Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/71

Rh that flame which she cannot quench. So at length after a tedious struggle and inhumane butchery, the fitt is solv'd, the matter is imperfectly extinguish'd, the poor Sufferer crawls out of the shambles for a while, as by a day-rule of the Fleet, till the merciless tormentor summons him again to equal misery. This is the blessed situation of a podagric! a happy occasion for the congratulation of friends. The pretended earnest of threescore. Well may he cry out as in Lucian, which I shall give in latin, because beautifully turn'd, and may be styl'd,

O Triste nomen, o diis odible, Podagra, lachrymosa, Cocyto sata, In Tartari specubus opacis edita! Erinnys utero quam Megæra suo tulit, et uberibus aluit; cuique parvulæ, amarulentæ, in os lac Alecto dedit. Ergo quis abominabilem Te dæmononum produxit in lucem, exitio mortalibus? Quod si luunt errate mane mortui, Si luce commissi rationem nox petit; nec Tantalus siti, nec Ixion rota volubilis, nec Stygii fuit Ditis domo; tuis sed omnes omnium soclerum reos aptare decuit membrifrages cruciatibus.

O