So when PROMETHEUS braved the Thunderer's ire, 370 Stole from his blazing throne etherial fire, And, lantern'd in his breast, from realms of day Bore the bright treasure to his Man of clay;-- High on cold Caucasus by VULCAN bound, The lean impatient Vulture fluttering round, 375 His writhing limbs in vain he twists and strains To break or loose the adamantine chains. The gluttonous bird, exulting in his pangs, Tears his swoln liver with remorseless fangs. [_Prometheus_, l. 369. The antient story of Prometheus, who concealed in his bosom the fire he had stolen, and afterwards had a vulture perpetually gnawing his liver, affords so apt an allegory for the effects of drinking spirituous liquors, that one should be induced to think the art of distillation, as well as some other chemical processes (such as calcining gold), had been known in times of great antiquity, and lost again. The swallowing drams cannot be better represented in hieroglyphic language than by taking fire into one's bosom; and certain it is, that the general effect of drinking fermented or spirituous liquors is an inflamed, schirrous, or paralytic liver, with its various critical or consequential diseases, as leprous eruptions on the face, gout, dropsy, epilepsy, insanity. It is remarkable, that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation; gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct.] The gentle CYCLAMEN with dewy eye 380 Breathes o'er her lifeless babe the parting sigh; And, bending low to earth, with pious hands Inhumes her dear Departed in the sands. "Sweet Nursling! withering in thy tender hour, "Oh, sleep," She cries, "and rise a fairer flower!" 385 --So when the Plague o'er London's gasping crowds Shook her dank wing, and steer'd her murky clouds; When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read, No dirge slow-chanted, and no pall out-spread; While Death and Night piled up the naked throng, 390 And Silence drove their ebon cars along; Six lovely daughters, and their father, swept To the throng'd grave CLEONE saw, and wept; [_Cyclamen_. 1. 379. Shew-bread, or Sow-bread. When the seeds are ripe, the stalk of the flower gradually twists itself spirally downwards, till it touches the ground, and forcibly penetrating the earth lodges its seeds; which are thought to receive nourishment from the parent root, as they are said not to be made to grow in any other situation.