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 call'd cathartical,

And, on the label of the stuff,

He wrote this 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 doubtful 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 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. "We jolted him about."

"Zounds! Shake a patient, man!- -a shake won't do." "No, Sir, and so we gave him two."

"Two shakes! od's curse!

"Twould make the patient worse."

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

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

GROUP of topers at a table sat,

With punch that much regales the thirsty soul: Flies soon the party join'd, and join'd the chat, Humming, and pitching round the mantling bowl.

At length those flies got drunk, and for their sin,
Some hundreds lost their legs and tumbled in;
And sprawling 'midst the gulph profound,
Like Pharaoh and his daring host, were drown'd.

Y

Wanting to drink-one of the men

Dipp'd from the bowl the drunken host,

And drank-then taking care that none were lost, He put in ev'ry mother's son agen.

Up jump'd the Bacchanalian crew on this,
Taking it very much amiss—

Swearing, and in the attitude to smite :

"Lord!” cried the man with gravely-lifted eyes,

66

Though I don't like to swallow flies,

I did not know but others might."

THE APPLE DUMPLINGS AND A KING.

PETER PINDAR.

NCE on a time, a Monarch, tired with hooping,
Whipping and spurring,
Happy in worrying

A poor, defenceless, harmless buck,

The horse and rider wet as muck,

From his high consequence and wisdom stooping,
Enter'd, through curiosity, a cot,

Where sat a poor old woman with her pot.

The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny,
In this same cot illum'd by many a cranny,
Had finish'd apple dumplings for her pot:
In tempting row the naked dumplings lay,
When, lo! the Monarch, in his usual way,

Like lightning spoke, "What's this? what's this? what? what?"