  By George Pickering, late of Newcastle. Turks, Infidels, Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Tartars, Kings, Princes, Queens, Nobles, and Bishops, I pray; Ye Hottentots too, who to neatness are martyrs, Attend for a while to my wonderful lay. At Chester, they tell, Is discover’d a well, Which eases in man as in beast ev’ry torture; Hyp, glanders, and evil, It sends to the devil, And silence has seal’d up the pestle and mortar. Oh Chester, Oh Chester! When maladies pester, Thy liquid Catholicon eases our pain! Mad Turks, Jews, Philistines, Mad Quakers and Christians, Are dipp’d into peace and good order again. No more of old Bath, oh ye medical asses! With nose-kissing cane, and your full bottom’d wigs; The Chester Well water in virtue surpasses; Tho’ Bath cur’d the scab in prince Lud and his pigs. Since the days of old Adam, Or Eve, lovely madam, No well was e’er found fit for drinking till now: As the liquid ye glut, ’Tis as sweet as a nut, While Bath’s an emetic for boar, pig, or sow. Oh Chester, &c. The maiden who flies to her pillow in sorrow, Who wakes with a sigh to the music of day; By tasting to-night, may be happy to-morrow, And warble as blythe as the birds on the spray. The tear shall cease flowing, Her heart cease its glowing, For plighted troth broken, no longer complain; The bow and the dart, That occasion’d her smart, ’Squire Cupid may twang, but their twanging be vain. Oh Chester, &c. And oh let the damsel, whose ringlets appear To be mournfully silvering over with grey; Who sees in her glass, with dejection and fear, That Time’s with’ring hand bids her beauties decay: Ne’er let her be fretful, But drink and be cheerful, The stream both her thirst and her grief shall assuage: No more let her mourn, For her bloom shall return, She shall cast off the sad, sober liv’ry of age. Oh Chester, &c. The gouty old blades who have drank the clear liquid, Have snapp’d the fir crutches at seventy-seven; And into the skulls, long incurably stupid, A portion of good common-sense has been driv’n. E’en the nose of the sot, As a heater red hot, Or a flaming balloon which philosophy rears, When dipt in the water, The luminous matter Goes out with a hiss, and the blaze disappears. Oh Chester, &c. Then haste to the Well, both exotic and native, A dip and a drink all your sorrows will root out; Ye too who have groan’d ’neath the knife amputative, Go plunge, and your heads, legs, et cet’ra, shall sprout out: The tribe of empirics, Shall howl in hysterics, And man shall untortur’d fall into decay: The pill and the potion, The ungent and lotion, In box and in bottle shall moulder away, Oh Chester, &c. |
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