['tis spoken]
'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction.
But the gift somewhere dropped out of
the line of succession: the later sovereigns
of England have not been tactual healers,
and the disease once honored with the name
“king's evil” now bears the humbler one of
“scrofula,” from scrofa, a sow. The date
and author of the following epigram are
known only to the author of this dictionary,
but it is old enough to show that the jest
about Scotland's national disorder is not
a thing of yesterday.
