THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

A MAN, in many a country town, we know,
Professing openly with death to wrestle;
Entr'ing the field against the foe,
Arm'd with a mortar and a pestle.

Yet some affirm no enemies they are,
But meet, just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother;
So (many a suffering patient saith)
Though the apothecary fights with death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

A member of this Æsculapian race
Liv'd at Newcastle upon Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,
Or mix a draft, or bleed, or blister,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed,
Or give a glister.

Of occupations there were *quantum suff.*;
Yet still he thought the list not long enough,
And therefore midwifery he chose to pin to't.

This balanc'd things; for if he hurl'd
A few score mortals from the world,
He made amends by bringing others into't.

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

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,
(Which often will genius fetter)
Read works of fancy, it is said,
And cultivated the Belles Letters.

And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste to cure a phthysic?
Of poetry though patron god,
Apollo patronizes physic.
Bolus lov'd verse, and took so much delight in't,
That his prescriptions he resolv'd to write in't.

No opportunity he e'er let pass
Of writing the directions on his lables,
In dapper couplets—like Gay's Fables,
Or rather like the lines in Hudibras.