THE QUACK DOCTOR

WHAT is the choicest boon of Heaven, That to frail mortal man is given;

To cheer his heart and gild his way
Through passing Life's uncertain day?

AMBITION will at once exclaim, Raise me to station and to name: Give me Power and give me State, Content I'll leave the rest to fate. Pale AVARICE, with grasping hand, Will quick reply,-let me command The fountain from whence riches flow: No other joy I seek to know.

Call forth the minstrels, let them play The enchanting music through the day; Let but the sensual spirits wait And ask admittance at my gate; Let but the feast prolong delight, And give a blaze to gloomy night

Thus let me live till life is o'er,
PLEASURE proclaims,-I ask no more.

How vain, how impotent the plan
That oft is form'd by thoughtless man,
His transient, fickle hours to bless,
With a false dream of happiness!
-If pain assaults the splendid throne,
Does not the scepter'd Monarch groan?
If raging Fever's burning heat
Compels the hurried pulse to beat;
If the cold Ague shakes the frame,
And shudd'ring Limbs its force proclaim;-
If the tormented bosom strains

With Hectic's agitating pains ;—
In short, whatever the disease,-
Will power, will riches give us ease?
While Pleasure, trembling with affright,
From the sick chamber takes its flight.

What then's the choicest boon of Heaven, Which to frail, mortal man is given, To cheer his heart and gild his way Through passing Life's uncertain day; Superior far to power and wealth? The answer is at hand;-'Tis Health.

O Nymph divine, without thy power,
Life cannot know a joyous hour:
If thou art absent, what can give,

A cheerful thought, a wish to live.
Nature must sicken soon and die,
Without thy active energy.
Where'er you hold your genial reign,
The squallid family of pain

Take their compell'd, unwilling flight,
To the dark realms of dreary night;
And grateful vot❜ries resume

Th' enliven'd eye, the native bloom,
MED'CINE'S thy handmaid, when the sage
EXPERIENCE calls it to assuage

The morbid evils that inflame
Man's fine-spun, irritable frame;-
When SCIENCE doth direct the art
Of healing to each suff'ring part;
When he, in Æsculapian School,
Well-taught, ne'er deviates from the rule
Founded on maxims tried and sure,
Which give the fairest hopes of cure.-

Such are the steady foes of Death
Who oft recall the flitting breath:

But though, at length, their art must yield,
And to the Tyrant quit the field;