The wise pretend to make it clear,
'Tis no great loss to lose an ear.
Why are we then so fond of two,
When by experience one would do?
'Tis true, say they, cut off the head,
And there's an end; the man is dead;
Because, among all human race,
None e'er was known to have a brace:
But confidently they maintain,
That where we find the members twain,
The loss of one is no such trouble,
Since t'other will in strength be double.
The limb surviving, you may swear,
Becomes his brother's lawful heir:
Thus, for a trial, let me beg of
Your reverence but to cut one leg off,
And you shall find, by this device,
The other will be stronger twice;
For every day you shall be gaining
New vigour to the leg remaining.
So, when an eye has lost its brother,
You see the better with the other,
Cut off your hand, and you may do
With t'other hand the work of two:
Because the soul her power contracts,
And on the brother limb reacts.
But yet the point is not so clear in
Another case, the sense of hearing:
For, though the place of either ear
Be distant, as one head can bear,
Yet Galen most acutely shows you,
(Consult his book _de partium usu_)
That from each ear, as he observes,
There creep two auditory nerves,
Not to be seen without a glass,
Which near the _os petrosum_ pass;
Thence to the neck; and moving thorough there,
One goes to this, and one to t'other ear;
Which made my grandam always stuff her ears
Both right and left, as fellow-sufferers.
You see my learning; but, to shorten it,
When my left ear was deaf a fortnight,
To t'other ear I felt it coming on:
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon.
'Tis true, a glass will bring supplies
To weak, or old, or clouded eyes:
Your arms, though both your eyes were lost,
Would guard your nose against a post:
Without your legs, two legs of wood
Are stronger, and almost as good:
And as for hands, there have been those
Who, wanting both, have used their toes.[1]
But no contrivance yet appears
To furnish artificial ears.
[Footnote 1: There have been instances of a man's writing with his foot.
And I have seen a man, in India, who painted pictures, holding the brush
betwixt his toes. The work was not well done: the wonder was to see it
done at all.--_W. E. B._]
A QUIET LIFE AND A GOOD NAME
TO A FRIEND WHO MARRIED A SHREW. 1724
NELL scolded in so loud a din,
That Will durst hardly venture in:
He mark'd the conjugal dispute;
Nell roar'd incessant, Dick sat mute;
But, when he saw his friend appear,
Cried bravely, "Patience, good my dear!"
At sight of Will she bawl'd no more,
But hurried out and clapt the door.
Why, Dick! the devil's in thy Nell,
(Quoth Will,) thy house is worse than Hell.
Why what a peal the jade has rung!
D--n her, why don't you slit her tongue?
For nothing else will make it cease.
Dear Will, I suffer this for peace:
I never quarrel with my wife;
I bear it for a quiet life.
Scripture, you know, exhorts us to it;
Bids us to seek peace, and ensue it.
Will went again to visit Dick;
And entering in the very nick,
He saw virago Nell belabour,
With Dick's own staff, his peaceful neighbour.
Poor Will, who needs must interpose,
Received a brace or two of blows.
But now, to make my story short,
Will drew out Dick to take a quart.
Why, Dick, thy wife has devilish whims;
Ods-buds! why don't you break her limbs?
If she were mine, and had such tricks,
I'd teach her how to handle sticks:
Z--ds! I would ship her to Jamaica,[1]
Or truck the carrion for tobacco:
I'd send her far enough away----
Dear Will; but what would people say?
Lord! I should get so ill a name,
The neighbours round would cry out shame.
Dick suffer'd for his peace and credit;
But who believed him when he said it?
Can he, who makes himself a slave,
Consult his peace, or credit save?
Dick found it by his ill success,
His quiet small, his credit less.
She served him at the usual rate;
She stunn'd, and then she broke his pate:
And what he thought the hardest case,
The parish jeer'd him to his face;
Those men who wore the breeches least,
Call'd him a cuckold, fool, and beast.
At home he was pursued with noise;
Abroad was pester'd by the boys:
Within, his wife would break his bones:
Without, they pelted him with stones;
The 'prentices procured a riding,[2]
To act his patience and her chiding.
False patience and mistaken pride!
There are ten thousand Dicks beside;
Slaves to their quiet and good name,
Are used like Dick, and bear the blame.
[Footnote 1: See _post_, p. 200, "A beautiful young nymph."]
[Footnote 2: A performance got up by the rustics in some counties to
ridicule and shame a man who has been guilty of beating his wife (or in
this case, who has been beaten by her), by having a cart drawn through
the village, having in it two persons dressed to resemble the woman and
her master, and a supposed representation of the beating is inflicted,
enacted before the offender's door. "Notes and Queries," 1st S., ix,
370, 578.--_W. E. B._]
ADVICE TO THE GRUB-STREET VERSE-WRITERS
1726
Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried;
And Curll[1] must have a special care
To leave the margin wide.
Lend these to paper-sparing[2] Pope;
And when he sets to write,
No letter with an envelope
Could give him more delight.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
Why then recall your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
And swear they are your own.
[Footnote 1: The infamous piratical bookseller. See Pope's Works,
_passim.--W. E. B_.]
[Footnote 2: The original copy of Pope's celebrated translation of Homer
(preserved in the British Museum) is almost entirely written on the
covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters
themselves.]