548

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

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 are sworn friends to one another.

A member of this 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 spread a plaster.

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 patronises physic.

Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in 't,
That 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.

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 called cathartical;

And, on the label of the stuff,

He wrote this verse,

Which one would think was clear enough

And terse:

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

"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.

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 physic'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 stammered out.

"We jolted him about."

549

"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."

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS.

(1775-1818.)

ALONZO THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR IMOGENE.

A WARRIOR so bold and a virgin so bright,
Conversed as they sat on the green;
They gazed on each other with tender delight:
Alonzo the Brave was the name of the knight-
The maiden's, the Fair Imogene.

"And oh !" said the youth, "since to-morrow I go,

To fight in a far distant land,

Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow,
Some other will court you, and you will bestow
On a wealthier suitor your hand!"

"Oh! hush these suspicions," Fair Imogene said, "Offensive to love and to me;

For, if you be living, or if you be dead,

I swear by the Virgin that none in your stead
Shall husband of Imogene be.

"If e'er, by caprice or by wealth led aside,
I forget my Alonzo the Brave,

God grant that, to punish my falsehood and pride,
Your ghost at the marriage may sit by my side-
May tax me with perjury, claim me as bride,
And bear me away to the grave!"

To Palestine hastened the hero so bold,
His love she lamented him sore;

But scarce had a twelvemonth elapsed, when, behold!
A baron, all covered with jewels and gold,
Arrived at Fair Imogene's door.

His treasures, his presents, his spacious domain,
Soon made her untrue to her vows;

He dazzled her eyes, he bewildered her brain;
He caught her affections, so light and so vain,
And carried her home as his spouse.

And now had the marriage been blest by the priest; The revelry now was begun ;

The tables they groaned with the weight of the feast, Nor yet had the laughter and merriment ceased, When the bell at the castle tolled-one.

Then first with amazement Fair Imogene found
A stranger was placed by her side:

His air was terrific; he uttered no sound

He spake not, he moved not, he looked not aroundBut earnestly gazed on the bride.

His vizor was closed, and gigantic his height,
His armour was sable to view;

All pleasure and laughter were hushed at his sight;
The dogs, as they eyed him, drew back in affright;
The lights in the chamber burned blue!

ALONZO AND IMOGENE.

His presence all bosoms appeared to dismay;
The guests sat in silence and fear;

551

At length spake the bride-while she trembled “I pray,
Sir knight, that your helmet aside you would lay,
And deign to partake of our cheer."

The lady is silent-the stranger complies-
His vizor he slowly unclosed;

Oh, God! what a sight met Fair Imogene's eyes!
What words can express her dismay and surprise,
When a skeleton's head was exposed!

All present then uttered a terrified shout,
All turned with disgust from the scene;

The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out,
And sported his eyes and his temples about,
While the spectre addressed Imogene :-

"Behold me, thou false one, behold me !" he cried,
"Remember Alonzo the Brave!

God grants that, to punish thy falsehood and pride,
My ghost at thy marriage should sit by thy side-
Should tax thee with perjury, claim thee as bride,
And bear thee away to the grave!"

Thus saying, his arms round the lady he wound,
While loudly she shrieked in dismay ;

Then sunk with his prey through the wide-yawning ground,
Nor ever again was Fair Imogene found,

Or the spectre that bore her away.

Not long lived the baron; and none, since that time,
To inhabit the castle presume;

For chronicles tell that, by order sublime,

There Imogene suffers the pain of her crime,

And mourns her deplorable doom.

At midnight, four times in each year, does her sprite,
When mortals in slumber are bound,

Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white,

Appear in the hall with the skeleton knight,
And shriek as he whirls her round!

While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave
Dancing round them the spectres are seen;

Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stave
They howl:-"To the health of Alonzo the Brave,
And his consort, the Fair Imogene !"

JOANNA BAILLIE.

(1762-1851.)

SONG.

THE gowan glitters on the sward,
The lavrock's in the sky,
And Colley in my plaid keeps ward,
And time is passing by.

Oh, no! sad and slow!
I hear no welcome sound,
The shadow of our trysting bush,
It wears so slowly round.

My sheep bells tinkle frae the west,
My lambs are bleating near;
But still the sound that I lo'e best,
Alack! I canna hear.

Oh, no! sad and slow!
The shadow lingers still,
And like a lanely ghaist I stand,
And croon upon the hill.

I hear below the water roar,
The mill wi' clacking din,
And Luckey scolding frae her door,
To bring the bairnies in.

Oh, no! sad and slow!
These are nae sounds for me;
The shadow of our trysting bush,
It creeps sae drearily.

I coft yestreen, frae Chapman Tam,
A snood of bonny blue,

And promised when our trysting cam',
To tie it round her brow!

Oh, no! sad and slow!
The time it winna pass:
The shadow of that weary thorn
Is tether'd on the grass.

O, now I see her on the way,

She's past the witches' knowe,

She's climbing up the brownie's brae; My heart is in a lowe.

Oh, no! 'tis not so!

'Tis glamrie I ha'e seen!

The shadow of that hawthorn bush

Will move nae mair till e'en.