They lead a puzzled, vex’d, uncertain life;
For transient vice bequeaths a lingering pain,
Which transient virtue seeks to cure in vain. 
   Whilst thus engaged, high views enlarge the soul,
New interests draw, new principles control: 
Nor thus the soul alone resigns her grief,
But here the tortured body finds relief;
For see where yonder sage Arachne shapes
Her subtile gin, that not a fly escapes! 
There physic fills the space, and far around,
Pile above pile her learned works abound: 
Glorious their aim- to ease the labouring heart;
To war with death, and stop his flying dart;
To trace the source whence the fierce contest grew,
And life’s short lease on easier terms renew;
To calm the phrensy of the burning brain;
To heal the tortures of imploring pain;
Or, when more powerful ills all efforts brave,
To ease the victim no device can save,
And smooth the stormy passage to the grave. 
   But man, who knows no good unmix’d and pure,
Oft finds a poison where he sought a cure;
For grave deceivers lodge their labours here,
And cloud the science they pretend to clear;
Scourges for sin, the solemn tribe are sent;
Like fire and storms, they call us to repent;
But storms subside, and fires forget to rage. 
These are eternal scourges of the age: 
’Tis not enough that each terrific hand
Spreads desolations round a guilty land;
But train’d to ill, and harden’d by its crimes,
Their pen relentless kills through future times. 
   Say, ye, who search these records of the dead-
Who read huge works, to boast what ye have read;
Can all the real knowledge ye possess,
Or those—­if such there are—­who more than guess,
Atone for each impostor’s wild mistakes,
And mend the blunders pride or folly makes ? 
   What thought so wild, what airy dream so light,
That will not prompt a theorist to write? 
What art so prevalent, what proof so strong,
That will convince him his attempt is wrong? 
One in the solids finds each lurking ill,
Nor grants the passive fluids power to kill;
A learned friend some subtler reason brings,
Absolves the channels, but condemns their springs;
The subtile nerves, that shun the doctor’s eye,
Escape no more his subtler theory;
The vital heat, that warms the labouring heart,
Lends a fair system to these sons of art;
The vital air, a pure and subtile stream,
Serves a foundation for an airy scheme,
Assists the doctor, and supports his dream. 
Some have their favourite ills, and each disease
Is but a younger branch that kills from these;
One to the gout contracts all human pain;
He views it raging in the frantic brain;
Finds it in fevers all his efforts mar,
And sees it lurking in the cold catarrh: 
Bilious by some, by others nervous seen,
Rage the fantastic demons of the spleen;
And every symptom of the strange disease