMAN.

THE RAZOR-SELLER.

A FELLOW, in a market-town,

Most musical cried razors up and down,
And offer'd twelve for eighteen-pence ;
Which certainly seem'd wond'rous cheap,
And, for the money, quite a heap,

As every man would buy, with cash and sense.

A country bumpkin the great offer heard:
Poor Hodge! who suffer'd by a thick, black beard,
That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose.
With cheerfulness the eighteen-pence he paid,
And proudly to himself, in whispers, said,

66

This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.

"No matter if the fellow be a knave,

"Provided that the razors do but shave:

It certainly will be a monstrous prize."
So, home the clown with his good fortune went,
Smiling in heart, and soul content,

And quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes.

Being well lather'd from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub,
Just like a hedger cutting furze:

'Twas a vile razor! then the rest he tried ;
All were impostors. "Ah!" Hodge sighed,

I wish my eighteen-pence within my purse!"

In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces,

He cut, and dug, and winced, and stamped and swore ; Brought blood and danced, reviled and made wry faces, And cursed each razor's body o'er and o'er.

His muzzle, form'd of opposition stuff,
Firm as a courtier, would not lose its ruff;
So kept it-laughing at the steel and suds:
Hodge, in a passion, stretch'd his angry jaws,
Vowing the direst vengeance, with clench'd claws,
On the vile cheat that sold the goods.

Hodge sought the fellow, found him, and begun: "Perhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 'tis fun

That people flay themselves out of their lives.
You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing,
Giving my scoundrel-whiskers here a scrubbing,
With razors just like oyster-knives.
Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave,
"To cry up razors that won't shave."

66

"Not think they'd shave!" quoth Hodge, with wondering

eyes,

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell;

"What were they made for, then, you dog!" he cries: "Made!" quoth the fellow, with a smile, "to sell." DR. WALCOT.

THE SURGEON AND THE HOUSE PAINTERS. (From "Gaieties and Gravities.")

PAINTERS are like the dry-rot; if we let 'em
Fix on our panels and our planks,

There's no ejectment that can get 'em

Out, till they've fairly played their pranks. There is a time, however, when the ghastly Spectres cease to haunt our vision

;

And as my hearers, doubtless, would like vastly
To calculate it with precision,

I'll tell them, for their ease and comfort,
What happened t'other day at Romford.

In that great thoroughfare for calves,
Destined to pacify the yearning

Of Norton Folgate gormandising,
There dwelt a surgeon, who went halves

With the apothecary, in the earnings

From broken limbs and accidents arising. But, somehow, the good Romford drones Were so confounded careful against harms, They neither broke their legs nor arms, Nor even slipped their collar bones.

In short, he couldn't find one benefactor Among these cruel calf and pig herds,

To treat him with a single fracture ;— Was ever such a set of niggards?

The fact is, that they never took the road,
Except on vehicles which Heaven bestowed—
But if with other legs you take a journey,
What wonder if they sometimes overturn ye?
One morn a patent safety coach

Departed from the Swan with two Necks,
A sign that seems intended to reproach
Those travellers of either sex,

Who deem one neck sufficient for the risks

Of ditches, drunkards, wheels, and four-legged frisks. Just as they entered Romford with a dash,

Meaning to pass the opposition,

The front wheel came in violent collision

With a low post-was shivered-smash!

And down the coach came with a horrid crash.

"Zooks!" cried the coachman, as he swore and cursed, That rascal Jack will get to Chelmsford first.

We might have had worse luck on't; for I sees "None of the horses hasn't broke their knees." As to his fare, or any human limb,

Had ten been broken, 'twas all one to him.

Luckily for the passengers, the master

Of the Plough Inn, who witnessed the disaster,
Ran with his men, and maids, and spouse,
The imprisoned sufferers unpounded,
Conveyed the frighten'd, sick, and wounded
Into his house;

Then hied himself into the town, to urge on
The speed of the aforesaid surgeon.