TAR - WATER,

A BALLAD:

INSCRIBED TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

PHILIP EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

SINCE good Master Prior,

The Tar-water 'squire, Without being counted to blame,

Vulgar patrons hath scorn'd,

And his treatise adorn'd
With the lustre of Chesterfield's name ;

Great Mecænas of arts !

And all men of parts, (Tho'they're not much the growth of the time)

I hope 'twill be meet

To lay at
The same lofty subject in rhyme.

your feet

Then come, let us sing!

Death, a fig for thy sting!
I think we shall serve thee a trick;

For the Bishop of Cloyne*

Hast at last laid a mine,
That will blow up both thee and old Nick,

Have but faith in his treatise,

Tho' you've stone, diabetes, Gout, or fever, tar-water 's specific;

If you're costive, 'twill work

If you purge, 'tis a cork ;
And, if old, it will make you prolific.

a

• Bishop Berkeley.

+ The title of the excellent Bishop Berkeley's work on this subject is “ Siris,” a chain of philosophical reflections and inquiries concerning the virtues of Tar-water, and divers other subjects, connected together and arising one from another ; which was followed by “ An authentic Narrative of the success of Tar-water, in curing a great number and variety of distempers ; with remarks and occasional papers relative to the subject : to which are subjoined, two Letters from the author of Siris, shewing the medicinal properties of Tar-water, and the best manner of making it.” By Thomas Prior, Esq.

:

All ye fair ones, who lie sick,

Leave off doctors and physic, Tar-water will cure all your ails;

Have you rheums or defluctions,

Or whims, or obstructions,
It will set right your heads and your tails.

a

See, each tall slender maid

Now lifts up her head,
Like a beautiful fir on the mountain !

While, salubrious, flow,

From a fissure below,
The streams of a turpentine * fountain,

Each Nymph from afar,

Is so scented with tar,
That unless they're permitted to ,

All the Devils in hell

(So alike is the smell) Can't know a from a cart wheel.

a

*

Turpentine the principal ingredient of Tar, is thus extracted from the fir-tree.

Great physician of state !

('Tho'call'd in so late To a truly well-meant consultation)

In this fever of war,

Like the spirit of tar, Thy skill must preserve this poor nation. .

Tho' now quite exhausted,

Her vitals all wasted,
She 's as meagre, and weak as a lath ;

Yet we hope that thy art

Will recover each part, Without the assistance of BATH.

ON

CHARLES STANHOPE, ESQ.

DRINKING TAR-WATER.

WHEN Charles by rule episcopal *

Tar-water first began;
Methinks, he cry'd, I feel myself

Become a double man.

Its prowess he resolv'd to try,

But oh! with shame and trouble,
He found of all his boasted parts,

One thing alone was double.

Enrag'd, he curst the silly book,

The bishop and the tar;
And swore the beggar's blessing was

A better boon by far.