"His divination foil'd; the slaughtering blade "Scarce quits its paly hue, and the light sand "Scarce blushes with the thin and meagre blood. "Hence o'er the pasture rich and plenteous stalls "The tender herd in fragrant sighs expire; "Fell madness seizes the domestic dog ; "The pursy swine heave with repeated groans, The fatal ill prevails; with anguish stung "Raging he stamps, his ears hang down relax'd; "Sometimes an intermitting sweat breaks forth, "Cold ever at th' approach of death; again "The dry and staring hide grows stiff and hard, "Scorch'd and impasted with the feverish heat. "Such the first signs of ruin, but at length "When the accomplish'd and mature disease "With its collected and full vigour works, "The red'ning eye-balls glow with baneful fire, "The deep and hollow breath with frequent groans, "Piteous variety-! is sorely mix'd, "And long-drawn sighs distend the labouring sides: "Then forth the porches of the nose descends, "As from a conduit, blood defil'd and black, "And 'twixt the glew'd and unresolved jaws "The rough and clammy tongue sticks fast-at first "With generous wine they drench'd the closing throat "Sole antidote, worse bane at last-for then "Dire madness-such as the just Gods to none "Save to the bad consign!-at the last pang "The lab'ring ox, while o'er the furrow'd land "Where the fix'd ploughshare points the luckless spot. "The shady covert, where the lofty trees "Form cool retreat, the lawns, whose springing herb "Yields food ambrosial, the transparent stream, "Which o'er the jutting stones to th' neighb'ring mead "Takes its fantastic course, these now no more "Delight, as they were wont, rather afflict, "With him they cheer'd, with him their joys expir'd, "Joys only in participation dear: "Famine instead stares in his hollow sides, "His leaden eye-balls, motionless and fix'd, "Sleep in their sockets, his unnerved neck "Hangs drooping down, death lays his load upon him, "And bows him to the ground-what now avail "His useful toils, his life of service past? "What though full oft he turn'd the stubborn glebe, "The ills of riot and intemperate draughts, "To crop the savoury leaf, from the clear spring, "They slake their sober thirst, their sweet repose 'Twas then great Juno's altar ceas'd to smoke "The various wreck: the farthest rivers felt "The vast discharge and swarm'd with monstrous shapes. "In vain the viper builds his mazy cell; "Death follows him through all his wiles: in vain "Whilst pale Tisiphone, come fresh from hell, Her dread commission, rages all abroad, "And lifts herself on ruin day by day "More and more high. The hollow banks resound, "The winding streams and hanging hills repeat "Loud groans from ev'ry herd, from ev'ry fold "Deep under ground the foul offensive stench: "A vile and lep'rous tetter bark'd about "But in the sacred fire consum'd and died." A great and heavy affliction now befel my parents and myself. A short time before my holidays in autumn my father and mother came to town, and brought my eldest sister Joanna with them, a very lovely girl then in her se venteenth year. She caught the small pox, and died in the house of the Reverend Doctor Cutts Barton, Rector of Saint Andrew's Holborn, who kindly permitted my father to remove thither, when she sickened with that cruel disease. She was truly most engaging in her person, and, though much admired, her manners were extremely modest, and her temper mild and gentle. When I first visited her, after the symptoms of the disease were upon her, she told me she was persuaded she had caught the small pox, and that it would be fatal to her. Her augury was too true; it was confluent, and assistance was in vain; the regimen then followed was exactly contrary to the present improved method of treating that disease, which, when it had kept her in torments for eleven days, having effectually destroyed her beauty, finally put an end to her life. My father, who tenderly loved her, submitted to the afflicting dispensation in silent sadness, never venting a complaint; my mother's sorrows were not under such controul, and as to me, devoted to her as I had been from my cradle, the shock appeared to threaten me with such consequences, that my father resolved upon |