Who felt the Mufe's pureft fires,
Far from thy favour'd haunt retires:
Who peopled all thy vocal bow'rs
With fhadowy fhapes and airy pow'rs.
Behold, a dread repofe refumes,
As erft, thy fad fequefter'd glooms!
From the deep dell, where thaggy roots
Fringe the rough brink with wreathed fhoots,
Th' unwilling genius flies forlorn,
His primrofe-chaplet rudely torn.
With hollow fhrick the nymphs forfake
The pathlefs copfe, and hedge-row brake.
Where the delv'd mountain's headlong fide
Its chalky entrails opens wide,

On the green fummit, ambush'd high,
No longer echo loves to lie.

No pearl-crown'd maids, with wily look,
Rife beck'ning from the reedy brook.

Around the glow-worm's glimm'ring bank,
No fairies run in fiery rank;
Nor bruth, half-feen, in airy tread,
The violet's unprinted head.
But Fancy, from the thickets brown,
The glades that wear a confcious frown,
The foreft-oaks, that pale and lone
Nod to the blaft with hoarfer tone,
Rough glens, and fullen waterfalls,
• Her bright ideal offspring calls.

So by fome fage inchanter's fpell,
(As old Arabian fablers tell)
Amid the folitary wild,

Luxuriant gardens gaily finil'd:

From fapphire rocks the fountains ftream'd,
With golden fruit the branches beam'd;
Fair forms, in ev'ry wondrous wood,
Or lightly tripp'd, or folemn ftood;
And oft, retreating from the view,
Betray'd, at diftance, beauties new:
While gleaming o'er the ciped bow'rs
Rich fpires arole, and fparkling tow'rs.
If bound on fervice new to go,
The master of the magic fhow
His tranfitory charm withdrew,
Away th' illufive landscape flew :
Dun clouds obfcur'd the groves of gold,
Blue lightning fmote the blooming mold:
In vifionary glory rear'd,
The gorgeous cattle difappear'd:
And a bare heath's unfruitful plain
Ufurp'd the wizard's proud domain.

§ 72. The Art of preferving Health. ARMSTRONG.

BOOK I. AIR.

DAUGHTER of Peon, queen of ev'ry joy,
Hygeia; whofe indulgent fmile fuftains
The various race luxuriant nature pours,
And on th' immortal effences bestows
Immortal youth; aufpicious, O defcend!
Thou, cheerful guardian of the rolling year,

Whether thou wanton'ft on the western gale,
Or fhak'ft the rigid pinions of the north,
Diffufeft life and vigour thro' the tracts
Of air, thro' earth, and ocean's deep domain.
When thro' the blue ferenity of heaven
Thy pow'r approaches, all the wasteful hoft
Of pain and fickness, fqualid and deform'd,
Confounded fink into the loathfome gloom,
Where in deep Erebus invoiv'd the finds
Grow more profane. Whatever thapes of death,
Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,
Swarm thro' the fhuddering air: whatever plagues
Or meagre famine breeds, or with flow wings
Rife from the putrid wat'ry element,

The damp wafte forest, motionless and rank,
That fmothers carth and all the breathless winds,
Or the vile carnage of th' inhuman field;
Whatever baneful breathes the rotten fouth
Whatever ills th' extremes or fudden change
Of cold and hot, or moift and dry produce;
They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and all
The fecret poilons of avenging Heaven,
And all the pale tribes halting in the train
Of vice and heedlefs pleafure: or if aught
The comet's glare amid the burning sky,
Mournful eclipfe, or planets ill-combin'd,
Portend difaftrous to the vital world,
Thy falutary pow'r averts their rage,
Averts the general bane: and but for thee
Nature would ficken, nature foon would die.
Without thy cheerful active energy

No rapture fwells the breaft, no poet fings,
No more the maids of Helicon delight.
Come then with me, O goddess, heavenly-gay!
Begin the fong; and let it sweetly flow,
And let it wifely teach thy wholefome laws:
How beft the fickle fabric to fupport
Of mortal man; in healthful body how
A healthful mind the longest to maintain.'
'Tis hard, in fuch a ftrife of rules, to chufe
The beft, and thofe of most extenfive ufe;
Harder in clear and animated fong
Dry philofophic precepts to convey.
Yet with thy aid the fecret wilds I trace
Of Nature, and with daring fteps proceed
Thro' paths the Mufes never trod before.

Nor fhould I wander doubtful of my way,
Had I the lights of that fagacious mind
Which taught to check the peftilential fire,
And quell the deadly Python of the Nile.
O thou, belov'd by all the graceful arts,
Thou, long the fav'rite of the healing pow'rs,
Indulge, O Mead! a w ell-defign'd citay,
Howe'er imperfect; and permit that I
My little knowledge with my country fhare,
Till you the rich Afclepian ftores unlock,
And with new graces dignify the theme.

Ye who amid this feverish world would wear

A body free of pain, of cares a mind,
Fly the rank city, fhun its turbid air;

Hygeia, the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the heathen deities, the daughter of fculapius; who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name of Pæon.

B.eathe

Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, fick'ning, and the living world
Exhal'd, to fully heaven's tranfparent dome
With dim mortality. It is not Air

That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,|
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,
The fpoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature, when from shape and texture she
Relapfes into fighting elements:

It is not Air, but floats a naufeous mafs
Of all obfcene, corrupt, offenfive things.
Much moisture hurts; but here a fordid bath,
With oily rancour fraught, relaxes more
The folid frame than fimple moisture can.
Befides, immur'd in many a fullen bay
That never felt the freshness of the breeze,
This flumbering Deep remains, and ranker grows
With fickly rett: and (tho' the lungs abhor
To drink the dun fuliginous abyfs)
Did not the acid vigour of the mine,
Roll'd from fo many thundering chimneys, tame
The putrid fteams that over-fwarm the sky,
This cauftic venom would perhaps corrode
Those tender cells that draw the vital air,
In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew'd;
Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn
In countless pores o'er all the pervious fkin,
Imbib'd, would poifon the balfamic blood,
And roufe the heart to ev'ry fever's rage.
While yet you breathe, away! the rural wilds
Invite, the mountains call you, and the vales;
The woods, the streams, and each ambrofial breeze
That fans the ever-undulating fky; ̧

A kindly fky! whofe foftering pow'r regales
Man, beaft, and all the vegetable reign.
Find then fome woodland scene where Nature smiles
Benign, where all her honeft children thrive.
To us there wants not many a happy feat;

From fuch a mixture fprung, this fitful pest
With feverish blafts fubdues the fick'ning land:
Cold tremors come, with mighty love of reft,
Convulfive yawnings, laffitude, and pains
That fting the burthen'd brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints, and ev'ry torpid limb;
Then parching heat fucceeds, till copious sweats
O'erflow: a fhort relief from former ills.
Beneath repeated fhocks the wretches pine:
The vigour finks, the habit melts away;
The cheerful, pure, and animated bloom
Dies from the face with fqualid atrophy
Devour'd, in fallow melancholy clad.
And oft the forcerefs, in her fated wrath,
Refigns them to the furies of her train;
The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Tinged 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 wat'ry reign,
Eternal vapours rife; the fpungy air
For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight
Of waters, pours a founding deluge down.
Skies fuch as thefe let ev'ry mortal fhun
Who dreads the droply, 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 stream,
Too faft imbibes th' attenuated lymph,
Which, by the furface, from the blood exhales.

Look round the fming land, fuch numbers rife The lungs grow rigid, and with toil effay

We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice.
See where, enthron'd in adamantine state,
Proud of her bards, imperial Windfor fits;
There choose thy feat, in fome afpiring grove
Faft by the flowly-winding Thames; or where
Broader the laves fair Richmond's green retreats
(Richmond, that fees an hundred villas rife
Rural or gay). Oh! from the fummer's rage,
Oh! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides
Umbrageous Ham! But, if the bufy Town
Attract thee still to toil for pow'r or gold,
Sweetly thou may'ft thy vacant hours poffefs
In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;
Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;
Or lose the world amid the fylvan wilds
Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd.
Green rife the Kentifh hills in cheerful air;
But on the marshy plains that Effex spreads
Build not, nor rett too long thy wandering feet.
For on a ruftic throne of dewy turf,
With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there prefides: a meagre fiend,
Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force
Compreis'd the flothful Naiad of the fens.

Their flexible vibrations; or inflam'd,
Their tender ever-moving ftructure thaws.
Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood
A mafs of lees remains, a droffy tide
That flow as Lethe wanders thro' the veins;
Unactive in the fervices 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, whole blood is dry, whofe 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 whole fome is nor moist nor dry.
But as the pow'r of choofing is denied
To half mankind, a further tafk enfues;
How beft to mitigate thefe fell extremes,
How breathe unhurt the withering element,
Or hazy atmosphere: tho' cuftom moulds
To ev'ry clime the foft Promethean clay;
And he who firft the fogs of Effex breath'd
(So kind is native air) may in the fens

Of Effex from inveterate ills revive
At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.
But, if the raw and oozy heaven offend,
Correct the foil, and dry the fources up
Of wat'ry exhalation; wide and deep
Conduct your trenches thro' the quaking bog:
Solicitous, with all your winding arts,
Betray th' unwilling lake into the stream;
And weed the foreft, and invoke the winds
To break the toils where ftrangled vapours lie;
Or thro' the thickets fend the crackling flames.
Meantime, at home with cheerful fires difpel
The humid air: and let your table fmoke
With folid roaft or bak'd; or what the herds
Oftamer breed fupply; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilfome pleafures of the chace.
Generous your wine, the boaft of rip'ning years,
But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,
Vapid and funk from yesterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of wat'ry heavens.
But neither thefe, nor all Apollo's arts,
Difarm the dangers of the dropping sky,
Unless with exercife and manly toil

You brace your nerves, and fpur the lagging blood.
The fatt'ning clime let all the fons of cate
Avoid; if indolence would wish to live,
Go, yawn and loiter out the long flow year
In fairer fkies. If droughty regions parch
The skin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning blood,
Deep in the waving foreft choose your feat,
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;
And wake the fountains from their fecret beds,
And into lakes dilate the rapid stream.
Here fpread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moift relaxing vegetable ftore
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 choofe, tormented in the boiling wave;
That through the thirty channels of the blood
A fmooth diluted chyle may ever flow.
The fragrant dairy from its cold recefs
Its nectar acid or benign will pour

To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl
Of keen fherbet the fickle taste relieve.
For with the viscous blood the fimple ftream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft diffipate more moisture than they give.
Yet when pale feafons rife, or winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou nay'ft indulge
In feaft more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow calk. Then too the fcourging air
Provokes to keener toils than fultry droughts
Allow. But rarely we fuch fkies blafpheme.
Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs
Bedew'd, our feafons droop: incumbent still
A pond'rous heaven o'erwhelms the finking foul:
Lab'ring with ftorms, in heapy mountains rife
Th' embattled clouds, as if the Stygian fhades
Had left the dungeon of eternal night,

Till black with thunder all the South defcends.

Scarce in a fhow'rlefs day the heavens indulge
Our melting clime; except the baleful Eaft
Withers the tender fpring, and fourly checks
The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk
Of fummers, balmy airs, and fkies ferene.
Good Heaven! for what unexpiated crimes
This difmal change! The brooding elements
Do they, your pow'rful ministers of wrath,
Prepare fome fierce exterminating plague ?
Or is it fix'd in the decrees above

That lofty Albion melt into the main ?
Indulgent nature! O diffolve this gloom !
Bind in eternal adamant the winds
That drown or wither: give the genial Weft
To breathe, and in its turn the fprightly North:
And may once more the circling featons rule
The year; not mix in ev'ry monstrous day !

*

Meantime, the moift malignity to fhun
Of burthen'd skies, mark where the dry champaign
Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the cynorrhodon with the refe
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty fol
Moft fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the baking steep
Afcend; there light thy hofpitable fires,
And let them fee the winter morn arise;
The fummer evening 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 eaft.
Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all
The founding foreft 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 ruthing 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.
Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air, that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with inceffant change
Of pureft element, refreshing still
Your airy feat, and uninfected gods.
Chiefly for this I praife the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whofe lofty sides
Th' ethereal deep with endless billows chafes.
His purer manfion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

But may no fogs, from lake or funny plain,
Involve my hill! And wherefoe'r you build;
Whether on fun-burnt Epfom, or the plains
Wafh'd by the filent Lee; in Chelfea low,
Or high Blackheath with wint'ry winds affail'd,
Dry be your houfe; but airy more than warm,
Elfe ev'ry breath or ruder wind will ftrike
Your tender body thro' with rapid pains;

The wild rofe, or that which grows on the common brier.

Fierce coughs will tease you, hoarseness bind your Daily with fresh materials to repair