The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics

John Winstanley(?) (1677–c.1750–1750)

244 JOHN WINSTANLEY(?) (1677–c.1750–1750) Though bathing in sea water was regularly prescribed as a cure for various ailments in the eighteenth century – and indeed became a fashionable recreation celebrated by poets from Blackrock, Co. Dublin to Ardglass Co. Down – there are few references in verse to polluted water. In this poem, the Revd. Mr ------- has clearly been advised to drink sea water to cure his melancholy; but the poet (who may or may not be the John Winstanley of the title of the volume in which this poem appears) warns his friend that sea water tainted with untreated sewage (the source of which might be any privy in the world) could be ‘unkind’ to his constitution. To the Revd. Mr ------- on his Drinking Sea-Water Methinks, dear Tom, I see thee stand demure Close by old Ocean’s side, with arms erect, Gulping the brine; and, with gigantic quaff, Pledge the proud Whale, and from ten thousand Springs Dilute the hyp,1 concomitant unkind!2 For thee th’Euphrates, from her spicy banks, Conveys her healing stream: for thee the Caspian Filters her Balsam; while the fragrant Nile Tinges with balmy dew the greeting seas, Conscious of thee; whose tow’ring Pyramids 10 Would pride to lodge thy consecrated Urn. For thee the sage Batavian,3 from his stern With face distorted and convulsive grin, Disgorges eastern Gums, in bowels pent, And streaks the surge with salutary hue.4 hypochondria. 1 i.e. at the same time (as you think drinking sea-water will make you healthy), you are 2 being unkind to yourself. Dutchman. 3 The poet probably means ‘sanguinary hue’. 4 245 John Winstanley(?) For thee the Thames, impregnated with Steam Mercurial,5 wafts her complicated Dose From reeking Vaults, full copiously supply’d By Bums venereal, ruefully discharg’d By Ward’s mysterious Drop, or magic Pill.6 20 Mercury was often prescribed as a cure for syphilis. 5 Joshua Ward (1685–1761), a famous English quack doctor, who claimed that his pills 6 and drops (which were in fact a dangerous compound of antimony) could cure almost any ailment. ...