She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul, But went to heaven in as sincere a way As any body on the elected roll, Which portions out upon the judgment day Heaven’s freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll, Such as the conqueror William did repay His knights with, lotting others’ properties Into some sixty thousand new knights’ fees. I can’t complain, whose ancestors are there, Erneis, Radulphus—eight-and-forty manors (If that my memory doth not greatly err) Were their reward for following Billy’s banners: And though I can’t help thinking ’twas scarce fair To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners; Yet as they founded churches with the produce, You’ll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use. The gentle Juan flourish’d, though at times He felt like other plants called sensitive, Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes, Save such as Southey can afford to give. Perhaps he long’d in bitter frosts for climes In which the Neva’s ice would cease to live Before May-day: perhaps, despite his duty, In royalty’s vast arms he sigh’d for beauty: Perhaps—but, sans perhaps, we need not seek For causes young or old: the canker-worm Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek, As well as further drain the wither’d form: Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week His bills in, and however we may storm, They must be paid: though six days smoothly run, The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun. I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick: The empress was alarm’d, and her physician (The same who physick’d Peter) found the tick Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition Which augur’d of the dead, however quick Itself, and show’d a feverish disposition; At which the whole court was extremely troubled, The sovereign shock’d, and all his medicines doubled. Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours: Some said he had been poison’d by Potemkin; Others talk’d learnedly of certain tumours, Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin; Some said ’twas a concoction of the humours, Which with the blood too readily will claim kin; Others again were ready to maintain, ‘’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.’ But here is one prescription out of many: ‘Sodae sulphat. ʒvj., ʒss. Mannae optim. Aq. fervent. f. ℥iss. ʒij. tinct. Sennae Haustus’ (And here the surgeon came and cupp’d him) ‘℞ Pulv. Com gr. iij. Ipecacuanhae’ (With more beside if Juan had not stopp’d ’em). ‘Bolus Potassae Sulphuret. sumendus, Et haustus ter in die capiendus.’ This is the way physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer: While that ‘hiatus maxime deflendus’ To be fill’d up by spade or mattock’s near, Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.