And numbered each hair on his pate;
By styptics, call’d stops, he contracted each limb,
And crippled for ever his gait.
From Gopsall then strutted a formal old goose,
And he’d cure him by inches, he swore;
But when the poor Poet had taken one dose,
He vow’d he would swallow no more.
But Johnson, determin’d to save him, or kill,
A second prescription display’d;
And, that none might find fault with his drop or his pill,