ON THE DEATH OF DR. EVANS, OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE.

EVANS, of worm-destroying note,

With little folks who breed 'em,-
Has all his life been poisoning worms,
And now's consigned to feed 'em.
Thus, 'twixt our doctor and his foes,
Accounts are pretty trim;-
For many years he lived by those,
And now they live on him.

MOTHER'S MILK.

WRITTEN BY THE LATE DR. WALCOTT, ON BEING ADVISED BY
DR. LEACH TO DRINK ASSES' MILK; THE LATTER DECLARING
THAT IT HAD BEEN OF GREAT SERVICE TO HIMSELF.

AND, Doctor, do you really think,
That asses' milk I ought to drink?

"Twould quite remove my cough, you say;
And drive all old complaints away.

It cured yourself;-I grant that's true;-
But then 'twas mother's milk to you.

THREE ENEMIES.

FROM THE SPANISH.

THREE enemies: the flesh, the world, the devil,
Are often sources of the soul's perdition;
Three are the sources of the body's evil,
Apothecary, Surgeon, and Physician.

NATURE AND ART.

FROM THE FRENCH.

NATURE and sickness fight,- -a man the prize;
If nature wins, he lives;-if sickness, dies.
Blind men (called doctors) come, the fray to part,
With random strokes of weapons forged by art.
If chance they hit the foe, the day's their own;
If nature gets the hurt, the patient's gone!

PARSON versus PHYSICIAN.

How D.D. swaggers-M.D. rolls!
I dub them both a brace of noddies:
Old D.D. takes the cure of souls,

While M.D. takes the care of bodies.
Between them both what treatment rare,
Our souls and bodies must endure:
One takes the cure without the care,
T'other the care without the cure.

LAW AND PHYSIC.

IF mortals would, as nature dictates, live,
They need not fees to the physician give;
If men were wise they need not have their cause
Pleaded, prolonged by the ambiguous laws.
So Bartolus might, feeless, go to bed,
And mice corrode Hippocrates unread.

J. OWEN.

ON A COXCOMBICAL PHYSICIAN.

WHEN Florio for the sickly fair indites,
And minds not what, so much as how, he writes;
His patients, as his graceful form they scan,
Cry, with ill-omened rapture, Killing man!"

66

ON EMPLOYING TWO DOCTORS.

ONE doctor single, like the sculler plies,
The patient struggles, and by inches dies;
But two physicians, like a pair of oars,
Waft him right swiftly to the Stygian shores.

JEKYLL.

ON AN APOTHECARY TURNED BREWER.

WITH titles how are some men blessed,

Even thou canst boast of twain:

A fool before in drugs confessed,

And now a knave in grain!

POPE'S LAST HOURS.

DURING Pope's last illness, his two physicians, Dr. Barton and Dr. Thomson, had an altercation. The former charged Dr. Thomson with having hastened the poet's death by the violent purges he had prescribed,- -a crimination which Dr. Thomson retorted. Pope at length silenced them by saying," Gentlemen, I only learn by your discourse that I am in a very dangerous way; all therefore I have now to ask is that, after my death, the following may be added to the next edition of the Dunciad, by way of postscript:

DUNCES, rejoice, forgive all censures past;

The greatest dunce has killed your foe at last.

Others say these lines were written by Dr. Barton, and were the occasion of the following epigram by a friend of Dr. Thomson:

As physic and verse both to Phoebus belong,
So the College oft dabbles in potion and song:
Hence Barton, resolved his emetics shall hit,
When his recipes fail, gives a puke with his wit.

ON QUACKS.

WHEN quacks, as quacks may, by good luck, to be sure,
Blunder out, at haphazard, a desperate cure,

In the prints of the day, with due pomp and parade,
Case, patient, and doctor, are amply displayed.

All this is quite just, and no mortal can blame it;

If they save a man's life, they've a right to proclaim it :
But there's reason to think they might save more lives still,
Did they publish a list of the numbers they kill.

THE REV. SAMUEL BISHOP,

Head Master of Merchant Taylors' School.

TO SIR R. BLACKMORE.

I CHARGE thee, Knight, in great Apollo's name,
If thou'rt not dead to all reproach and shame,
Either thy poetry or pills disclaim;

Both are too much, one feeble brain to rack;
Besides, the bard will soon undo the quack:
Such shoals of readers thy poor fustian kills,
Thou'lt scarce leave one alive to take thy pills.

THE PRESCRIPTION.

FROM THE FRENCH OF LA MARTINIERE.

WOULD you wish to get well without failing,

Of I know not what ill, which, I know not for why, For this fortnight has made you look feeble and ailing?

I prescribe you to buy,

How much I can't say, of a root I know not,

To mix, of I know not what simples, a potion;

Pound, I know not what herbs, and of them make a lotion.

Which, applied piping hot,

Will, for aught that I know,

Make you eat, drink, and sleep, as a fortnight ago:

But this I can venture for certain to say,

Half the doctors in London prescribe the same way.

ON MEDICAL MEN.

THE following epigram is the production of a physician of the "olden time," by name Guricus Cordus.

TRES medicus facies habet :-unam quando rogatur,
Angelicam; mox est, cum juvat, ipse deus;
Postuti curato. poscit sua præmia, morbo,
Horridus apparet terribilisque Sathan.

THREE faces wears the doctor-when first sought,
An angel's; and a god's, the cure half wrought;
But when, that cure complete, he seeks his fee,
The devil looks then less terrible than he.

THE DOCTOR'S COAT OF ARMS.
A DOCTOR, Who, for want of skill,
Did sometimes cure and sometimes kill,
Contrived at length, by many a puff,
And many a bottle filled with stuff,
To raise his fortune and his pride;
And in a coach, forsooth, must ride.
His family coat long since worn out,
What arms to take was all the doubt.
A friend, consulted on the case,
Thus answered, with a sly grimace:
"Take some device in your own way,
Neither too solemn nor too gay;

Three ducks, suppose; white, grey, or black;
And let your motto be Quack! quack!"

DE SANITATE ET MEDICO.

HEALTH is a jewel, true, which when we buy,
Physicians value it accordingly.

SATIRICAL.

FORENSIC.

MS., 17th Century.

THE SEVEN GOOD THINGS REQUISITE BEFORE GOING

TO LAW.

DEAR TOM, take advice, nor commit a faux pas;
As you travel through life, never get into law;
The odds are against you a million to one,
'Tis a horse to a hen that you're quickly undone.
And if there's no help, and to law you must go,
Indispensables seven, 'tis fit you should know.
And first, you'll be wise to reflect well and pause
And be sure, ere you stir, you have a good cause.
Like your cause, your attorney should also be good-
A sine quâ non-it is well understood.

Your jury, besides, must be good and not packed,
And by a good counsel your case must be backed;
A good witness and staunch, too, you'll certainly need;
If in this point you fail, Tom, you cannot succeed.
To make all secure, ere an inch more you budge,
You'll be lost if you haven't a very good judge.
These are six needful things, yet fast you'll be stuck,
And still lose your cause, if you haven't good luck.

LORD ADVOCATE. *

HE clenched his pamphlets in his fist,
He quoted, and he hinted,

Till in a declamation mist,
His argument he tint it:

He gaped for't, he graspèd for't,

He found it was awa', man;

But what his common sense came short,

He eked out, wi' law, man.

*Extempore in the Court of Session.