Say whatsoe'er you will, for why,
I shall at most but live, or die.
Neither, my friend, for fee or song,
Can you a life, so old, prolong.
What man can do, from you I hope;
But who with seventy-eight can cope?
Your best endeavours can but land,
The man you love on farther strand.
With lenient hand then let him sink,
Without a jolt from off the brink.
Drop your emollients in his ear,
And on his mind-but not a tear.
Take care I be not earth'd alive,
Like hunted badger, nor survive,
Of washing hags th' indecent joke,
Of pipes the mercenary smoke.
I would not, Doctor, hear or see,
Of my own funeral the glee.

Like Charles the Fifth I gave no cause,
For my own posthumous applause.
The orphan's sigh I would not hear,
Nor see the poor old widow's tear.

What, you a doctor?

And not kill!

Not kill in earnest! Where's the pill, The lancet, potion, and purgation,

Enough to desolate the nation?

But failing these, pray use the knife,
And let me not outlive my life.
Ah! why so gross a bull in death?
Why breathe beyond my latest breath?
Hash me, O mince me for the taste
Of churchyard rats, and let them feast.
"Tis almost all I have to leave,

Much good may't do them in my grave.
Yet to what purpose all this care,
How non-existence is to fare?
By Berkeley's, fly, Jack, and be gone,*
Denounc'd against my flesh and bone,
By Law's episcopalian hocus,
By Priestley's presbyterian pocus,
My body whiffled into thought,
My soul too juggled into nought,

• * Juggler's cant.

At best, must now with matter share
In their phlogiston, or fix'd air;

Of soul and body thus bereft,

I've not a rag of being left,

All my precautions are prevented,

And rats and worms must fast contented.

If you don't like this rhyming letter, Nor can inspire me with a better, Then cure me, Doctor, of this itch, And spare not either head or breech. If there is help in drug or birch, Leave not Old White-head in the lurch. Old as I am, in this I'm clear, I dress you as you should appear; I fit you, Fleury, with a coat, Although in all things else I doat.

Farewell, my Doctor, and my friend To save the life be still your end. Health to your patients, and yourself, And, as you say, a fig for pelf! To heal the sick, none ever knew, A safer method, sure, than you. Nature with art in you combines To ransack seas, and fields, and mines; And, whether life or death betides, Sound judgment o'er the whole presides. Don't spare our fees, nor stint your purse, To wishing heirs be still a curse. From me, and rich men take our gold, But to the poor lend health unsold. At least give death for nothing, that is, Let wretched Lazarus die gratis. Let not his tatter'd female honey Cry, what, to lose both man and money! Tho' she don't say it, she's more willing To part with him, than with a shilling. He has done nothing this half year, And if he dies now, she is clear, And may have Jerry Quill the weaver, Or, better still, young Pound the pavier. A shilling sav'd, or shilling got, The same for head, or back, or pot, May help her wrinkled hide to cover From a too young, and sighted lover.

In dealing with the poor is made
More, than by any other trade;

You know full well, that here I clark it,
And regulate, or tell the market.
Whate'er by you to them is lent
Shall here return in Cent. per Cent.;
For this a bond, already given,
Is long since register'd in heaven.
The rich to poor men may give wealth,
And you to sick men may give health;
Yet, O my friend, of this be sure,
More may be given by the poor.
His prayer, for ever, upward goes,
The bail of joys, the shield from woes.
The poor will pray for your success,
And into cures your med'cines bless.
His blessing therefore be your fee,
you may heal the rich, and

That

ME.

148. Whatsoever our pride mixes or interferes with, becomes immediately a matter of consequence with us, occasions violent struggles, and stirs up bitter disputes. Distinction is the chief of these. Who is, or shall be deemed a gentleman, that is, one raised above vulgarity, is a point not less necessary to a large class of minds, than even the enjoyment of a competency; families that are hard put to it for the necessaries of life, put in a claim to this title, and support it by various pretensions, which often have no relation to it, and which, if they had, the claimants are wholly, or almost wholly, destitute of. One must needs be a gentleman, because he hath got a liberal education; another, because his manners are pitched above moral turpitude; another, because he dresses well, and can make a good bow; another, because he is possessed of some employment which supports him above the meanness of manual labour; another, because his exterior address is that of a well-bred man; another, because he affects the reputation of a man of honour, though there is hardly an instance of knavery or baseness, which he is not occasionally prepared for; another, because he hath, somehow or other, acquired riches enough to live independent, as he calls it. Undoubtedly, this last makes the nearest approach to the title; but he must nevertheless give it up, if it is still remembered among his neighbours,

that his fortune was made by a mechanic, by trade, or by base arts, in himself, his father, or his ancestors, if indeed he had any ancestor. The man said sensibly, who going to an auction of portraits, which belonged to a decayed family, and being asked, whither he was moving, and for what, answered, I am going to buy ancestors. The great Lord Burleigh hath ruled the definition of a gentleman, and that, according to the received opinion of mankind, namely, the possession of old riches, handed down through a family from time immemorial. The compliment of this title, therefore, is founded on riches, on antiquity of riches; and it is rightly observed, that the king can make a lord, but not a gentleman. The title then is worldly, and issues from an office long ago held, or riches long ago gathered, and is set and held up by pride alone. In the rank of real gentlemen, as classed by Lord Burleigh, and indeed by the world, there are many, who make a jest of imputed sin and righteousness; and yet found their whole distinction on imputations from progenitors, not patriots, not heroes, but for the greatest part, purse-proud oppressors. These will cavil at the genealogy of Christ, and shew a family-tree of their own, with many a branch lopped off, and as many grafts inserted from great and wealthy families, which you neither know, nor care to distinguish; and so the shewer passes for a gentleman, if not for a prince, and you must make your bow accordingly, at least to the tree, as if inhabited by a goddess, at the time you contemn the scoundrel branch. Every one now-adays, above the condition of a scavenger, is a gentleman, if he can but trace himself to somebody. Nay, the wife and daughter of a grocer shoot up into ladies, before he can get off his apron ; but he drudges on, in hope, that he too shall one day, look a little lordly in a curricle and country-house, which may swell into a coach and country-seat, at least in the days of his son. In the mean time, violently disposed as the men are to swell into an ideal magnitude, the women in hoops outgrow, and outstride them so fast, that the poor husband looks like one of an inferior species to his wife. If old wealth makes the gentleman, how shall we distinguish him who hath no wealth, old or new? Or how long is the unnatural union to last, which is made between poverty and vanity? Not only the mob of mankind, and nice heralds they are, but families, grown rich only ere-yesterday, are careful to keep down the son of a dunghill, who emerged but yesterday. It never went well with religion, since the clergy set

up for gentlemen. The haughty title is of this world, and can never suit the character of a Christian, whether lay or clerical, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world. But as Christ took upon him the form of a servant,' was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger, how can the servant of this servant become a gentleman? How can he think of renouncing the kingdom of Christ, and set up for pomp and figure? How can he think of building on church emoluments, given by piety for the purposes of charity, a fastuous or luxurious scheme of life? How can he, as from himself in a sermon, or as from Christ in a psalm or lesson, inculcate humility, if he makes it evident to his people, that, after all, he is but a gentleman, that is, hath taken from this world, or rather from the devil, whom, as even a Christian, he had solemnly renounced, a title, on which he wishes for respect? One should think, that on the footing of common sense only, he ought to aim at a little consistency, and at that sort of respect, which is due to the sacred character he assumes. To set up for more, in any sense, than his Divine Master did while here, and to spunge on the faith of his parishioners for the materials of that pride and luxury against which he must declaim in the pulpit, only that he may swagger over the heads of other Christians, hath somewhat in it too preposterous, nay, too base, for the only dignity he values himself upon, that of a gentleman. The son of a king, or a lord, the moment he becomes a clergyman, becomes a servant, as Christ, Son to the King of kings, and Lord of lords did, when he took our nature upon him. It was in this nature, that he, exhibiting a proof of humility, infinitely exceeding all possibility in other men, of equal condescension, said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' What! a kingdom for the reward of humility! How can a minister of the gospel read this to others, over and over again, and never to himself? He can, it seems, without understanding one tittle of its meaning, for he is still a gentleman. A sorry gentleman indeed! whose income must die with him; and his family, after saucily indulging themselves in figure and luxury, must sink into indigence and contempt. A sorry gentleman, above the duties of his office, unfaithful to his Master, and now exposed to an account, inevitably terminating in everlasting infamy! Too proud to bear such behaviour in his servant, as he hath rendered to his God and master, how shall he stand the trial he is to undergo? Will he plead, he was a gentleman? What! an ungrateful, unfaithful, and trea