Their only labour was to kill the time;
  And labour dire it is, and weary woe. 
  They fit, they loll, turn o’er some idle rhime;
  Then rising sudden, to the glass they go,
  Or saunter forth, with tott’ring steps and slow: 
  This soon too rude an exercise they find;
  Strait on the couch their limbs again they throw,
  Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclin’d,
  And court the vapoury God soft breathing in the wind.

In the two following Stanzas, the dropsy and hypochondria are beautifully described.

  Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
  Soft swoln and pale, here lay the Hydropsy: 
  Unwieldly man; with belly monstrous round,
  For ever fed with watery supply;
  For still he drank, and yet he still was dry. 
  And moping here did Hypochondria sit,
  Mother of spleen, in robes of various die,
  Who vexed was full oft with ugly fit;
  And some her frantic deem’d, and some her deem’d a wit. 
  A lady proud she was, of antient blood,
  Yet oft her fear, her pride made crouchen low: 
  She felt, or fancy’d in her fluttering mood,
  All the diseases which the spitals know,
  And sought all physic which the shops bestow;
  And still new leaches, and new drugs would try,
  Her humour ever wavering too and fro;
  For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes cry,
  And sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not why.

The speech of Sir Industry in the second Canto, when he enumerates the various blessings which flow from action, is surely one of the highest instances of genius which can be produced in poetry.  In the second stanza, before he enters upon the subject, the poet complains of the decay of patronage, and the general depravity of taste; and in the third breaks out into the following exclamation, which is so perfectly beautiful, that it would be the greatest mortification not to transcribe it,

  I care not, fortune, what you me deny: 
  You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace;
  You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
  Through which Aurora shews her bright’ning face;
  You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
  The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve: 
  Let health my nerves, and finer fibres brace,
  And I their toys to the great children leave;
  Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.

Before we quit this poem, permit us, reader, to give you two more stanzas from it:  the first shews Mr. Thomson’s opinion of Mr. Quin as an actor; of their friendship we may say more hereafter.

STANZA LXVII.

Of the CASTLE of INDOLENCE.

  Here whilom ligg’d th’Aesopus[6] of the age;
  But called by fame, in foul ypricked deep,
  A noble pride restor’d him to the stage,
  And rous’d him like a giant from his sleep. 
  Even from his slumbers we advantage reap: 
  With double force th’enliven’d scene he wakes,
  Yet quits not nature’s bounds.  He knows to keep
  Each due decorum:  now the heart he shakes,
  And now with well-urg’d sense th’enlighten’d judgment takes.