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 Scandinavia (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