MEDICINE.

You tell your doctor, that y’ are ill;
And what does he, but write a bill? 
Of which you need not read one letter;
The worse the scrawl, the dose the better,
For if you knew but what you take,
Though you recover, he must break.
Alma, Canto III.  M. PRIOR.

                      But when ill indeed,
  E’en dismissing the doctor don’t always succeed.
Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.  G. COLEMAN, the Younger.

“Is there no hope?” the sick man said. 
The silent doctor shook his head
And took his leave with signs of sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
The Sick Man and the Angel.  J. GAY.

I do remember an apothecary.

* * * * *

  Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: 
  And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
  An alligator stuffed, and other skins
  Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
  A beggarly account of empty boxes.
Romeo and Juliet, Act v.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

  With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik,
  In al this world ne was ther non him lyk
  To speke of phisik and of surgerye.

* * * * *

  He knew the cause of every maladye,
  Were it of hoot or colde, or moyste or drye,
  And wher engendered and of what humour;
  He was a verrey parfight practisour.
Canterbury Tales:  Prologue.  CHAUCER.

  ’T is not amiss, ere ye’re giv’n o’er. 
  To try one desp’rate med’cine more;
  For where your case can be no worse,
  The desp’rat’st is the wisest course.
Hudibras to Sidrophel.  S. BUTLER.

  Take a little rum,
    The less you take the better,
  Pour it in the lakes
    Of Wener or of Wetter.

  Dip a spoonful out
    And mind you don’t get groggy,
  Pour it in the lake
    Of Winnipissiogie.

  Stir the mixture well
    Lest it prove inferior,
  Then put half a drop
    Into Lake Superior.

  Every other day
    Take a drop in water,
  You’ll be better soon—­
    Or at least you oughter.
Lines on Homoeopathy.  BISHOP G.W.  DOANE.

  By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
  Will seize the doctor too.
Cymbeline, Act v.  Sc. 5.  SHAKESPEARE.

MELANCHOLY.

                         Melancholy
  Is not, as you conceive, indisposition
  Of body, but the mind’s disease.
The Lover’s Melancholy, Act iii.  Sc. 1.  J. FORD.

Go—­you may call it madness, folly,
You shall not chase my gloom away. 
There’s such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay!
To ——­ S. ROGERS.

                       There is a mood
  (I sing not to the vacant and the young),
  There is a kindly mood of melancholy
  That wings the soul and points her to the skies.
Ruins of Rome.  J. DYER.