THOSE who much read advertisement and bills,

Must have seen puffs of Cockle’s pills,

Which some physicians sneer at, supercilious,

But which we are assured, if timely taken,

Whether or not they really give one ease,

But no two things in union go like these,

Viz., quacks and pills—save ducks and pease.

Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,

Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,

And friends portended was preparing for

She was, indeed, so very far from well,

Her son, in filial fear, procured a box

Of those said pellets to resist bile’s shocks,

And, tho’ upon the ear it strangely knocks,

To save her by a Cockle from a shell!

But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,

Who very vehemently bids us “throw

Bark to the Bow-wows,” hated physic so,

It seem’d to share “the bitterness of death”:

Rhubarb, magnesia, jalap, and the kind,

Senna, steel, asafoetida, and squills,

Powder or draught; but least her throat inclined

To give a course to boluses or pills.

No, not to save her life, in lung or lobe,

For all her lights’ or liver’s sake,

Would her convulsive thorax undertake

Only one little uncelestial globe!

’Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,

If she put by the pill-box in a place

For linen rather than for drugs intended;

Yet, for the credit of the pills, let’s say,

But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint,

Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,

When lo! her second son, like elder brother,

Marking the hue on the parental gills,

Brought a new charge of Anti-turmeric Pills,

To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother;

Who took them—in her cupboard—like the other.

Till daughter W., newly come from Rome,

Acting the selfsame filial, pillial part,

To cure mamma, another dose brought home

Of Cockles—not the Cockles of her heart!

These going where the others went before,

Of course she had a very pretty store.

And then some hue of health her cheek adorning,

Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, “night and morning”;

Till, wanting room at last for other stocks,

Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d

The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d

The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks.

Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,

Was one great head of Kemble—that is, John—

Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on,

Little Dame W. thought, when through the sash

So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,

For thoughtless cock and unreflecting pullet!

But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,

Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,

And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.

They might as well have addled been, or rattled,

For long before the night—ah, woe betide

The pills!—each suicidal Bantam died,

Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,

And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,

With Bantam’s small ex-Emperor, the Cock,

In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,

Giving, undone by Cockle, a last cackle!

To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock,

It really was enough to move his block.

Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,

Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;

And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,

Burst out with natural emphasis enough,

Into that very speech of sad Macduff:

“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,

To see the poor lamented creatures cram!”

With razor he began to ope each craw,

Already turning black, as black as coals;

When lo! the undigested cause he saw—

To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,

Her window still stood open to conviction;

And by short course of circumstantial labour,

He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour.

Lord! how he rail’d at her, declaring how,

He’d bring an action ere next term of Hilary;

Then, in another moment, swore a vow

He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!

She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream

Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,

Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;

When up ran Betty with a dismal scream:

“Here’s Mr. Burrell, ma’am, with all his farmyard!”

Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,

With all the warmth that iron and a barber