University of Virginia Library

Sages and moralists can show
Many misfortunes here below,
A truth which nor one ever miss'd,
Tho' neither sage nor moralist;
Yet all the troubles, notwithstanding,
Which fate or fortune has a hand in,
Fools to themselves will more create,
In spight of fortune and of fate.
Thus oft are dreaming wretches seen,
Tortur'd with vapours and with spleen,
Transform'd (at least in their own eyes)
To glass, or china, or goose-pyes:
Others will to themselves appear
Stone-dead as Will the conqueror;
And all the world in vain might strive,
To force them t'own that they're alive;
Unlucky males with child will groan,
And sorely dread their lying down,
As fearing, that, to ease their pain,
May puzzle Doctor Chamberlain.
Imaginary evils flow,
Meerly for want of real woe,
And when prevailing whimsies rise,
As monstrous wild absurdities,
Are ev'ry hour, and ev'ry minute,
Found without bedlam, as within it;
Which, if you farther wou'd have shown,
And leisure have to read—read on.

There liv'd a gentleman, possest
Of all that mortals reckon best;
A seat well chosen, wholsome air,
With gardens and with prospects fair;
His land from debt and jointure free,
His money never in south-sea;
His health of body firm and good,
Tho' past the hay-day in his blood:
His consort fair, and good, and kind,
His children rising to his mind:
His friends ingenuous and sincere,
His honour, nay his conscience, clear:
He wanted nought of human bliss,
But pow'r to taste his happiness.
Too near, alas! this great man's hall,
A merry cobler had a stall,
An arch old wag as e'er you knew,
With breeches red, and jerkin blue;
Cheerful at working, as at play,
He sung and whistled life away;
When rising morning glads the sky,
Clear as the merry lark, and high,
When evening-shades the landskips vail,
Late warbling as the nigtingale;
Tho' pence came slow, and trade was ill,
Yet still he sung, and whistled still;
Tho' patch'd his garb, and coarse his fare,
He laugh'd and cast away old care.

The rich man view'd, with discontent,
His tatter'd neighbour's merriment;
With envy grudg'd and pin'd, to see
A beggar pleasanter than he;
And by degrees, to hate began
Th'intollerable happy man,
Who haunted him like any sp'rit,
From morn to eve, by day and night.

It chanc'd as once in bed he lay,
When dreams are true, at break of day,
He heard the cobler at his sport,
And, on a sudden, to cut short,
Whether his morning draught he took,
Or warming whiff of wonted smoke,
The squire suspected, being shrewd,
This silence boded him no good;
And, 'cause he nothing saw, nor heard,
A Machiavelian plot he fear'd;
Strait circumstances crowded plain,
To vex and plague his jealous brain;
Trembling in pannick dread he lies,
With gaping mouth, and staring eyes,
And straining, lustful, both his ears,
He soon persuades himself he hears
One skip and caper up the stairs:
Sees the door open quick, and knew
His dreaded foe in red and blue,
Who, with a running jump, he thought
Leapt plumb directly down his throat,
Laden with tackle of his stall,
Last, ends and hammer, strap and awl;
No sooner down, than, with a jerk,
He fell to musick, and to work;
If much he griev'd our Don before,
When but o'th' outside of the door,
How sorely must he now molest,
When got o'th' inside of his breast!
The waking dreamer groans and swells,
And pangs imaginary feels;
Catches and scrapes of tunes he hears,
For ever ringing in his ears;
Ill-savour'd smells his nose displease,
Mundungus strong, and rotten cheese;
He feels him, when he draws his breath,
Or tugs the leather with his teeth;
Or beats the soal, or else extends
His arm to th'utmost of his ends;
Enough to crack, when stretch'd so wide,
The ribs of any mortal side.
Is there no method, then, to fly
This vile intestine enemy?
What can be done in this condition,
But sending instant for physician?
The doctor having heard the case,
Burst into laughter in his face,
Told him, he need no more than rise,
Open his windows and his eyes,
Whistling and stitching there to see
The Cobler, as he us'd to be.

Sir, quoth the patient, your pretences
Shall ne'er persuade me from my senses;
How shou'd I rise? The heavy brute
Will hardly let me wag a foot;
Tho' seeing for belief may go,
Yet feeling is the truth, you know:
I feel him in my sides, I tell ye;
Had you a cobler in your belly,
You scarce cou'd stir as now you do,
I doubt your guts would grumble too:
Still do you laugh? I tell you, Sir,
I'd kick you soundly could I stir;
Thou quack, that never had'st degree
In either university,
Thou mere licentiate, without knowledge,
The shame and scandal of the college;
I'll call my servants, if you stay,
So, doctor, scamper while you may.

One thus dispatch'd, a second came,
Of equal skill and greater fame,
Who swore him mad as a March hare,
(For doctors, when provok'd, will swear,)
To drive such whimsies from his pat,
He drag'd him to the window strait.
But jilting fortune can devise,
To baffle and outwit the wise;
The Cobler, 'ere expos'd to view,
Had just pull'd off his jerkin blue,
Not dreaming 'twould his neighbour hurt,
To sit in fresco in his shirt:
O! quoth the patient, with a sigh,
You know him not so well as I;
The man who down my throat is run,
Has got a true-blue jerkin on:
In vain the doctor rav'd and tore,
Argu'd and fretted, stamp'd and swore,
Told him he might believe as well
The giant of Pantagruel,
Did oft, to break his fast and sup,
For potch'd eggs, swallow wind-mills up;
Or that the Holland dame could bear
A child for every day o'th' year.
The vapour'd dottard, grave and sly,
Mistook, for truth, each rapping lie;
And drew conclusions, such as these,
Resistless, from the premisses;
I hope, my friends, you'll grant me all,
A wind-mill's bigger than a stall,
And since the lady brought alive
Children three hundred sixty-five,
Why should you think there is not room,
For one poor Cobler in my womb?
Thus every thing his friends could say,
The more confirm'd him in his way,
Farther convinc'd, by what they tell,
'Twas certain, tho' impossible.

Now worse and worse his piteous state
Was grown, and almost desperate;
Yet still, the utmost bent to try,
Without more help he would not die:
An old physician, sly and shrewd,
With management of face endu'd,
Heard all his tale, and ask'd, with care,
How long the Cobler had been there?
Noted distinctly what was said,
Lift up his eyes, and shook his head,
And grave accosts him on this fashion,
After mature deliberation,
With serious and important face,
Sir, your's is an uncommon case;
Tho' I've read Galen's Latin o'er,
I never met with it before;
Nor have I found the like disease
In stories of Hippocrates.
Then, after a convenient stay,
Sir, if prescripion you'll obey,
My life for yours, I'll set you free
From this same two-legg'd tympany;
'Tis true, you're gone beyond the cure
Of fam'd worm-powder of John Moor;
Besides, if downwards he be sent,
I fear he'll split your nether vent:
But then your throat, you know, is wide,
And scarcely clos'd since it was try'd,
The same way he got in, 'tis plain,
There's room to fetch him back again;
I'll bring the forked worm away
Without a dysenteria;
Emeticks strong will do the feat,
If taken quantum sufficit;
I'll see myself the proper dose,
And go hypnoticks to compose.

The wretch, tho' languishing and weak,
Reviv'd already by the Greek,
Cries, what so learn'd a man as you
Prescribes, dear doctor, I shall do.

The vomit speedily was got,
The cobler sent for to the spot,
And taught to manage the deceit,
And not his doublet to forget.
But first, the operator wise
Over his sight a bandage ties,
For vomits always strain the eyes.
Courage! I'll make you disembogue,
Spite of his teeth, th'unlucky rogue;
I'll drench the rascal, never fear,
And bring him up, or drown him there.
Warm water down he makes him pour,
Till his stretch'd guts could hold no more,
Which, doubly swoln, as you may think,
Both with the cobler and the drink,
What they receiv'd against the grain,
Soon paid with int'rest back again.
Here comes his tools, he can't be long
Without his hammer and his thong.
The cobler humour'd what was spoke,
And gravely carried on the joke;
As he heard name each single matter,
He chuck'd it souse into the water,
And, then, not to be seen as yet,
Behind the door made his retreat.
The sick man now takes breath a while,
Strength to recruit for further toil;
Unblinded, he, with joyful eyes,
The tackle floating there espies,
Fully convinc'd within his mind,
The cobler could not stay behind,
Who to the ale-house still would go,
When e'er he wanted work to do;
Nor could he like his present place,
He ne'er lov'd water in his days
At length he takes a second bout,
Enough to turn him inside out;
With vehemence so sore he strains
As would have split another's brains.
Ah! here the cobler comes, I swear,
(And truth it was; for he was there),
And like a rude, ill-manner'd clown,
Kick'd with his foot the vomit down.
The patient now grown wond'rous light,
Whip'd off the napkin from his sight,
Briskly lift up his head, and knew
The breeches and the jerkin's hue,
And smil'd to hear him grumbling say,
As down the stairs he ran away,
He'd ne'er set foot within his door,
And jump down open throats no more;
No, while he liv'd he'd ne'er again,
Run, like a fox, down the red lane.
Our patient thus, his inmate gone,
Cur'd of the crotchets in his crown,
Joyful, his gratitude expresses,
With thousand thanks, and hundred pieces;
And thus, with much of pains and cost,
Regain'd the health he never lost.