"Ye Gods! would you make the dear creature my wife, With thanks would I bow to you all; How smoothly would then run the wheels of my life, With my charming, my fair Hannah Ball. "But should my petition be flung from the skies, I'll take the bare bodkin or awl; Yes! the cold seal of Death shall be fix'd on my eyes,-- What's Life without fair Hannah Ball." This is a happy little satire on a vilage scandal. The Methodist parson and Roger were amongst the doctor's rustic neighbours. On a quarrel between Butler, the Methodist parson of Frampton, and Roger his clerk. Butler accused the clerk of stealing his liquors, and the clerk accused Butler of stealing his bacon. "Quoth good parson Butler to Rogers his clerk, 'How things come to light that are done in the dark! My wine is all pilfer'd,--a sad piece of work,-- But a word with thee, Richard--I see thou'rt no Turk.' "'What evil befall us!'--quoth Dick in reply, Whilst contempt methodistical glanced from his eye,-- 'My bacon's slipt off too--alas, sir! 'tis true, And the fact seems to whisper that--you are no Jew.'" The most daring of Jenner's epigrams, out of the scores that we have perused, is the following-- ON READING ADAM SMITH. "The priests may exclaim against cursing and swearing, And tell us such things are quite beyond bearing; But 'tis clear as the day their denouncing's a sham; For a thousand good things may be learnt from _Adam_." Babbage, in his "Decline of Science in England," has remarked that "some of the most valuable names which adorn the history of English science have been connected with this (the medical) profession." Of those names many have belonged to country doctors; amongst which Jenner has a conspicuous place.[22] [22] Medical readers will be amused with the following letter, written by Dr. Jenner, showing as it does the excess of caution with which he prepared his patients for the trifling operation of vaccination. "Sir,