'Tis, now, a necessary thing to say
That, at this juncture, Roger wasn't well;
Poor Man! he had been rubbing, all the day,
His stomach with coarse towels:
And clapping trenchers, hot as hell,
Upon his bowels;
Where spasms were kicking up a furious frolick,
Afflicting him with mulligrubs and cholick.

He also had imbibe'd, to sooth his pains,
Of _pulvis rhei_ very many grains;
And to the garden's deepest shade was bent,
To give, quite privily, his sorrows vent:

When, _there_,--alive and merry to appearance--
He 'spied his ancient foe, by the moon's light!--
Who sat erect, with so much perseverance,
It look'd as if he kept his post in spite.

A case it is of piteous distress,
If, carrying a secret grief about,
We wish to bury it in a recess,
And find another there, who keeps us out.

Expecting, soon, his enemy to go,
Roger, at first, walk'd to and fro,
With tolerably tranquil paces;
But finding John determine'd to remain,
Roger, each time he pass'd, thro' spite or pain,
Made, at his adversary, hideous faces.

How misery will lower human pride!
And make us buckle!--
Roger, who, all his life, had John defied,
Was now oblige'd to speak him fair,--and truckle.

"Behold me," Roger cried, "behold me, John!
Entreating as a _favour_ you'll be gone;
Me! your sworn foe, tho' fellow-lodger;
Me!--who, in agony, tho' suing now to you,
Would, once, have seen you damn'd ere make a bow to you.
Me,--Roger!"[12]

[12] This is a palpable plagiarism. _Rolla_ thus addresses
_Pizarro_: "_Behold me_, at thy feet--_Me_,--_Rolla!_--Me,
that never yet have bent or _bow'd_--in humble _agony_ I _sue_
to you."--The theft is more glaring, as the Apostrophe, both
here, and in the original, occurs in the midst of a strong
incident, and is address'd to an Enemy by a proud spirit, in
very moving circumstances.

To this address, so fraught with the pathetick,
John remain'd dumb, as a Pythagorean;
Seeming to hint, "Roger, you're a plebeian
Peripatetick."

When such choice oratory has not hit,
When it is, e'en, unanswer'd by a grunt,
'Twould justify tame Job to curse a bit,
And set an Angler swearing, in his punt.

Cholerick Roger could not brook it;--
So seeing a huge brick-bat, up he took it;
And aiming, like a marksman at a crow,
Plump