The Healing Arts: A Tythe Pig No Bad Sight.

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A Tythe Pig No Bad Sight. Anonymous, 18th C, Engraving. Subject: Doctor's Wealth.

A Tythe Pig No Bad Sight. Anonymous, 18th C, Engraving. Subject: Doctor’s Wealth, Tythe Laws.

A Tythe Pig No Bad Sight.

The well fed rich Doctor now Dinner is o’er,-
In his Arm Chair gives way to an Afternoon’s snore,
His Belly is fat, and his Countenance ruddy,
High living’s his practice, the Tythe Laws his study.

The Curate may starve; while to slumber inclin’d
He dreams of the Riches to Doctorship join’d:-
Farmer Hodge brings a Pig to avoid Tythe Law strife,
And presents little Squeak to the Doctor’s fair Wife.

To rouze him from sleep, and his Eyes to regale,
She tickles his Nose with the Young Grunter’s Tail;
Shou’d he start with her tickling & wake in a fright,
You’ll allow a Tythe Pig is not a bad sight.

Word Wednesday.

Shabby

Adjective.

1: Clothed with worn or seeding garments.

2a: Threadbare and faced from wear. b: ill-kept: Dilapidated.

3a: Mean, Despicable, Contemptible <must feel shabby…because of his compromises – Nat Hentoff>
b: Ungenerous, unfair. c: Inferior in quality.

-shabbily, adverb.

-shabbiness, noun.

[Origin: obsolete English shab a low fellow.]

(1669)

“She stole a glance round the office – the office of the senior partner of the firm. It suited Walter Fane, she decided. It was definitely old-fashioned, the furniture was shabby, but was made of good solid Victorian material.” – Sleeping Murder, Agatha Christie.

Flowers of the Sky.

Depictions spanning almost a whole millennium – in chronological order – of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars. (My choices here aren’t in order!)

Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America on the night of November 12-13, 1833, from E. Weiß’s Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888) – Source.

Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America on the night of November 12-13, 1833, from E. Weiß’s Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888) – Source.

Astronomy: a meteor shower in the night sky. Mezzotint, after 1783 – Source.

Astronomy: a meteor shower in the night sky. Mezzotint, after 1783 – Source.

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, Folio 52 (erschrocklicher Comet, 1300) – Source

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, Folio 52 (erschrocklicher Comet, 1300) – Source.

You can see many more wonderful depictions at The Public Domain Review.