THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: A POEM. [Illustration] _LONDON_: Printed for A. MILLAR, opposite to _Katharine-Street_ in the _Strand_. MDCCXLIV. [Price Four Shillings sewed.] THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH. BOOK I. AIR. Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy, HYGEIA[1]; whose indulgent smile sustains The various race luxuriant nature pours, And on th’ immortal essences bestows Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend! 5 Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year, Whether thou wanton’st on the western gale, Or shak’st the rigid pinions of the north, Diffusest life and vigour thro’ the tracts Of air, thro’ earth, and ocean’s deep domain. 10 When thro’ the blue serenity of heav’n Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host Of pain and sickness, squallid and deform’d, Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom, Where in deep Erebus involv’d the fiends 15 Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death, Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe, Swarm thro’ the shuddering air: whatever plagues Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings Rise from the putrid watry element, 20 The damp waste forest, motionless and rank, That smothers earth and all the breathless winds, Or the vile carnage of th’ inhuman field; Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south; Whatever ills th’ extremes or sudden change 25 Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce; They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and all The secret poisons of avenging heaven, And all the pale tribes halting in the train Of vice and heedless pleasure: or if aught 30 The comet’s glare amid the burning sky, Mournful eclipse, or planets ill-combin’d, Portend disastrous to the vital world; Thy salutary power averts their rage, Averts the general bane: and but for thee 35 Nature would sicken, nature soon would die. Without thy chearful active energy No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings, No more the maids of Helicon delight. Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay! 40 Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow, And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws: “How best the fickle fabric to support “Of mortal man; in healthful body how “A healthful mind the longest to maintain.” 45 ’Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse The best, and those of most extensive use; Harder in clear and animated song Dry philosophic precepts to convey. Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace 50 Of nature, and with daring steps proceed Thro’ paths the muses never trod before.