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He bids the gazing throng around him fly, And carries fate and physic in his eye; A potent quack, long vers'd in human ills, Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy Bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect. Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies,Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes;And, some habitual queries hurried o'er, Without reply, he rushes on the door;His drooping patient, long inur'd to pain,And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases now the feeble help to craveOf man; and silent sinks into the grave. But ere his death some pious doubts arise, Some simple fears which "bold bad" men despise; Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove His title certain to the joys above;For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who callsThe holy stranger to these dismal walls;And doth not he, the pious man, appear,He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year?"Ah! no, a shepherd of a different stock,And far unlike him, feeds this little flock;A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task,As much as God or man can fairly ask;The rest he gives to loves and labours light,To fields the morning and to feasts the night;
