d
violent fever, to the most extreme danger of death; and when all skill
failed, they sent for AEsculapius. The renowned artist was touched with
the deepest compassion to see the faded charms and faint bloom of Hebe;
and had a generous concern in beholding a struggle, not between life,
but rather between youth, and death. All his skill and his passion
tended to the recovery of Hebe, beautiful even in sickness: but, alas!
the unhappy physician knew not, that in all his care he was only
sharpening darts for his own destruction. In a word, his fortune was the
same with that of the statuary, who fell in love with the image of his
own making; and the unfortunate AEsculapius is become the patient of her
whom he lately recovered. Long before this disaster, AEsculapius was far
gone in the unnecessary and superfluous amusements of old age, in
increasing unwieldy stores, and providing, in the midst of an incapacity
of enjoyment of what he had, for a supply of more wants than he had
calls for in youth itself. But these low considerations are now no more,
and love has taken place of avarice, or rather has become an avarice of
another kind, which still urges him to pursue what he does not want. But
behold the metamorphosis; the anxious mean cares of an usurer are turned
into the languishments and complaints of a lover. 'Behold,' says the
aged AEsculapius, 'I submit, I own, great Love, thy empire: pity, Hebe,
the fop you have made: what have I to do with gilding but on pills? Yet,
O fair! For thee I sit amidst a crowd of painted deities on my chariot,
buttoned in gold, clasped in gold, without having any value for that
beloved metal, but as it adorns the person, and laces the hat of thy
dying lover. I ask not to live, O Hebe! Give me but gentle death:
euthanasia, euthanasia, that is all I implore.'" When AEsculapius had
finished his complaint, Pacolet went on in deep morals on the
uncertainty of riches, with this remarkable exclamation; "O wealth! How
impotent art thou! And how little dost thou supply us with real
happiness, when the usurer himself can forget thee for the love of what
is as foreign to his felicity as thou art?"

Will's Coffee-house, July 19.

The company here, who have all a delicate taste of theatrical
representations, had made a gathering to purchase the movables of the
neighbouring playhouse,[426] for the encouragement of one which is
setting up in the Haymarket. But the proceedings at the auction (by
which me