This is not meant as a "cut" at that standard medicine named therein which has wrought such good in its day; but is a satire on quack advertising generally. The more worthless the nostrum, the more universal the advertising of it, such is the moral of Hood's satire.
THOSE who much read advertisements and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills,
Call'd Anti-bilious-
Which some physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
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
A human pâté périgord;
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-Assa-foetida, 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 all her 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
After they thus were stow'd away,
Some of the linen mended;
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-tumeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother-
Who took them-in her cupboard-like the other.
"Deeper and deeper still", of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W. newly come from Rome,
Acting the self-same 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,
The medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she 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,—
A little Barber of a by-gone day,
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,
And twenty little Bantam fowls-with crops. Little Dame W. thought when through the sash She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
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 ratted,
For long before the night—ah woe betide
The Pills! each suicidal Bantam died
Unfatted!
Think of poor Burrel's shock,
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 un'live 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,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff— "What!-all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
Just when I'd bought a coop
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!"
After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw—
"Pison'd by goles!"
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 barbe
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather,
Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking;
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry "going down ten couple".
Now birds by poison slain,
As venom'd dart from Indian's hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.'s thrift,—
She had a thrifty vein,
Destined one pair for supper to make shift,--
Supper as usual at the hour of ten:
But ten o'clock arrived and quickly pass'd,
Eleven-twelve-and one o'clock at last,
Without a sign of supper even then!
At length the speed of cookery to quicken,
Betty was called, and with reluctant feet,
Came up at a white heat-
"Well, never I see chicken like them chicken!
My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in 'em!
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that,
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat
Those Anti-biling Pills! there is no bile in 'em!"
LXII. THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S TRIP TO
This is one of the numerous jeux d'esprit in which Macaulay, in his earlier years, indulged at election times. It was written in 1827.
SI sate down to breakfast in state,
At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring,
With Betty beside me to wait,
Came a rap that almost beat the door in.
I laid down my basin of tea,
And Betty ceased spreading the toast,
"As sure as a gun, sir," said she,
"That must be the knock of the Post". (M 569)
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