What! can he wear a wig so shabby,
When folks are hang'd from Waltham Abbey,
For loving ven❜son, and appearing
So like that head there, so like Fearing.

You're a divine sir; I'll ask you,
Is that a Christian, or a Jew,

Or Turk? Aye, Turk, as sure as hops,
You see the Saracen-in his chops:

And yet these chops, tho' now so homely,
Were Christian-like before, and comely:
That wicked wig! to make a face
So absolutely void of grace!

You, master doctor! will you try
Your skill in physiognomy?

Of what disease is it a symptom?

Do n't look at me, but look at him, Tom.

Is it not scurvy, think you?—Yes,

If any thing be scurvy, 't is:

A phrenzy? or a periwigmanie
That over-runs his pericranie?

It seems to me a complication
Of all distempers, o' some fashion:
It is a coma, that is plain,

A great obstruction of the brain:

A man to take his brains, and bury 'em

In such a wig!-a plain deliriam:
I never saw a human face

That suffer'd more by such a case.

If you examine it, you'll see 't is
Piss-burnt-that shows a diabetes.
Bad weather has relax'd, you see,
The fibres to a great degree:

Certes the head, in these black tumours,
Is full of vitiated humours;

Of vitiated humours full,

Which shows a numbness of the scull.

So of the rest-But now, friend Thomas,
The cure will be expected from us;
For while it hangs on him, of course,

It will, if possible, grow worse:
Habit so foul! there is, in short,
Nothing but salivation for 't:
But what can salivation do?

It has been fluxt, and refluxt too.

But why to doctors do I urge on
The bus'ness of a barber-surgeon?
Your barber-surgeon is the man
It must be cur'd by, if it can:
Ring for my landlord Lawrenson;
Come let's e'en try what can be done;
A remedy there may be found,
Provided that the brain be sound.

THE ASTROLOGER.

FELLOW citizens all, for whose safety I peep
All night at the stars, and all day go to sleep;
Attend, while I show you the meaning of fate
In all the strange sights we have seen here of late;
And thou, O Astrology, goddess divine,
Celestial decypheress, gently incline,
Thine cars, and thine aid, to a lover of science,
That bids to all learning, but thine, a defiance.

For what learning else is there half so engaging, A- an art where the terms of themselves are presaging?

Which by muttering o'er, any gentle mechanic May put his whole neighbourhood into a panic; Where a noddle well turn'd for prediction, and shoes,

If it can but remember hard words, cannot choose, From the prince on his throne, to the dairy-maid milking,

But read all their fortunes in yonder blue welkin.

For the sky is a book, where, in letters of gold, Is writ all that almanacs ever foretold; Which he that can read, and interpret also What is there, which such a one cannot foreshow? When a true son of art ponders over the stars, They reflect back upon him the face of affairs; Of all things of moment they give him an inkling, While empires and kingdoms depend on their twinkling.

Your transits, your comets, eclipses, conjunctions,

Have all, it is certain, their several functions; And on this globe of Earth here, both jointly, and singly,

[sion,

Do influence matters most astonishingly.
But to keep to some method, on this same occa-
We'll give you a full and true interpretation

Of all the phenomena, we have rehearst;
Of which, in their order; and first, of the first.

As for Mercury's travelling over the Sun, There's nothing in that, sirs, when all 's said and done;

For what will be, will be; and Mercury's transit,
I'm positive, will neither retard, nor advance it:
But when a conjunction, or comet takes place,
Or a total eclipse, that 's a different case:
They, that laugh at our art, may here see with
their eyes,
[skies.
That some things, at least, may appear from the

A conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, You may turn, if you please, gentlemen, to mere farce:

But what if it plainly appear, that three men Are foretold by three planets-what will ye say then? [quest,

Now, to prove this, I'll only make one small reThat is, that you'll all turn your faces to th' east; And then you shall see, 'e're I've done my epistle, If I don't make it out, aye, as clear as a whistle.

In the first place, old Saturn, we very well know, Lost his kingdom and provinces some while ago; Nor was it long after old Saturn's disgrace, That Jupiter mov'd to step into his place; And Mars we all know was a quarrelsome bully, That beat all his neighbours most unmercifully; And now, who can doubt who these gentlemen are, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars,-Sophy, Sultan, and Czar.

But to prove, nearer home, that the stars have

not trifl'd, [field1? Pray have we not lost, cruel star! doctor By

1Dr. Byfield, a chymist of an extravagant genius, and inventor of the sal volatile oleosum: the author had frequent skirmishes of wit and humour with him at Richard's Coffee-house, and upon his death wrote the following short epitaph impromptu.

Hic jacet Dr. Byfield, diu volatilis, tandem îxus.

Alas! friends at Richard's, alas! what a chasm
Will be made in the annals of enthusiasm!
As soon as the comet appear'd in the sky,
Pray did not the doctor straight fall sick and die?
I wonder how folk could discover a comet,
And yet never draw this plain consequence from it.
The death of the regent might show, if it needed,
Why they saw it in France so much plainer than
we did;
[princes,

And how well it forebodes to our nobles and
That its tail was here shorter by several inches:
But so near to the eagle this comet appear'd,
That something may happen, it is to be fear'd:
Great men have been known by the arms which
they bore,

But God bless the emperor-I say no more.

And now for th' eclipse, which is such an appearance, [hence: As perhaps will not happen this many a year The king of France dy'd, the last total eclipse, Of a mortification near one of his hips;

From whence by our art may be plainly made out, That some great man or other must die at this

bout:

But as the eclipse is not yet, nor that neither, You know 't is not proper to say more of either.

Yet two, that are safe, I shall venture to name, Men of figure, and parts, and of unspotted fame; Who, all parties will own, are, and always have been

Great ornaments to the high station they're in; Admir'd of all sides; who will therefore rejoice, When, consulting the stars, I pronounce it their voice,

That, for all this eclipse, there shall no harm befal, Those two honest-giants, that are in Guildhall.

So much for great men-I come now to predict What evils, in gen'ral, will Europe afflict: Now the evils, that conjurers tell from the stars, Are plague, famine and pestilence, bloodshed and

CONTENTMENT:

OR, THE HAPPY WORKMAN'S SONG.

I AM a poor workman as rich as a Jew,
A strange sort of tale, but however 't is true,
Come listen awhile, and I'll prove it to you,
So as no-body can deny, &c.

I am a poor workman, you'll easily grant, And I'm rich as a Jew, for there's nothing 1 want, [and cant, I have meat, drink, and clothes, and am hearty Which no-body can deny, &c.

I live in a cottage, and yonder it stands, And while I can work with these two honest hands, I'm as happy as they that have houses and lands, Which no-body can deny, &c.

I keep to my workmanship all the day long,
I sing and I whistle, and this is my song,
Thank God, that has made me so lusty and strong,
Which no-body can deny, &c.

I never am greedy of delicate fare,
If he give me enough, tho' 't is never so bare,
The more is his love, and the less is my care,

Which no-body can deny, &c.

My clothes on a working day looken but lean, But when I can dress me-on Sundays, I mean, Tho' cheap, they are warm; and tho' coarse, they are clean, Which no-body can deny, &c. Folk cry'n out hard times, but I never regard, For I ne'er did, nor will set my heart up o' th'

ward,

So 't is all one to

1

me, bin they easy or hard, Which no-body can deny, &c.

I envy not them that have thousands of pounds, That sport o'er the country with horses and There's nought but contentment can keep within hounds; [bounds, Which no-body can deny, &c.

I ne'er lose my time o'er a pipe, or a pot, Nor cower in a nook like a sluggardly sot, But I buy what is wanting with what I have got, Which no-body can deny, &c.

And if I have more than I want for to spend, I help a poor neighbour or diligent friend; [lend, He that gives to the poor, to the Lord he doth Which no-body can deny, &c.

I grudge not that gentlefolk dressen so fine; At their gold and their silver I never repine, But I wish all their guts were as hearty as mine, Which no-body can deny, &c.

With quarrels o' th' country, and matters of
state,

With Tories and Whigs, I ne'er puzzle my pate;
There's some that I love, and there's none that
I hate,
Which no-body can deny, &c.

I strive to embrace it for better and worse,
What tho' my condition be ever so coarse,
And my heart, I thank God, is as light as my
purse,
Which no-body can deny, &c.

In short, my condition, whatever it be,
'Tis God that appoints it, as far as I see,
And I'm sure I can never do better than he,
Which no-body can deny, &c.

THE DISSECTION OF A BEAU'S HEAD.
FROM THE SPECTATOR, NO. 275.

WE found by our glasses, that what, at first sight,
Appear'd to be brains was another thing quite;
A heap of strange stuff fill'd the holes of his scull,
Which, perhaps, serv'd the owner as weil to the
full.

And as Homer acquaints us, (who certainly knew)
That the blood of the gods was not real, and true,

Only something that was very like it; just so, Only something like brain is the brain of a beau.

The pineal gland, where the soul's residence is, Smelt desperate strong of perfumes, and essences, With a bright horny substance encompast around, That in numberless forms, like a diamond, was ground;

In so much that the soul, if there was any there, Must have kept pretty constant within its own sphere; [traces, Having business enough, without seeking new To employ all its time with its own pretty faces.

In the hind part o' th' head there was Brussels, and Mechlin, [ling; And ribands, and fringes, and such kind of tackBillet-doux, and soft rhymes lin'd the whole cerebellum; [vellum. Op'ra songs and prickt dances, as 't were upon A brown kind of lump, that we ventur'd to squeeze, Disperst in plain Spanish, and made us all sneeze. In short, many more of the like kind of fancies, Too tedious to tell, fill'd up other vacancies.

On the sides of this head were in several purses, On the right, sighs and vows; on the left, oaths and curses:

These each sent a duct to the root of the tongue,
From whence to the tip they went jointly along.
One particular place was observed to shine
With all sorts of colours, most wonderful fine;
But when we came nearer to view it, in troth,
Upon examination 't was nothing but froth.

A pretty large vessel did plainly appear [ear;
In that part of the scull, 'twixt the tongue and the
With a spongy contrivance distended it was,
Which the French virtuosos call galimatias;
We Englishmen nonsense; a matter indeed
That most peoples heads are sometimes apt to
breed;

Entirely free from it, not one head in twenty, But a beau's, 'tis presum'd, always has it in plenty.

Mighty hard, thick, and tough was the skin of his front,

And, what is more strange, not a blood vessel on't; From whence we concluded, the party deceast Was never much troubled with blushing at least: The os cribriforme, as full as could stuff, [snuff: Was cramm'd, and in some places damag'd, with For beaus with this ballast keep stuffing their crib, To preserve their light heads in a true equilib.

That muscle, we found, was exceedingly plain, That helps a man's nose to express his disdain, If you chance to displease him, or make a demand, Which is oft the beau's case, that he don't understand. [cle, The reader well knows, 't is about this same musThat the old Latin poets all make such a bustle, When they paint a man giving his noddle a toss, And cocking his nose, like a rhinoceros.

Looking into the eye, where the musculi lay, Which are call'd amatorii, that is to say, Those muscles, in English, wherewith a man ogles, When on a fair lady he fixes his goggles, We found 'em much worn; but that call'd th' elevator, [Nature, Which lifts the eyes up tow'rds the summit of

Seem'd so little us'd, that the beau, I dare say, Neverdazzled his eyes much with looking that way.

The outside of this head, for its shape and its figure,

Was like other heads, neither lesser nor bigger;
Its owner, as we were inform'd, when alive,
Had past for a man of about thirty-five.
He eat, and he drank, just like one of the crowd:
For the rest, he drest finely, laught often, talkt
loud;

Had talents in's way; for sometimes at a ball
The beau show'd his parts, and outcaper'd 'em all.

Some ladies, they say, took the beau for a wit,
But in his head, truly, there lay-deuce a bit:
He was cut off, alas! in the flow'r of his age,
By an eminent cit, that was put in a rage:
The beau was, it seems, complimenting his wife,
When his extreme civility cost him his life;
For his eminence took up an old paring shovel,
And on the hard ground left my gem'man to grovel.

Having finish'd our work, we began to replace The brain, such as 't was, in its own proper case. In a fine piece of scarlet we laid it in state, And resolv'd to prepare so extraordinary a pate; Which wou'd eas'ly be done, our anatomist thought, Having found many tubes, that already were fraught With a kind of a substance, he took for mercurial, Lodg'd there, he suppos'd, long before the beau's burial,

The head laid aside, he then took up the beart, Which he likewise laid open with very great art; And with many particulars truly we met, That gave us great insight into the coquet: But having, kind reader, already transgrest Too much on your patience, we 'll let the heart rest:

[tion, Having giv'n you the beau for to day's speculaWe'll reserve the coquet for another occasion.

A SONG.

WHY, prithee now, what does it signify
For to bustle, and make such a rout?
It is virtue alone that can dignify,

Whether clothed in ermin, or clout.
Come, come, and maintain thy discretion;
Let it act a more generous part;
For I find, by thy honest confession,
That the world has too much of thy heart.
Beware, that its fatal ascendency

Do not tempt thee to moap and repine; With an humble, and hopeful dependency Still await the good pleasure divine. Success in a higher beatitude

Is the end of what's under the pole; A philosopher takes it with gratitude,

And believes it is best on the whole. The world is a scene, thou art sensible,

Upon which, if we do but our best, On a wisdom, that's incomprehensible, We may safely rely for the rest: Then trust to its kind distribution,

And however things happen to fall, Prithee, pluck up a good resolution To be cheerful, and thankful in all.