[Pg 1]

THE
ART
OF PRESERVING
HEALTH:
A
POEM.

LONDON:
Printed for A. Millar, opposite to Katharine-Street in the Strand.

MDCCXLIV.

[Price Four Shillings sewed.]

THE

ART

OF PRESERVING

HEALTH

BOOK I.
AIR.

Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,

Hygeia1; whose indulgent smile sustains

The various race luxuriant nature pours,

And on th’ immortal essences bestows

Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend! 5

Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year,

Whether thou wanton’st on the western gale,

[Pg 2]

Or shak’st the rigid pinions of the north,

Diffusest life and vigour thro’ the tracts

Of air, thro’ earth, and ocean’s deep domain. 10

When thro’ the blue serenity of heav’n

Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host

Of pain and sickness, squallid and deform’d,

Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom,

Where in deep Erebus involv’d the fiends 15

Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,

Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,

Swarm thro’ the shuddering air: whatever plagues

Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings

Rise from the putrid watry element, 20

The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,

That smothers earth and all the breathless winds,

Or the vile carnage of th’ inhuman field;

Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south;

...