L'ENVOY OF THE POET.

Refinement ne'er is look'd for in the hind, But when the great in birth and title fail; They ne'er can hope respect and love to find; For lowly fools 'gainst noble fools will rail.

THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS.

Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis.

SECTION XLIX.

OF THE DISEASED FOOL, THAT WILL NOT

. ATTEND TO HIS PHYSICIAN.

Crudelem medicum intemperans æger facit.

"WHAT ails thee fool ?" some friend doth cry, "I'm passing sick, and like to die;" "What's thy disorder?"—" Bile and rheum," "Thou hast a doctor I presume?"

"A doctor, yes; who sends me oceans, "But I ne'er take his filthy potions*."

This folly is the more unaccountable, as it is certain to terminate finally in that event which is the most dreaded by every class of fools; so that it may certainly be said, the foolery brings with it the reward of its folly; but, speaking of sickness, who can call to mind these beautiful lines of Shakspeare, and not allow their sterling merit.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office,

Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind, To suffer with the body.

The fev'rish fool thus having said,
Rising with hectic cough in bed;
Pulls loud the bell-in John doth steal,
And to his master takes the meal;

When, lo, to cure this sick man's croaking,
A roast duck stuff'd appears quite smoking.

Astonish'd at so strange a sight,
And wond'ring at his appetite;

The friend exclaims, "Why, this is fuel!" "To quench thy fever, take some gruel;" "Pshaw !" cries the fool, "'tis vain entreating, "I'll rather die than quit good eating."

A week transpires, the sick fool's worse,
The knocker's ty'd, he's got a nurse;
Another comes, his situation
Demands physicians' consultation

A third ensues, there ends all scoffing,
He's safe screw'd up in sable coffin *.

* There is another folly, which, when opposed to that at present under consideration, is no less ridiculous. It consists in placing too much reliance on physical; aid a very curious instance of which is related by the French historians, in the person of the savage Lewis XI. who,

L'ENVOY OF THE POET.

Why, if advice thou wilt not heed,
Need'st thou for a physician send?
If thou wilt act thyself the deed,

The doctor can't prolong thine end.

while he inflicted tortures on hundreds, was himself even more afflicted; for we are informed, that he was so much the slave of one Jacques Coctier, his physician, that he suffered at his hands the most insolent and threatening language; conceiving that his life was solely preserved to him by the skill he professed; and Jacques Coctier, on such occasions would increase the horrors of the monarch, by exclaiming-" Je sçais que vous me donnerez mon congé, comme vous l'avez donné a d'autres; then, rolling his eyes and swearing, he would add, “ mais vous ne vivrez pas huit jours apres." Upon which, the king would humbly crave mercy, and submit to any degradation. But at this conduct of Coctier to his sovereign we need not be surprised, when we are told by Gaguin, in his Latin history, that the wretch did not scruple to order as remedies for his royal patient, the warm blood of infants to drink, as well as to bathe in. That the reader, however, may learn the consummate folly of this monarch, in its full extent, it is necessary to add, that when he found the powers of medicine fail, Al mal mortale né medicar, nè medècina vale,

THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS.

Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis.

he sent for a very pious hermit, called François Martotille, whom he received with as much ceremony as if he had been the sovereign Pontiff, and to this pious old man he prostrated himself to earth, supplicating by promises and gifts that he would intercede with Heaven, to grant him a prolongation of existence; but Martotille being too honest to profit by this foolery of the king, exhorted him, on the contrary, rather to think of the world to come, than the present state of existence; which advice was far from the monarch's wish, who therefore dismissed the hermit, and as à dernier resort, being wrought upon by superstitious timidity, he literally caused various relics of saints to be arranged around his bed (which were not only brought from different parts of his own dominions, but procured at an enormous expense from Rome and Constantinople) by means of which, he conceived, that the approach of death would be barred from him. It is merely necessary to add, that the punition Lewis XI. thus experienced, seemed but a manifestation of the just vengeance of Omnipotence, for the sanguinary proceedings which characterized the reign of that monarch.