A heap, indeed, of what we read
By doctors is provided;
For to those groves Apollo loves
Their leaning is decided.
Deny who may that Rabelais
Is first in wit and learning,
And yet all smile and marvel while
His brilliant leaves they're turning.

How Lever's pen has charmed all men!
How touching Rab's short story!
And I will stake my all that Drake
Is still the schoolboy's glory.
A doctor-man it was began
Great Britain's great museum,--
The treasures there are all so rare
It drives me wild to see 'em!

There's Cuvier, Parr, and Rush; they are
Big monuments to learning.
To Mitchell's prose (how smooth it flows!)
We all are fondly turning.
Tomes might be writ of that keen wit
Which Abernethy's famed for;
With bread-crumb pills he cured the ills
Most doctors now get blamed for.

In modern times the noble rhymes
Of Holmes, a great physician,
Have solace brought and wisdom taught
To hearts of all condition.
The sailor, bound for Puget Sound,
Finds pleasure still unfailing,
If he but troll the barcarole
Old Osborne wrote on Whaling.

If there were need, I could proceed
_Ad naus._ with this prescription,
But, _inter nos_, a larger dose
Might give you fits conniption;
Yet, ere I end, there's one dear friend
I'd hold before these others,
For he and I in years gone by
Have chummed around like brothers.

Together we have sung in glee
The songs old Horace made for
Our genial craft, together quaffed
What bowls that doctor paid for!
I love the rest, but love him best;
And, were not times so pressing,
I'd buy and send--you smile, old friend?
Well, then, here goes my blessing.

BARBARA.

BLITHE was the youth that summer day,
As he smote at the ribs of earth,
And he plied his pick with a merry click,
And he whistled anon in mirth;
And the constant thought of his dear one's face
Seemed to illumine that ghostly place.

The gaunt earth envied the