Presented him the weekly bills
Of doctors, fevers, plagues, and pills.
Pluto, observing since the peace
The burial article decrease,
And, vex'd to see affairs miscarry,
Declar'd in council, Death must marry;
Vow'd he no longer could support
Old bachelors about his court;
The interest of his realm had need
That Death should get a numerous breed;
Young Deathlings, who, by practice made
Proficient in their father's trade,
With colonies might stock around
His large dominions under ground.
A consult of coquettes below
Was call'd, to rig him out a beau:
From her own head Megera takes
A periwig of twisted snakes;
Which in the nicest fashion curl'd,
(Like toupets of this upper world)
With flowers of sulphur powder'd well,
That graceful on his shoulders fell;
An adder of the sable kind
In line direct hung down behind;
The owl, the raven, and the bat,
Clubb'd for a feather to his hat;
His coat, a usurer's velvet pall,
Bequeath'd to Pluto, corpse and all.
But, loth his person to expose
Bare, like a carcase pick'd by crows,
A lawyer o'er his hands and face
Stuck artfully a parchment case.
No new flux'd rake show'd fairer skin;
Nor Phyllis after lying in.
