Friday, January the 23rd, 2004

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A Brief Note About Pills

Please do not confuse toad-pills—those “tiny pink miracles of batrachian well-being” as Dobson called them in his engaging pamphlet How I Counted All The Toads In Scandinavi (out of print)—with other sorts of pills, not least those of Lockyer, whose tomb in Southwark Cathedral commemorates his genius:

Here Lockyer lies interr'd, enough : his name
Speaks one hath few competitors in fame ;
A Name soe Great soe Generall'e may scorne
Inscriptions wh doe vulgar tombs adorne :
A diminution to write in verse
His eulogies wh most men's mouths rehearse.
His virtues and his PILLS are so well known,
That envy can't confine them under stone.
But they'll survive his dust and not expire
Till all things else at th'universall fire.
This verse is lost, his PILL Embalmes him safe
To future times without an Epitaph :

Repair'd Octobr 1741
Deceast Aprill ye 26th Anno Do : 1672 Aged 72