This picture then—­which some have thought
By far the best I ever wrought—­
Observe it well with critick ken;
’Tis Daniel in the Lion’s Den.—­
’Tis flesh itself! exclaim’d a Critick. 
But why make Daniel paralytick? 
His limbs and features are distorted. 
And then his legs are badly sorted. 
’Tis true, a miracle you’ve hit,
But not as told in Holy Writ;
For there the miracle was braving,
With bones unbroke, the Lion’s craving;
But yours (what ne’er could man befall)
That he should live with none at all.—­
And pray, inquir’d another spectre,
What Mufti’s that at pious lecture? 
That’s Socrates, condemned to die;
He next, in sable, standing by,
Is Galen[5], come to save his friend,
If possible, from such an end;
The other figures, group’d around,
His Scholars, wrapt in woe profound.—­
And am I like to this portray’d? 
Exclaim’d the Sage’s smiling Shade. 
Good Sir, I never knew before
That I a Turkish turban wore,
Or mantle hemm’d with golden stitches,
Much less a pair of satin breeches;
But as for him in sable clad,
Though wond’rous kind, ’twas rather mad
To visit one like me forlorn,
So long before himself was born. 
And what’s the next? inquir’d a third;
A jolly blade upon my word!—­
’Tis Alexander, Philip’s son,
Lamenting o’er his battles won;
That now his mighty toils are o’er,
The world has nought to conquer more. 
At which, forth stalking from the host,
Before them stood the Hero’s Ghost—­
Was that, said he, my earthly form,
The Genius of the battle-storm? 
From top to toe the figure’s Dutch! 
Alas, my friend, had I been such,
Had I that fat and meaty skull,
Those bloated cheeks, and eyes so dull,
That driv’ling mouth, and bottle nose,
Those shambling legs, and gouty toes;
Thus form’d to snore throughout the day,—­
And eat and drink the night away;
I ne’er had felt the fev’rish flame
That caus’d my bloody thirst for fame;
Nor madly claim’d immortal birth,
Because the vilest brute on Earth: 
And, oh!  I’d not been doom’d to hear,
Still whizzing in my blister’d ear,
The curses deep, in damning peals,
That rose from ’neath my chariot wheels,
When I along the embattled plain
With furious triumph crush’d the slain: 
I should not thus be doom’d to see,
In every shape of agony,
The victims of my cruel wrath,
For ever dying, strew my path;
The grinding teeth, the lips awry,
The inflated nose, the starting eye,
The mangled bodies writhing round,
Like serpents, on the bloody ground;
I should not thus for ever seem
A charnel house, and scent the steam
Of black, fermenting, putrid gore,
Rank oozing through each burning pore;
Behold, as on a dungeon wall,
The worms upon my body crawl,
The which, if I would brush away,
Around my clammy fingers play,
And, twining fast with many a coil,
In loathsome sport my labor foil.