Comprefs'd the flothful Naiad of the fens.
From fuch a mixture fprung, this fitful peft
With fev'rifh blasts fubdues the fick'ning land,
Cold tremors come, and mighty love of reft,
Convulfive yawnings, laffitude, and pains
That fting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;
Then parching heat fucceeds, till copious sweats
O'erflow a fhort relief from former ills.
Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine;
The vigor finks, the habit melts away;
The chearful, pure, and animated bloom
Dies from the face, with fqualid atrophy
Devour'd, in fallow melancholy clad.
And oft the forc'refs, in her fated wrath,
Refigns them to the furies of her train;
The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

:

In queft of fites, avoid the mournful plain, Where ofiers thrive, and trees that love the lake; Where many lazy muddy rivers flow: Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll Fix near the marshy margin of the main. For from the humid foil and watry rain Eternal vapours rife; the spungy air For ever weeps; or turgid with the weight Of waters, pours a founding deluge down. Skies fuch as thefe, let ev'ry mortal shun, Who dreads the dropfy, palfy, or the gout, Tertian, corrofive fcurvy, or moift catarrh Or any other injury that grows From raw-fpun fibres idle and unftrung, Skin ill-perfpiring, and the purple flood In languid eddies loit'ring into phlegm.

Yet not alone from humid fkies we pine; For air may be too dry. The fubtle heaven, That winnows into duft the blafted downs, Bare and extended wide without a ftream, Too faft imbibes th' attenuated lymph Which by the furface, from the blood exhales. The lungs grow rigid, and with toil effay Their flexible vibrations; or inflam'd,

:

Their tender ever-moving structure thaws,
Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood
A mass of lees remains, a droffy tide
That flow as Lethe wanders thro' the veins
Urractive in the services of life,
Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro'
The fecret mazy channels of the brain.
The melancholy fiend, (that worst despair
Of phyfic) hence the ruft-complexion'd man
Purfues, whofe blood is dry, whose fibres gain
Too ftretch'd a tone: And hence in climes aduft
So fudden tumults feize the trembling nerves,
And burning fevers glow with double rage.

Fly, if you can, thefe violent extremes
Of air; the wholesome is not moist nor dry,
But as the power of chufing is deny'd
To half mankind, a further task enfues;
How best to mitigate thefe fell extremes,
How breathe unhurt the withering element,.
Or hazy atmosphere.

He then reflects on the force of custom, and the friendly power of native air; which is fo great, that they who are born and nurtured in thofe countries where the air is efteem'd bad, not only live in health, but are often recover'd by their native air from disorders caught in more friendly climates. He advises those, however, who live in marshy, or woody countries, to drain the bogs, and clear away the trees, fo as to obtain a free circulation of air; and to pay at the same time a proper regard to diet, and exercise.

Mean time, at home with chearful fires difpel
The humid air: and let your table fmoke
With folid roaft or bak'd; or what the herds
Of tamer breed supply; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilfome pleasures of the chace.
Generous your wine, the boaft of rip'ning years,
But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,
Vapid and funk from yefterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.
But neither thefe nor all Apollo's arts,

Difarm the dangers of the dropping sky,
Unless with exercise and manly toil
You brace your nerves, and fpur the lagging blood.
-If droughty regions parch
The skin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning blood,
Deep in the waving foreft chufe your feat,
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air,
And wake the fountains from their fecret beds,
And into lakes dilate the running stream
Here fpread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moist relaxing vegetable store
Prevail in each repaft: your food fupplied
By bleeding life, be gently wafted down,
By foft decoction and a mellowing heat,
To liquid balm; or, if the folid mafs
You chufe, tormented in the boiling wave,
That thro' the thirsty channels of the blood
A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow:
The fragrant dairy from its cool recess
Its nectar acid or benign will pour

To drown your thirft; or let the mantling bowl
Of keen fherbet the fickle tafte relieve.
For with the viscous blood the fimple stream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft diffipate more moisture than they give.
Yet when pale seasons rife, or winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou may'it indulge
In feafts more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow calk. Then too the scourging air
Provokes to keener toils than fultry droughts
Allow.

And to those who would avoid an over-moist air, he lays down the following rules both for fituation and building; which are season'd with such reflections as render them more profitable, as well as more pleasing.

Mean time, the moist malignity to fhun

Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champaign
Swells into chearful hills; where marjoram
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;

And where the * Cynorrbodon with the rose
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty foil
Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the basking fteep
Afcend, there light thy hofpitable fires.
And let them fee the winter morn arise,
The fummer ev'ning blushing in the weft;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the bluft'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish east.
O! when the growling winds contend, and alk
The founding forests fluctuates in the ftorm,
To fink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar fleep.
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarfer ftrain.
Of waters rufhing o'er the flippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrofial reft.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is ftudied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the juft
And natural movements of th' harmonious frame.
Befides the sportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with incessant change
Of pureft element, refreshing still
Your airy feat.

He then recommends a dry house, but airy more than warm, because those who confine themfelves to warm rooms are, when abroad, extremely fubject to colds; the ceilings too fhould be lofty, and the windows at mid-day open'd to difcharge the foul air. He would have a funny fituation, where the windows open to the fouth, the excellency of which is proved from a confideration of the ftate plants are in when confined to a perpetual fhade, and this book he concludes with an Apoftrophe to the fun, which is truly fublime.

How fickly grow, How pale the plants in thofe ill-fated vales

*The wild rofe, or that which grows on the wild briar

That, circled round with the gigantic heap
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigour of the fun!
While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames
The verdant fpring; in virgin beauty blows
The tender lily, languifhingly fweet;
O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,
And autumn ripens in the fummer's ray.
Nor less the warmer living tribes demand
The foft'ring fun: whofe energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire; whofe gen'rous heat
Glows thro' the mafs of groffer elements,
And kindles into life the pond'rous spheres.
Chear'd by thy kind invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majesty of day!
If not the foul, the regent of this world,
First-born of heaven, and only less than God!

Diet, the fubject of the fecond book would not admit of fo much poetical ornament as the proceeding, yet this is not without its beauties. At the beginning the author fpeaks of the circulation of the blood, and of its continual wafte, which is fupplyed by fresh aliments reduced by the concoctive powers into chyle, and then into blood; and, before he enters on the rules of diet, makes this juft obfervation.

Nothing fo foreign but th' athletic hind
Can labour into blood. The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin;
By violent powers too easily subdu'd,
Too foon expell'd. His daily labour thaws,
To friendly chyle, the most rebellious mafs
That falt can harden, or the smoke of years;
Nor does his gorge the rancid bacon rue,
Nor that which Ceftria fends, tenacious pafte
Of folid milk.

This is follow'd by fome rules for the choice of food, in which the author obferves that liquid food, vegetables, and young animals, are eafieft of digeftion: But he inveighs against fuch animal food as is made fat by unnatural means.