Flush’d with success, Beyond all hope or guess, His new dead robbery upon his back, Bunce plotted--such high flights ambition takes,-- To treat the Faculty like ducks and drakes, And sell them all ere they could utter “Quack!” But fate opposed. According to the schools, When men become insufferably bad, The gods confer to drive them mad; March hairs upon the heads of April fools! Tempted by the old demon avaricious, Bunce traded on too far into the morning; Till nods, and winks, and looks, and signs suspicious, Ev’n words malicious, Forced on him rather an unpleasant warning. Glad was he to perceive, beside a wicket, A porter, ornamented with a ticket, Who did not seem to be at all too busy-- “Here, my good man, Just show me, if you can, A doctor’s--if you want to earn a tizzy!” Away the porter marches, And with grave face, obsequious precedes him, Down crooked lanes, round corners, under arches; At last, up an old-fashion’d staircase leads him, Almost impervious to the morning ray, Then shows a door--“There, that’s a doctor’s reckon’d, A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come second-- Good day.” “I’m right,” thought Bunce, “as any trivet; Another venture--and then up I give it!” He rings--the door, just like a fairy portal, Opens untouch’d by mortal---- He gropes his way into a dingy room, And hears a voice come growling through the gloom, “Well--eh?--Who? What?--Speak out at once!” “I will,” says Bunce. “I’ve got a sort of article to sell; Medical gemmen knows me very well--” But think Imagination how it shock’d her To hear the voice roar out, “Death! Devil! d--n! Confound the vagabond, he thinks I am A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor!” “No Doctor!” exclaim’d Bunce, and dropp’d his jaw, But louder still the voice began to bellow, “Yes,--yes,--odd zounds!--I _am_ a Doctor, fellow, At law!” The word sufficed.--Of things Bunce feared the most (Next to a ghost) Was law,--or any of the legal corps,-- He dropp’d at once his load of flesh and bone, And, caring for no body, save his own, Bolted,--and lived securely till fourscore, From never troubling Doctors any more! A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.