Fashion's ours.

OOD hours!-Fine words!-But was it ever seen
That all men could agree in what they mean?
Florio, who many years a course hath run

In downright opposition to the sun,
Expatiates on "good hours," their cause defends
With as much vigour as our prudent friends.

Th' uncertain term no settled notion brings,
But still in different mouths means different things;
Each takes the phrase in his own private view:
With prudence it is ten, with Florio two.
Go on, ye fools, who talk for talking's sake,
Without distinguishing, distinctions make,

24 2

Shine forth in native folly, native pride,
Make yourself rules to all the world beside.
Reason, collected in herself, disdains

The slavish yoke of arbitrary chains;

Steady and true, each circumstance she weighs,
Nor to bare words inglorious tribute pays.
Men of sense live exempt from vulgar awe,
And Reason to herself alone is law.
That freedom she enjoys with liberal mind,
Which she as freely grants to all mankind.
No idol titled name her reverence stirs,
No hour she blindly to the rest prefers;
All are alike, if they 're alike employed,
And all are good, if virtuously enjoyed.

Let the sage doctor,-think him one we know,—
With scraps of ancient learning overflow,
In all the dignity of wig declare

The fatal consequence of midnight air,

How damps and vapours, as it were by stealth,
Undermine life, and sap the walls of health.

For me let Galen moulder on the shelf,

I'll live, and be physician to myself.

While soul is joined to body, whether Fate
Allot a longer or a shorter date,

I'll make them live as brother should with brother,
And keep them in good humour with each other.

The surest road to health, say what they will,

Is never to suppose we shall be ill.

Most of those evils we poor mortals know,
From doctors and imagination flow.

Hence to old women with your boasted rules,
Stale traps, and only sacred now to fools!
As well may sons of physic hope to find
One med'cine, as one hour, for all mankind.

If Rupert after ten is out of bed,

The fool next morning can't hold up his head.
What reason this which me to bed must call,
Whose head, thank Heaven! never aches at all?
In different courses different tempers run:
He hates the moon; I sicken at the sun.

Wound up at twelve at noon, his clock goes right;
Mine better goes, wound up at twelve at night.