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From “The Borough”
BUT now our Quacks are gamesters, and they play | |
| With craft and skill to ruin and betray; | |
| With monstrous promise they delude the mind, | |
| And thrive on all that tortures human-kind. | |
| Void of all honor, avaricious, rash, | 5 |
| The daring tribe compound their boasted trash,— | |
| Tincture or syrup, lotion, drop or pill; | |
| All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill; | |
| And twenty names of cobblers turned to squires | |
| Aid the bold language of these blushless liars. | 10 |
| There are among them those who cannot read, | |
| And yet they ’ll buy a patent, and succeed; | |
| Will dare to promise dying sufferers aid, | |
| For who, when dead, can threaten or upbraid? | |
| With cruel avarice still they recommend | 15 |
| More draughts, more syrup, to the journey’s end. | |
| “I feel it not.” “Then take it every hour.” | |
| “It makes me worse.” “Why, then it shows its power.” | |
| “I fear to die.” “Let not your spirits sink, | |
| You ’re always safe while you believe and drink.” * * * * * | 20 |
| Troubled with something in your bile or blood, | |
| You think your doctor does you little good; | |
| And, grown impatient, you require in haste | |
| The nervous cordial, nor dislike the taste; | |
| It comforts, heals, and strengthens; nay, you think | 25 |
| It makes you better every time you drink; | |
| Who tipples brandy will some comfort feel, | |
| But will he to the medicine set his seal? * * * * * | |
| No class escapes them—from the poor man’s pay | |
| The nostrum takes no trifling part away; | 30 |
| See! those square patent bottles from the shop | |
| Now decoration to the cupboard’s top; | |
| And there a favorite hoard you ’ll find within, | |
| Companions meet! the julep and the gin. * * * * * | |
| Observe what ills to nervous females flow, | 35 |
| When the heart flutters and the pulse is low; | |
| If once induced these cordial sips to try, | |
| All feel the ease, and few the danger fly; | |
| For, while obtained, of drams they ’ve all the force, | |
| And when denied, then drams are the resource. | 40 |
| Who would not lend a sympathizing sigh, | |
| To hear yon infant’s pity-moving cry? | |
| Then the good nurse (who, had she borne a brain, | |
| Had sought the cause that made her babe complain) | |
| Has all her efforts, loving soul! applied | 45 |
| To set the cry, and not the cause, aside; | |
| She gave her powerful sweet without remorse, | |
| The sleeping cordial,—she had tried its force, | |
| Repeating oft; the infant, freed from pain, | |
| Rejected food, but took the dose again, | 50 |
| Sinking to sleep, while she her joy expressed, | |
| That her dear charge could sweetly take his rest. | |
| Soon may she spare her cordial; not a doubt | |
| Remains but quickly he will rest without. | |
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