A critical edition of the text of The Dispensary, 1699, by Sir Samuel Garth, 1661 -1719, with introduction and notes. By Philip Edward Roberts. Thesis presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Edinburgh in the Faculty of Arts. 1966 List of contents : Volume one. Acknowledgements Note on the illustrations iv A list of Abbreviations Used v Introduction Part One. The Medical Background to the Poem ix Introduction Part Two. The Man and the Poem xxxiii Notes on the Text of this Edition Iviii The Dispensary 1 Volume Two. Textual Notes 109 Annotations to The Dispensary 131 Appendix A. Garth and the Epistles of Phalaris and the Wits versus Blackmore 227 Appendix B. Notes on Garth's key to The Dispensary and Pope's annotated copies of the poem, together with a representative key to erroneous identifications of characters contained in The Dispensary 244 Select Bibliography to the Introduction and Appendices 250 Acknowledgements : I wish to thank for their advice and assistance, my late supervisor John Butt; L.M. Payne, Esq., Librarian of the Royal College of Physicians of London; Dr. Albert Rosenberg of San Jose State College, California; Miss M. Stanton, Librarian of Historical Collections, Yale Medical Library; Donald S. Taylor and Richard J. Cook of the University of Washington, Seattle; and E. Ashworth Underwood, Esq. Director of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London. iv Note on the illustrations : The xerox reproduction at the beginning of volume one is of the title - page of the first edition of The Dispensary. The xerox reproduction at the beginning of volume two is of the title -page and frontispiece of the second edition of The Dispensary. 331 A List of Abbreviations Used. Manuscript sources; Annals = Manuscript Annals of the Royal College of Physicians, London. (References are given CJ- Ç o ca ?aia. NA.ki et, by date of entry(in a translation of the original Latin Annals collated with con- temporary transcripts, which is in the possession of the College) Bod. MS. Ball. = MS. Ballard, Bodleian library, Oxford. Bod. MS. Rawl. = MS. Rawlinson, Bodleian library, Oxford. Bod. MS. Tanner = MS. Tanner, Bodleian library, Oxford. BM.L0_ Mss, = British Museum Acii'.r,c , -. , s_; ir_ o Farre = F.J. Farre, Short History of the Royal College of Physiciansfrom 1518 to 182+. 3 vols. Holograph JIS. in the possession of the College. Guildhall MS. 8208/2 = Rough Court Minute Books, 1661 -1783, of the Society of Apothecaries. 13 vols. vol. H. VA Dyce = The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Dyce collection. VA Forster = The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Forster collection. Printed sources; unless otherwise stated, the place of publication is in England. Boileau Boys Boys PQ. V = Oevres, Editions Garnier Frères. Paris, 1961. = R.C. Boys, Sir Richard Blackmore and the Wits. Univ. of Michigan contrib. 0 Modern Philology, XIII, June 1949. = R.C. Boys, 'The Authorship of Poems in Commendatory Verses.' Phil. Quart. 30, II, 1951, 221 -2. Brewer = Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Rev. ed. Cassell 1963. Brief Account = A brief Account of the Dispensary, erected at the College of Physicians in Warwick -lane, London, for the Relief of the Sick Poor. (1698 ?) Chalmers = A. Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper 21 vols. 1810. A.F.B. Clark = Boileau and the French Classical critics in England 1660 -1830. Paris, 1925. Clark = G.N. Clark, A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Vol. 1. 1964. Cunningham -Wheatley = H.B. Wheatley, London' Past and Present... Based upon the Handbook of London by h P. Cunningham. 3 vols. 1891. DNB = Dictionary of National Biography. Dryden, Essays = Essays, selected and edited by W.P. Ker. 2 vols, 1900. Dryden, Letters = ed. C.E. Ward. Durham N.C., 1942. Dryden, Poems = ed. J. Kinsley. 4 vols. 1958. EC = The Works of Pope, ed W. Elwin and W.J. Court - hope. 10 vols. 1871 -89. Foster = J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses. Part One (to 1714) 4 vols. 1891 -2. Garrod = H.W. Garrod, 'Phalaris and Phalarism.' In Seventeenth Century Studies presented to ... Grierson. 1938. Gay, Poems = Works ed. G.C. Faber. 1926. GEC = The Complete Peerage. By G.E.C. Rev. and enlarged by the Hon. Vicary Gibbs. Ed. H.A. Doubleday, D. Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden. 13 vols. 1912. Hist. MSS. Comm. = Historical Manuscripts Commission. Yil Homer, Iliad = Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray. Loeb classical library, 2 vols. 1924. Hooker = Critical Works of John Dennis. ed. E.N. Hooker. 2 vols. Baltimore, 1939 -43. Horace = Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, transl. H.R. Fairclough. Loeb classical library, 1961. Hudibras = annotated Z. Grey et al. 2 vols. 3rd ed. 1772. Johnson, Dictionary = S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language... 2 vols. 1755. Jebb = R.C. Jebb, Richard Bentley. 1882. Juvenal = Juvenal and Persius transi. G.G. Ramsay. Loeb classical library, 1961. Leicht = W.J. Leichte Garth's Dispensary. Kritische Ausgabe mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen. Heidelberg 1905. Lewis & Short = A Latin Dictionary. C.T. Lewis and C. Short. 1962. Munk = W. Munk, Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, London. /3 vois ./ lól . 111,2( ( N &Q = Notes and Queries. OCEL = Sir Paul Harvey, Oxford Companion to English Literature. 1960. OCCL = Sir Paul Harvey, Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. 1962. OFD = Oxford English Dictionary. Ovid = Metamorphoses, transi. F.J. Miller. 2 vols. Loeb classical library, 19604 Pope, Poems = The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope. General Editor, John Butt. Vol. I. ed. E. Audra and A. Williams. Vol. II. ed. G. Tillotson. c_c; 1 ÿ ccTs Vi.it Vol. III i ed. M. Mack. Vol. III ii ed. F.W. Bateson. Vol. IV. ed. J. Butt. Vol. V. ed. J.R. Sutherland. Vol. VI. ed. N. Ault and J. Butt. The Iliad of Homer. Translated by Mr. Pope. 6 vols. 1715 -20. Pope, Corres. = The Correspondence of Alexander Pope ed. G. Sherburn. 5 vols. 1956. Prior, Poems = The Literary Works of M. Prior ed. H.B. Wright and M.K. Spears. 2 vols. 1959. RCP = Royal College of Physicians, London. RES = Review of English Studies. Rosenberg, Journal = A. Rosenberg, 'The London Dispensary for the Sick -Poor. Journ. of the Hist. of Medicine XIV, Jan. 1959, 41 -56. Rosenberg = A. Rosenberg, Sir Richard Blackmore. Lincoln, Nebraska. 1953. Spectator = ed. D.F. Bond. 5 vols. 1965. Spence = J. Spence, Anecdotes, observations, and characters of Books and Men. ed. S.W. Singer, 1820. Spingarn = Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century ed. J.E. Spingarn. 3 vols. 1908k Tatler and Guardian = The Spectator, The Tatler and the Guardian. 14 vols. 1797. Underwood = A History of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. Rev., annot., and ed. by E.A. Underwood, 1963. Venn = Alumni Cantabrigienses. J. Venn and J.A. Venn. Part One (to 1751). It vols. 1922 -7. Virgil, Aeneid = Virgil with an English Translation by H.R. Fairclough. 2 vols. Loeb classical library, 1927. Wakefield - Work3 of Alexander Pope cd. G. Wakefield. lTO. ìx Introduction Part One The Medical Background to the Poem The Dispensary was written with two specific purposes in mind; the ridiculing of the apothecaries' pretension to medical competence and in order, as Garth put it in his Preface, 'to Rally some of our di*ffectec Members into a sense of their Duty, who have hitherto most obstinately oppos'd all manner of Union;' (50 -2) The quarrel over the erection of dispensaries to provide treatment gratis for the sick -poor of London at the end of the seventeenth century was not a local and a temporary issue. The animosity aroused by it, not only between physician and apothecary, but also between physician and physician, represents and is a culminating part of a struggle which had existed from the date of the apothecaries' severance from the grocers in 1617. On obtaining a separate charter, although continually under the surveillance of the College of Physicians of London, the apothecaries also obtained an independAnce which led finally to their being granted the legal right to prescribe medicine in addition to their established right of com- pounding drugs. The dispute in the latter decades of the seventeenth century revolved around defining medical boundaries, as to who should practise which part of the medical profession. The members of the College of Physicians possessed the sole legal right in London to practise medicine by prescribing treatment; the apothecary's duties lay in making up prescriptions. This distinction was largely accepted by physicians and ignored by many apothecaries, who took it upon them- selves both to prescribe and compound medicine, thus leading to Garth's contemptuous description of them as 'amphibious Fry' (II, 118) The evolution of medical practice in the second half of the seventeenth century has to do with the physicians' efforts to maintain the dis- tinction and with the apothecaries' steady attempts to ignore it. In order to fit the dispensary quarrel into a context of larger significance, x it is necessary to glance briefly at certain factors which enabled the apothecaries to challenge the supremacy of the College of Physicians. It will later be seen that the proposals to erect dispensaries, though clearly having as a main aim the charitable relief of London sick -poor, had also an underlying aim of suppressing the apothecaries and forcing them to revert to their original status of dispensing chemists. In this, these proposals form one of a lengthy series of attempts to combat the threat to the established medical hierarchy. At the Restoration in 1660, the Fellows of the College of Physicians numbered less than thirty, (Underwood, 93), whereas the Company of Apothecaries had gone from strength to strength; 'Although nominally at the head of the medical profession, the College had been unable to exercise its authority for the twenty years of civil war and usurpation. In that time uncontrolled practice of all sorts had established itself and flourished. The apothecaries especially had made great headway in the affection of the common people, who had come to look upon them as their mainstay in time of sickness.' (ibid. 108) Although the College obtained a new charter on 26 March 1663, with increased powers to control the lesser medical bodies, the advent of the Great Plague farther advanced the apothecaries in the esteem of the common people. This seems mainly because most physicians left London during the Plague, whereas most apothecaries, for whatever motive, remained in London. Officially only two physicians, Hodges and Witherley, were accepted by the City for plague -duty; however an entry in the College Exhibition Catalogues, 1929 -55 for 7 April 1952, ('The College and the Great Plague'), lists the mames of twenty -four physicians who are thought to have remained in London& Nevertheless, anger would doubtless be aimed in this case at the College as a body for its inaction, as opposed to admiration for a few physicians who chose to remain. Writers supporting the apothecaries made much of the fact that members of the College quitted London when most needed. As late as 1885, the plague -year was seen to be significant. 'The legal right to visit the sick in their own houses or prescribe for them, was never disputed after the last xi great plague in London... during this scourge a great majority of the regular Physicians died, and many of the survivors fled into the country, thus the friends of the sick were forced to implore the aid of the Apothecariess,who thus left their counter and came for the first time to the bedside of the sick.' (G. Corfe M.D., The Apothecary, Ancient and Modern... 1885, 19-20) Apart from the fact that the apothecaries' legal right to practise was severely disputed by the College, it is clear, contrary to Corfe's statement, that the apothecaries had been encroaching upon the physicians' legal preserve for a considerable period prior to the Plague. (See Underwood, 6) Corfe is more accurate perhaps in his charge that the College abandoned the case of 'the infirm poor' to the apothecaries' care after the Plague.(20). As regards the plight of the poor at this time, there existed what L.S. King calls a 'medical vacuum', which the apothecaries rushed to fill. (The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century. Chicago 1958, 12) It was to remedy this state of affairs and to alleviate the suffering of the poor that the College undertook the erection of the dispensaries at the end of the century. During the early years subsequent to the Restoration, the College, though alarmed at the increase in unlicensed practice, was faced with other matters and seemed to have temporarily shelved the issue. The matter had been broached before the Restoration. On the 9 April 1655 'There was a discussion concerning the restraint of the daring practices of apothecaries... But since that former might be pressed with not inconsiderable difficulties... it seemed proper for the present to refrain....' (Annals vol. IVY/ See abbreviations) On the 31 March 1656, a meeting was arranged to deal with illegal practice for each Friday until 'this business should have been completed.' (ibid.Q) The College's optimism was not justified. On 2 May 1656, 'the matter of the empirics began to be discussed, and it was decided that at the next meeting something definite would be determined against them.' (ibid.p The matter was summarised on 7 May 1657; 'Certainly among the different troubles of the Commonwealth our profession was reduced no little in its authority, while, the fear of the law having been set aside..., crafty knaves, mountebanks, quacks, barbers, old women, fortune -tellers and others of that kind of bullcalf, with the gold of hoped for immunity x.« lca,st , glinting, laid hold upon our solemn mysteries.' (ibid.k) Even more explicit is the entry for the 21 and 25 April 1664, 'The apothecaries.. entirely forgetful of benefits received from us, claimed that it was clearly unjust, and thought that it was proper and just that they should practise medicine and advise the sick in the middle of the night and in our absence. Yea, after we had experienced their filthy designs Ìasl. q.J..o. and slavish warfare!' (ibid.J) Since the College's new charter had not at the time been confirmed by Parliament, 'they overbore us with their pride and wanton haughtiness, and delayed with all sorts of insults and lies a thing that would be no less useful to them than to us.' (ibid.) The College perhaps did not perceive that the increased stature and wealth of the Apothecaries' Company had established for them a position, whereby apothecaries were a subsidiary part of the medical profession only in the eyes of the law and the College itself. The Company's prosperity increased to a point where, at the end of 1664, it contributed £1000 towards a loan of £10,000 to the King by the City of London; the whole sum was at once subscribed by nine members. (Underwood, 110 -11) In a curious sense, the issue initially subsisted not upon the basis of whether the apothecaries were competent to treat the sick, but more upon a wave of indignation from the College for the apothecaries' temerity in placing themselves upon the same elevated level. The apothecaries' 'competence' was only one of the factors which enraged the College. The years immediately following the Restoration thus provide a focal point from which to gauge the nature of the two bodies who were to struggle against each other for the rest of the century; the apothecaries emerge as too powerful to be ignored, too wealthy to be dismissed and the reason is thus put by Underwood: 'For long it was upon their services during times of plague, in the "willing absence" of physicians, that the apothecaries based their claim that they were not merely dispensers of medicines prescribed by physicians, but despite all regulations to the contrary were in fact the regular attendants of the common people in sickness.' (3) The apothecary was established and resisted frequent attempts to disestablish him; as Everitt colourfully puts it: 'If the yt physicians grumbled, we are not inclined to pity him. He had created C? ct5 xül his Frankenstein; he had tried to kill the monster whom he had at least materially assisted in calling into being, and Frankenstein .... objected to be got rid of after this summary fashion.' (G. Everitt, Doctors and Doctors : Some Curious Chapters in Medical History and Quackery. 1888, 61 -2) A concerted effort to reduce the apothecary in status is seen in a spate of pamphlets, published between 1669 and 1671. One asrect of the dispensary project, that of its use as an effective agent against apothecaries, has its roots in the pleas of certain writers that physicians should compound their own medicines, thus eliminating the necessity for an apothecary and the accompanying danger of extortion and overcharging for prescriptions. Such a remedy had been proposed within the College. On 25 June 1664, Dr. Clarke on behalf of the Candidates of the College urged that they be allowed to practise pharmacy, because of the weakening of the profession by the apothecaries. The proposal was carried unani- jialAst.f.0.201 mously and the Candidates were thanked. (Annals vol. Iv However, l such demands reached a greater intensity in the three years referred to. On the 28 March 1670, representatives of the Company of Apothecaries asked at the College of Physicians whether 'the books written recently with our deepest disapprobation, were sent to press by your order or consent.' The College evaded the challenge; 'As regards the books men- tioned, and called infamous by you, however, since they were published signed with the authors' names, we do not think that it becomes you to ask us anything about that affair, nor us to reply to any questions.' Mr. Rosewell, for the Company, desired continued friendship between the two bodies, so long as each confined himself to his own business 'and not rashly put his scythe to another's harvest,' while another apothecary, John Chase, hoped that since the College denied responsibility for the books, they would not be offended if any replies should be forthcoming. V1ska -1514 (Annals vol. IV. The books were by Thomas Coxe, Christopher Merrett and Jonathan Goddard. Merrett's A Short View of the Frauds, and Abuses committed by eoTs Apothecaries; ... And of the only Remedy thereof by Physicians making their own Medicines.' (1669), was a particularly violent attack on the Company of Apothecaries who in 1659 had elected him a Freeman. (Underwood, X':') 115 -116) Merrett's avowed aim was one of 'restoring my profession to its ancient and deserved honours.' (16) He attributes the cause of present troubles to the fact that apothecaries were employed to compound medicines to physicians' prescriptions. (7) The apothecaries are accused of falsifying medicines, multiplying the number of bills, and with charging excessive prices, O The root of Merrett's objection is thus stated; 'They have always endeavoured and aimed at the depression and ruine of the Colledg of Physicians, ... considering rightly, that the depression of the Colledg is their interest and rise, and the total subversion of it will make them absolute Masters in Physick, and Physicians their Servants.' (19) Clearly for Merrett, the danger was one of loss of status. He petulantly cites as an example of disrespect the placing of the College Censors at the second table during the Company's dinner, 'whereas always heretofore they were seated at the first Table, next to the Master of the Company.' (23) If, says Merrett, physicians prepare their own medicines, they will 'preserve their Art from being prostituted to illiterate persons, the Apothecaries becoming now their Competitors.' (26) Although much of the pamphlet is trivial, on the level of Merrett's objection that the apothecaries call the sick their 'Patients' (24), it is an interesting indication of one approach to a solution; for Merrett the cure is simply to cut off the supply of bills to the apothecary. He ignores the popularity of the apothecary amongst ordinary people, though he admits that the apothe- cary has become a competitor. He is unaware, or chooses not to see, the real entrenchment of the practising apothecary. It seems, moreover, that a genuine distrust of certain physicians did exist. 'Or if you are minded to go to the Colledg of Physitians, you may : But be sure you s-t, carry Money with you, for Balaam +s Ass will not speak unless he see an Angel.' (N. Culpeper, A PhysicallDirectory;... 3rd ed. 1651. 'To the Reader.Z) Culpeper, though himself biased, gives the receipe to make a physician; 'Make a couple of Crutches of the Apothecaries and Chyrurgions; Be as proud as Lucifer; Ride in state with a Foot -Cloth; Love the sight of Angels; Cheat the Rich; Neglect the Poor; Do nothing without Money; Be Self- conceited; Be Angry;' (ibid. 'Preface to the ,°( Colledgy) Out of this squabbling and seesawing of accusations does XJ emerge the fact that the apothecaries could not simply be treated as a minor order to be crushed by physicians preparing their own medicines. Merrett incidentally pinpoints reasons for the apothecary's emergence; 'But in process of time Physicians in acute diseases having taught them somewhat, sent them to visit their Patients, to give them the best account they could of the estate of their health, and effect of their Medicines.' (43) The apothecary's gradual insinuation by means of the physician is thus admitted by Merrett, who also attacks the 'greater familiarity of conversation with younger Physicians.' (44) Towards the close of the century, these 'younger Physicians' included eminent physicians, such as Radcliffe and Mead, who managed a working arrangement with apothecaries. (See Underwood, 124 -5) Finally Merrett is aware of the importance of the plague year. 'And in the Plague time (most Physicians being out of Town), they took upon them the whole Practice of Physick, which ever since they have continued...' (44) It was hardly to be expected that the apothecaries would relinquish their advantage, once physicians chose to return to London. Jonathan Goddard in A Discourse Settin forth the Unha..v Condition cc :s . of the Practice of Physick in London... (1670), gives another reason for the establishment of the apothecaries, in that they became known while serving their apprenticeship; physicians were less well known, being out of the city and at university. (11 -12) Goddard feels that the original status quo of the apothecary as druggist was acceptable since this liberated the physician 'from some troublesom and inferior employment;' (10). While the apothecary may not always succeed with the rich, 'yet how far it may, amongst others, who are the great number and bulk, is not hard to conceive by what hath been experienced.' (12) Here again, albeit in a more soder mood, is an analysis of the apothecary's position. Yet Goddard is not above a querulous annoyance. Physicians 'in regard of the charges of their Education, and the use and consequence of their Profession, deserve to get as great Estates, as are gotten in any Pro- fession or way of Trading... as their Predecessors, who thirty or forty years ago, got great Estates, when the Apothecaries kept within their own bounds, or inconsiderably incroached upon the Physician' (18 -19) Though aimed at the extortion of apothecaries, this last would appear to xv justify Culpeper's accusation. (see supra) Goddard follows Merrett in advocating that physicians prepare their own medicines, although it would be unnecessary 'that any Physician should be put to the drudgery or trouble of making,or overseeing the making of every Medicine...' (2J) Goddard appears to want to retain consultant status, and also to con- trol pharmacy. The dispensary scheme is foreshadowed by his suggestion of a private physicians' stock, stored with effective remedies, (24),' although this refers to an individual, rather than a general, storehouse, Goddard states that a number of physicians work amicably with apothe- caries, 'some being in full practice in combination or conjunction with Apothecaries, from whom it is not to be expected they should trouble themselves about preparing Medicines; and some depexig upon Apothecaries to bring them into notice and acquaintance; who must therefore comply with them not only in writing Bills to their best advantage, but also, as occasion serves, enter on their leavings of Practice, and perhaps consult with them.' (49) It was physicians of this kind, who worked with an apothecary, who enraged Garth and other dispensarians. Garth, in satirising the anti -dispensarians, was trying, vainly, to dislodge the practical arrangements which had existed for a considerable number of years. The apothecaries' view was contained in two pamphlets; Lex Talionis; sive Vindicae Pharmacoporum:or a Short Reply to Dr. Merrett's Book; and Others...: Wherein may be discovered The Frauds and Abuses committed by Doctors Professing and Practising Pharmacy. (1670), and Medice Cura cc,fs Teipsumi or the Apothecaries Plea... (1671) Lex Taliónis.accurately catches the tone of Merrett's diatribe, and is more commonsensical in distinguishing between quacks and mountebanks who use 'Shifts and Devices how to deceive the people.' (3), and the trained apothecary. Such a distinction was rarely made, especially by physicians. Garth characterises all apothecaries, and particularly young ones newly - trained, as murderers. (see III, 128 ff.) Between the retaliatory passages, the author occasionally makes a cogent point. He states bluntly that the College's legal right to search apothecaries' shops for inferior medicines is ridiculous, 'those Censors for the most part not understanding the Tith of the Medicines and Drugs in the... Shops.' (4) The strength of the apothecaries' position is stated, 'for doubtless the discreet Apothecary being learned, may make a far abler Physitian than he an Apothecary; for it's but joining the Theory of Physick with his Practick, and he may be compleat. The Physitian cannot so easily attain to Pharmacy, it being a Mystery:' (9; see II, 182) The conflict frequently lies between the physician's reservation of legal and tradit- ional privileges and the rational demands of the apothecary; 'But good Mr. Doctor, what if the Patient desire the Visits of the Apothecary his Friend, having withall some Confidence of his Parts and Abilities, I hope you have no reason to be angry, but give him his freedom in this.' (9) The charge against physicians of leaving London during the plague is renewed with great emphasis, since the apothecaries 'in the Plague time, took upon them the whole Practice of Physickl.. or else its well known the Kinep Subjects (then much distressed) had been in a worse and more deplorable condition : The Doctors, with their Worships Greatness, being fled : May the wisdom of our Nation, the Parliament, never forget to encourage such Men; neither the Citizens of London to value their friends:' (18). Medice Cura Teipsum specifically states that the author takes no sides and wishes to vindicate both College and Company 'fromktie Crimina- tions of the Worthy Doctor , and to invalidate his Allegations and Arguments, together with his Only Remedy.' (4) The very fact of refuting Merrett involves a view which supports apothecaries more than physicians. The author pleads for a rational balance of judgement; 'shall the whole Profession with the honest Professors thereof suffer therefore? and their good Name Trade and Livelyhood, shall they be taken away because there are Knaves of the same Profession ?' (12) The stale- mate is fortified by the author's applying marry of Merrett's arguments against apothecaries with equal validity to physicians, who are as prone to overcharging as a dishonest apothecary; 'To this I answer, that if gain will tempt most men to dishonest actions, especially when they may act undiscovered, the Worthy Doctor is a man, and a man that loves gain as appears, and why may not he more easily be tempted to dishonest f actions ?' (13 Such reverse application of Merrett's accusations are I significant only in so far as they show that a remedy for the situation could not be provided by physicians preparing their own medicines. The present writer after remarking apropos of Merrett that 'Honest Men, and Conscientious Physicians look more principally at the curing their Patients, than doubling their Honour.' (31), reiterates the fault of k( physicians during the plague; 'Was here a public spirit? a design to do Mankind good, or rather a self Interest? Where was the good Doctor's Charity ?' (34). Other physicians advocated the appropriation of pharmacy to the College. Everard Maynwaring in Praxis Medicorum Antigua et Nova : (1671), stressed the importance of the practical side of medical knowledge, and in so doing inadvertently creates a strong case for knowledge by experience of the apothecary. (15) In his zeal he almost certainly offended some of his fellow physicians; 'for this is a plain truth, he that does not handle medicines is not fit to touch the sick:' (18) Physicians who do not dispense are equated with a ship's captain ignorant of the workings of a compass; 'the old Woman is as safe a Practi- ser as you,... ' (19) Physicians such as Merrett and Maynwaring swam with no avail against the growing tide of public habit. Maynwaring attacks those who consider themselves above pharmacy (no), and rails against those who prescribe to apothecaries, 'biassed from right reason, by pride, self interest, ignorance, and misinformation;' (41) At the time of the dispensaries, the same charges were levelled against such distinguished physicians as Radcliffe, Tyson and Blackmore. The author's distinction between the pharmacopoeian and the prescribing physician (51), indicates that then, as at the end of the century, the quarrel was as much between members of the College as between physician and apothecary. An early instance of a proposal for a dispensary is found in Some Papers Writ in the Year 1664. In Answer to a Letter, concerning the kAs Practice of Physick in England. By Dr.1.57] (1670) The author refers prophetically to what would ensue; 'The Charity there designed to supply all the poor of the Cities of London and Westminster with advice, and some of them with medicines gratis, -would but be looked upon as a decoy to bring in benefactours, whose bounty and Charity might be perverted to luxurious uses, and the care that is offered at to provide against the slaughters every day made by ignorant Quacks and Mountebanks... would be i.x looked upon but as a design to Monopolise physick to the Collage, and to invest the Physitians with a power to enslave Chyrurgeons and Apothecaries.'(i --2) Dr. C.T. accurately anticipates some of the main objections of the anti- dispensarians. However his prophecy later comes awry; 'and truly I think a very little consideration may serve a man to forsee, that the next age will scarce know, what an Apothecarie is;' (37) Other projects of a similar nature were suggested in 1667 by 'A true lover of his country', whose aim was to establish a hospital for foundlings and poor pregnant women. Later in 1689, Chamberlen proposed a scheme of medical care not limited to the poor.(Rosenberg, Journal, 43) However the first concrete proposals for a dispensary scheme were raised in the College on 29 July 1675; 'There was discussion about liberal treatment and free cure of the poor. Thursday of each week at 5 p.m. in the College House were the time and place chosen for dealing with this lramsl.Ç:\Aq.- )matter for as many Fellows as wished to be present.' (Annals, vol. IV) On 21 January 1675 -6, there was further discussion about the poor, but nothing was decided except the necessity for further consideration about the method to be used. (ibid.) Rosenberg attributes the failure to reach an agreement between the College and the Company partially to the bitter controversy over the pamphlets discussed above. The ill -feeling generated by these books inevitably made relations difficult. (Rosenberg, Journa1) -4) The action of the College in attempting a solution of this problem perhaps links with their awareness of the complaint that they had neglected the poor at the time of the plague. A scheme for a dispensary was sent to the Company of Apothecaries in August 1675, whereby facilities would be available daily at the College under the supervision of two or more Fellows. Since the documents were unsigned and since a Company deputation to the College was met by none but Dr. Frankland, 'who had the worst of reputations', it probably occurred to the deputation 'that the Committee of Physicians had acted without formal sanction and that there was a schism in the College over the proposals.' (Underwood, 125 -6). It is noted by Underwood that the apothecaries agreed to furnishing medicines 'att the lowest4 a4'd most reasonable rates.' (126) Yet the scheme proved abortive and twelve years passed before it was again proposed. Meanwhile the problem of the xx sick poor increased in the metropolis. The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 administered the provision of the poor by parishes; since many of London's inhabitants were not living in the parish of their birth, they were not eligible for medical aid in cases which did not require hospitalisation. (RosenberK, Journal, 41). On 27 July 1687, the College ordered 'that whenever any pauper in any parish within London and for seven miles outside it shall present himself at some convenient hour before any one of us living near him... and ask for medical advice, it shall be given him upon request, ra,,,44,;c,,.i readily and fully.' (Annals vol 1p A pauper, in reply to the Lord Mayor's query, was defined as one who brought a certificate from a rector, vicar or curate of a parish. (Underwood, 126) Nevertheless, relations between the College and the Company were strained, since the College's actions against the apothecaries increased. On the same day as the proposals for the poor were advocated, the College established new statutes, 'Since it has been found by experience that the apothecaries are aiming to acquire, from physicians' prescriptions, some form and 92, semblance of a false learning' which they turn to their own advantage, ingratiating themselves with patients every where, not without risk (AauS von. v, ,,,4 .i to others...' The directions for the use of medicine were to be left with the patient and not appended to the prescription; the instructions for compounding the medicine were to be indicated only by the appropriate symbols. Secondly, any surgeon or apothecary wishing to apply for admittance to the College must release himself from any other body before he might do so. On 23 August 1687, the President ordered that decisions -CCOA9 .ç. 7104 reached about apothecaries be kept entirely secret. (Annals vol. Statutes such as these indicate both a general gethering of forces and an attempt to unite the rank and file of the College. It is hardly sur- prising perhaps that the apothecaries would feel the dispensary project to be one of several repressive College measures. On 23 August 1687, College members were instructed to do their duty, 'laying aside all personal feeling and respect', and to report the names 'of any such C ̀ b'S.L apothecary they discoNer having practised medicine; The entry in the ;tcnuslk4m4 Annals (vol VA) notes also the rumour that certain physicians are dis- tributing medical bills to the people 'after the fashion of empirics and for the sake of snatching a mean and sordid practice 1. There are signs of a growing antagonism in the College over the nature of the proceedings against apothecaries. On 22 December 1687, the order was given that if an apothecary refused to show his bills to College officials, the bills may be reported to the College and if necessary rejected as incompetent; 'But some heats arising between some of the Members of the College, fitter to be forgott than registre d, nothing concerning this 5Aa1 Order was done.' (Annals. vol The dispensary project, however, moved slowly forward. On 13 August 1688, there was a unanimous vote within the College to set up a repository for medicines for the poor, since the former resolve to give advice gratis had failed because of the excessive prices charged by apothecaries. It was apparently expected that the apothecaries would concur but 'several amongst them set themselves by all the art and industry they were capable of, to frustrate the whole design... they fell to intrigueing with several of our own Members, who were too easily lured off to serve the Apothecaries interest, for their own private advantage. And from this cause... have chiefly sprung the unhappy Differences that are still fomented amongst us.' (A Short Account, 3t; See Preface to The Dispensary, 66 ff.) Garth's poem attacks those physicians who are concerned only for their own gain. (See III, 296 -301) And these members included physicians who repeatedly defied College attempts to stifle business between physician and apothecary. (see Commend. verses by Codrington, 37 n. & IV, 108 n.) Quite apart from the economic sense involved in a harmonious relationship with an apothecary, J.B. Nias remarks that Radcliffe's reputation was secure amongst apothecaries. His prescriptions 'show Radcliffe to have been a safe and, for the time, an elegant and refined prescriber; which probably was the reason why he was such a favourite with the apothecaries, generally good judges in such matters.' (Dr. John Radcliffe... 1918, 22) Tyson's biographer also justifies the attitude of the eminent anatomist; 'It is possible that he considered that such dispens rieswould work too sudden and too great a hardship upon the apothecaries, but whatever his reasons... we may be sure that they were of the most generous nature.' (M.P.A. Montagu, Edward Tyson... Philad. 1943, 317) Montagu later characterises Tyson's reasons as being 'of the most disinterested kind.' (214). u s "V.5 f , p Negotiations again lapsed until after the report to the College of the Apothecaries' Bill, then in Parliament, to relieve them of certain civic duties. (see II, 170 -1) On 18 March 1695, it was related in the College how counsel for the apothecaries accused the physicians of negligence, carelessness and uncharitable behaviour, while characterising the apothecaries as possessing great knowledge, skill and consideration, who 'took .Care of all the sick poor, and servants in, and about London, who must otherwise perish, without their assistance, for the Doors would not come to the poor... whilst they came at all times, and gave their advice and physick to the poor for nothing'. (Annals., vol.j(f'r 101.6) However inaccurate the generalisation may have been, its effect was instant. The College revived the 1687 order for the repository and formed a committee to manage it, this being an indication of the political acrimony involved in the dispensary project. The College reiterated the order both to rebut the charge of negligence and also to refute the growing assertion of the apothecaries that the latter alone were the guardians of the poor. In so doing, the College attempted to atone for several decades of inactivity, even though it is clear that the apothecaries, through self- interest, were not always helpful. The Company, for example, persuaded some forty apothecaries, who had agreed to furnish medicines at cost price under the dispensary scheme, to retract their promise. (Underwood, 128); or as A Short Account puts it, 'tending wholly to frustrate the charitable ends of our design... affrighted most of these Apothecaries from this undertaking, as if their Oath obliged them, Not to do any thing charitably.'(5 -6; See Preface to The Dispensary, 66 ff.) There was on both sides as much self -interest as charitable design. The College wished both to curtail the activities of practising apothecaries and to regain their position as head of the medical profession in everyone's eyes; 'Without a doubt many of the physicians who countenanced this scheme gave it their support from purely charitable motives; but it cannot be questioned that as a body the dispensarians were actuated in their humanitarian exertions by a desire to lower the apothecaries, and raise themselves in the eyes of the world.' (J.C. Jeaffreson, A Book about Doctors. 2 vols. 1860, I, 8g) On the other hand, the apothecaries wished to preserve their trade and their prescribing advantage with the people of London. On 12 August 1695, fifty -eight members of the College, including Samuel Garth, signed the declarationfbr a subscription towards furnishing a chest with drugs and ingredients for the preparation of the rarer medicines. When the vote was taken, 'there were some fellows threw - up their Balls, and refused to balat4' (Annals. vol. ,(fr 161 -) A _ ,P f resolution was passed on 22 December 1696 'proposing to establish a fund to be expended upon preparing and delivering medicines to the poor at their intrinsic value. The College had decided, cost what it might, in this matter to act independently of the Apothecaries.' (Underwood, 128) This declaration was printed in the second and subsequent editions of The Dispensary. A lease was granted to the subscribers of the labora- tory and adjoining room, of Dr. Burwell's coach -house and stable and of the College hall and Candidates' rooms in order to make up and deliver the medicines. On 26 January 1697, the charity was again proposed; the danger to the apothecaries' trade is summarised by Jeaffreson: 'This measure of the College was impolitic and unjustifiable. It was unjust to that important division of the trade who were ready to vend the medicines at rates to be fixed by the College authorities - for it took altogether out of their hands the small amount of profit which they, as dealers, could have realised on these terms.' (J.C. Jeaffreson, A Book about Doctors. 2 vols. 1860, I, 85) The proposal was again opposed by those physicians who had refused to sign the subscription list and who had also refused funds to help the College officers stand w.Qr3I by their duties. (Annals vol.Af6. 115 -40 : 23 December 1695) Of these men, four, Tyson, Blackmore, Chamberlen and Howe, found a place in The Dispensary. (see IV 108 n.; IV 175 n.; V 277 n. & IV 100 n. respectively) At the same time, several of the dissenters addressed a petition to the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, for a visitation of the College because of the recent statutes. (Rosenberg, Journal, 1+9) Those who signed the petition called the statutes impracticable; in addition to the physicians already mentioned, one of the signatories was Dr. Gibbons, another object of Garth's satire. (see IV 37n.) AA1V Later that year, on 17 September 1697, Samuel Garth delivered the annual Harveian Oration before the President and Fellows of the College, 'to the great satisfaction of the auditors, and to his own honour' (Annals vol. for 1695- 1710). Garth, the son of William Garth, was born in 1661, at Bolam in Durham (Venn, Alum. Cantab.; Munk I, 498). He attended school at Ingleton, in the parish of Staindrop, about a quarter of a mile south of Bolam, which is in Gainford parish (W. H. Cornog, 'Sir Samuel Garth...' Isis XX1X, 1938,30). Garth was admitted as a pensioner to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, aged sixteen, on 27 May 1676, (Venn, Alum.Cantab.), and matriculated 6 July. He graduated B.A. in 1679 and M.A. in 1684. He received his M.D. from Peterhouse on 7 July 1691 and was incorporated at Oxford in 1694 (ibid.). Between taking his M.A. and M.D., Garth entered on the physic -line at a/ Leyyen on 4 September 1687 (R.ß`1. Innes Smith, English -Speaking Students of Medicine at the University of Leyden. 1932,92) Garth was examined before the College of Physicians on 12 March 1692 and admitted a Fellow on 26 June 1693. He appears to have made a favourable impression immediately. On 28 December 1692, a letter was read in the College from the Lords of the Admiralty, requesting the College to name three or four physicians that they might choose one to aid the sick and wounded at Portsmouth. The College, after debate, chose Garth, who was recommended as a candidate 'of good learning...having spent some years in foreign Campaigns Li and Hospita]j ' (Annals vol. VI, p.45; 2 January 1693). In 1695, Garth was chosen vAji to deliver the Gulstonian lecture, which he o \ly began on 1 March, under the title of 'De Respiratione', occupying three days and concluding with a speech in Latin. The President and Censors desired Garth to print his lecture, which he promised to do (ibid.,pp. 191 -2). Cushing states that the lecture was never actually published (H. Cushing, 'Dr. Garth: The Kit -Kat Poet'. Bull. of the Johns Hopkins Hosp. XVII, Jan. 1906,2). Despite the success attending him, Garth's position altered radically with his Harveian Oration, which established him as a champion of the dispensary project, a position that was further to be enhanced after the publication of The Dispensary in May 1699. yL acxv (Garth's life and career subsequent to 1699 are discussed in part two of this introduction). In the Oration, delivered in Latin, Garth insists urgently on the necessity for a united College in the face of the danger threatening; 'The have provided a Repositorie well furnished with Druggs for the help of the Poor. If therefore so great Pietie, so much Charitie may be of force to move you, if not in other things, yet in this I beseech you be conformable; unlesse things... be come to this passe, that our keenest enemies are to be found at home... Therefore I earnestly intreat you to return again to unitie and concord; so all differences amongst us being buried, we may jointly seek the advantage of our Societie.' (the original English MS. in F.H. Ellis, 'Garth's Harveian Oration', Journal of the Hist. of Med. 18 (1), Jan. 1963, 19) Quite apart from the schism within the College, Garth sees the practice of medicine generally as being in a critical condition; 'But we are fain into those times and places in which Physick it self is grown sick. This Art most profitable unto others, scarce knows now how to preserve it self, whilst England suffers more by Quacks than distempers. How many and of what sort of these are , the Bills upon every Poste dayly give you notice... These Homicides... invade this Citty, with an impunitie equal to their own ignorance' (ibid. 13). The oration ends with an appeal; 'The thing it self, the time and necessitie exhort you more than nay oration. Are we not come to that passe that we fear those unto whom we ought to be a terror;... who haveing neither Learning nor ®od Manners, but a Stock of confidence <,> attempt to Subvert this Fabrick; Who take it ill, that we are well : but though they be more happy by our Divisions than their own conduct : let them know that wee'l watch more vigilantly for the Safety of this Colledge and the people, than for their ruin . (ibid. 19). Though Garth had been involved in the work prior to the dispensary subscription, (see Underwood, 382, n. 68, 384 n. 68), this exhortation placed the relatively new Fellow of the College in the forefront of the dispensary quarrel. C S 9c-7W The first dispensary was opened in 1698 in Warwick -lane. (see II, 118 -19 n. for a probable date) Two other dispensaries were opened, one in Gracechurch Street and another near St. Martin -in- the -Fields. In each case they were open on two days of the week and two physicians attended. (Underwood, 129) Although Robert Pitt claimed an annual total of 20,000 prescriptions filled at cost, (The Craft' and Frauds of Physic Expos'd. 3rd. ed. 1703, 19), a more conservative estimate gives 13,192 bills made up for the first three years 1e and a total of 7k,O/for the last three years and ten months of the operation of the dispensaries. (A Short Answer to a late book, entituled, Tentamen Medicinale. 1705, 33.4)Apart from its literary success, it cannot be said that Garth's poem succeeded in his attempt to reunite the College and to ridicule the apothecaries to the extent of preventing their practising, or to diminish the habitual recourse of the people to apothecaries for advice. Underwood remarks that the poem 'poured very effective ridicule on the Apothecaries and the Antidispensarians, and after its publication the active opposition to the Dispensary virtually subsided...' (387 -8), but also states, (129), that 'The dispensaries were never very successful.' Yet if the poem was successful in its ridicule of certain prominent anti- dispensarians, it could not defeat the combined weight of time and circumstance; some few years later a physician such as Mead could lay aside the Quarrel and accept the right of apothecaries to practise; by inviting apothecaries to coffee -houses to discuss treatment, the physicians established themselves 'in their true role as consultants'. (Underwood, 1) The controversy did continue after the erection of the dispensaries, despite Barrett's contention that the dispute,'prolonged and undignified as it had been, was now at an end. It was killed by the efforts of Dr., afterwards Sir Samuel,Garth.' (C.R.B. Barrett, History of the Society of Apothecaries ... 1905, 117); or the misleading statement of Allibone that 'the poor apothecaries were placed completely hors du combat.' (S.A. Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature. 3 vols. 1877, I, 653) One writer produced in 1700 A Satyr against Satyrs, in order to show the futility of trying to reform the town by ridicule; the writer cites as evidence of this futility, Blackmore's failure to reform the Wits (see App. i), and Garth's failure to settle the dispensary quarrel. (Rosenberg, 6i) Some satirical pieces revolved around the dispute, including Tom Brown's Physick lies a Bleeding, or the Apothecary turned Doctor (see App. 1V, and an anonymous satiric broadside, Spite and Spleen : Or/ the Doctor Run Mad, aimed at Robert Pitt, who changed sides to join the dispensarians and who added a new preface to the third edition (1703) of his Craft/ and Frauds of Physic Expos'd, attempting to explain his conversion. (the broadside is reprinted in M.F.A. Montague's Edward Tyson.... Philad. 1943, 427) Such prolific writers as Ned Ward chose to satirise both sides. In The Infernal Vision. A Satyr; (originally called A Journey to H -- : or, A Visit paid to the D -- ) 1699, Ward attacks Blackmore who was thought to have obtained his knighthood for his praise of William III in his King Arthur (1697) and ridicules Garth whom he says hoped for similar honours; Some with two Talents were profusely blest, And seem' d to study least what they profest, In earnest Poetry, and Physick but in jest. One hat-0d by Satyr, he himself should raise To the sane Honour some had done by Praise, (in vol. III of Ward's Works. 2nd ed. 1712, 32) Ward's opinion of the dispensaries is merely cynical; If to our Wrong Physicians stoop so low, To keep a Medicine Warehouse, let 'em know, We'll practice Physick till we kill and slay As many Thousands in a Year as they. The Poor they promis'd should have Medicines free. Instead of that the Upper -World may see, They make 'em pay great Rates for as bad Goods as we. (ibid. 34+ ) If the project provided light ammunition for the lesser writers, there were also criticisms by those more immediately concerned. The apothecary author of Tentamen Medicinale (170+) attacked the dispensaries and the College zealously defended their project. The writer of The Necessity and Usefulness of the Dispensaries... (1702) states the reason for their erection to be a dual one. Apart from providing for the poor, 'The Physicians being thus unjustly calumniated before the whole Nation, 'twas high time for them to think of an effectual remedy.' (3) Garth pictures the arrangement of the dispensary project as the means of banishing Sloth from the College and ofzevitalising medicine. (see I, 91 ff.) Moreover the author of the pamphlet, should the apothecaries threaten those dispensaries already in existence, envisages other similar facilities 'for the use of the Rich as well as the Poor.' (9) The quarrel is clearly still alive three years after Garth's poem, for the author refers to the anti -dispensarians; 'Only I must here expect two or three Physicians (not concerned in the Dispensaries) who have got a way (under the specious pretence of being careful Men) to visit their Patients twice or thrice a day, when once would serve, only, to Multiply their Fees. I am not writing an Apology for such; but am content they should fall under the same censure with the Apothecaries, of being unreasonable and oppressive.' (11) He does state that the rich attend the dispensaries, an indication perhaps of their use as a weapon against the apothecaries, although it is claimed that less than one in thirty that attend are wealthy. (12 -13) The claims of the earlier physicians, such as Merrett and Maynwaring, are incidentally refuted; 'Pre- paring of Medicins is but one, and that the meanest and most mechanick part of Physick.' (16) Robert Pitt's sudden conversion to the dispensarians makes his sincerity questionable; however in The Craft and Frauds of Physic Expos'd, (3rd. ed. 1703), he does uncover the apothecaries' strength in hoping that the success of the dispensaries will remove 'the senceless prejudices of the weaker sort of the People.' (Preface Sig. bóa); again, 'The People have lost their Common Sense, and cannot see the obvious Causes of their Complaints, that that they can Buy all the Medicins at low Rates at the Shop, yet they pay for the Mixtures very dearly in the Bill;' (5) Pitt accords with Garth's picture of the prevailing torpor of physicians. (see Disp. I, 68 ff.; VI, 311 ff.) The new physician is shown the extent of the apothecaries' power; They are commanded to read the fam'd Dispensary Poem, and remark the Favourites there describes, Mirmillo, Querpo, Carus, the Bard who... t, have been rais'd by their entire Obedience to us, and Writing as much as we are willing to put off in the respective Families. He is bid to take notice, how readily they lift themselves every Day to fill up the Troops, to be led by them to insult the College, as you obsery describ'd in that Historical Poem.' (14; see also 17 -19) That the dispute remains is shown in one of his parting comments; 'And they are, in this at least, infallible, that the growing numbers of the Apothecaries here and in all Parts of the K ingdom cannot be prevented...' (173) A more sober orator in The Present ill State of the Practice of Physick In this Nation... (1702), after having accurately diagnosed the situation when the dispensaries were initially created, is still obliged to admit that they do not function to capacity; 'And this Error of the Poor is so rooted and inveterate, that they still continue to do thus, notwithstanding they have these five or six Years been publickly invited by the Subscribers to the Dispensar4 to consult them gratis, and have their Physick a third of the price they pay the Apothe- cart.' (33) It seems clear that the original function of the dispen- saries to relieve the poor was extended to wealthier patients as an inevitable development of the battle against the apothecaries. One writer states for the physicians that the dispensaries 'were erected on purpose to relieve people of all Ranks and Conditions from the Oppression and Exactions which the Method of practising Physick then unavoidably submitted them to.' (Observations upon the Case of William Rose an Apothecary... 1704, 26) The use of the dispensaries as a weapon to subdue the apothecaries is reiterated by another pamphlet of Robert Pitt's, The Antidote : Or,The Preservative of Health and Lifer.. (1704). Pitt's 'antidote' is the dispensary by which he hopes apothecaries will be forced to resume their status as druggists, a somewhat optimistic belief in circumstances which threatened the loss of the apothecaries' trade altogether. Indeed, it may be that the erection of the dis- pensaries drove an even larger number of apothecaries into practising medicine in order to make up the profit they lost as druggists. Pitt can see that the time of the Restoration was significant in the develop- ment of this struggle; addressing the Royal Society, he feels, ambiguously, that 'The Morals and Practice of Physick began to be corrupted about the same time, your Society dates its Original.' (ibid. 'To the Royal Society.' Sig. A3a) Pitt remembers that during the Great Plague, since many physicians left town, 'The Apothecaries... were applied to in the sudden Disorders.' (97) What Pitt does not see is that the apothecaries were thereby reaping the benefit of an historical accident. The quarrel appears to have subsided in intensity after 1705, although there were intermittent pamphlets subsequent to this date, including in 1708 The Dispensarians are the Patriots of ,(Britain, in which the humbler physicians are represented as being little better than the slaves of opulent apothecaries. (J.C. Jeaffreson, A Book about Doctors. 2 vols. 1860, I,210) In 1721, Medicina Flagellata : or,the Doctor scarify'd, looked satirically at the chaotic state of medicine. It may be that the dispensaries, given the hold of the apothecaries over the ordinary people, lost their force as an effective weapon with the judgement of the House of Lords on the College v. William Rose. Rose, an apothecary, lost the judgement for illegal practice of medicine, since it was ruled that 'the defendant, taking upon himself to send physic to a patient as proper for his distemper even without taking a fee for his advice, is plainly taking upon himself to judge the disease and fitness of remedy, as also the execution or directory part.' (quoted Underwood, 133) The College was successful on a point of law, but the Attorney General 'recommended an application for a writ of error in the House of Lords,...'' (ibid. 133) The case was heard in the Lords on 15 March 1704. The apothecaries argued that the judgement would ruin all apothecaries and that the Charter should be interpreted in the light of 'constant usage and practice, which had always been with the apothecaryf' (quoted Underwood, 133), while the College stated Cc,i) xxx i. that the dispensaries were established to by -pass the high charges of apothecaries. (ibid. 134+) Nevertheless, the judgement was reversed, the Lords 'holding that it was not only contrary to custom but also against the public interest to prevent the giving of advice and treat- ment by apothecaries.' (ibid. 135; see also 389 -402, notes 82 -90) Thus towards the close of the initial acrimony of the dispute, the apothecaries established their legal right to practise. The dispensaries remained until 1725; in June the matter was dis- cussed, since the lease was due to expire. It was resolved that the dispensary room should be given over to the use of the Licentiates. (Underwood, 888) According to James Caulfield, the dispensaries died 'for want of that patronage which is often so lavishly bestowed in cases of far less moment and utility.' (Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing the Kit -Cat Club; ... 1821, 152) A more cogent reason may be that the dispensaries had outlived their usefulness as a method of attacking apothecaries and as a vehicle for restoring College prestige. The dispute had been long and complex and was by no means settled. It is insufficient merely to take sides, since this in no way does adequate justice to the concern and the abuses which existed in the parties concerned. Boyce's statement that the dispensary 'was a laudable effort by about fifty members of the College of Physicians to combat the greed and dishonesty increasingly evident among the apothecaries.' (B. Boyce, Tom Brown of Facetious Memory. Harvard 1939, 59), is only slightly more ingenuous than Johnson's opinion, which characterised The Dispensary as 'on the side of charity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority,...' (Life of Garth. Lives ed. G.B. Hill. 3 vols. 1905, II, 57- 60,60)A later writer is more accurate; 'and, thus, what the College of Physicians and Dr. Johnson after them, have attributed to the malignity of the apothecaries, was, in a great measure, at least, the natural and necessary effect of circumstances.' (E. Sandford, Works of the British Poets. Philad. 1819, XIV,232) Although the same writer blandly remarks that 'whatever may be the liberality of charitable institutions, there will always be more beggars than alms.' (ibid. 233), his main supposition would seem accurate. Neither the efforts of the College nor those of Garth could prevail against the inevitable encroachment of circumstance. L, Introduction Part Two The Man and the Poem In this section, a brief biographical survey is followed by some indication of the reputation gained by The Dispensary. Garth's early life and career are summarised in part one of this introduction and deal with the years up to the publication of the first edition of The Dispensary. From this point there is increasing evidence of Garth's dual role as man of letters and physician. Despite an illness at Tunbridge in August 1699, recorded by Gibson (Bod. MS. Ballard V4,Ó1+), Garth recovered sufficiently to take a pro- minent part in the burial of Dryden. (see Boyle's Comm. verses to The ''='j Dispensary, 20n.) Malone records /that Garth's oration over Dryden's tk c.s corpse was attended by a large crowd and 'it was requisite the orator should be elevated, that he might be heard : but as it unluckily happened, there was nothing at hand but an old beer -barrel, which the Doctor with much good -nature mounted; and in the midst of his oration, beating time to the accent with his foot, the head broke in, and his feet sunk to the bottom; which occasioned the malicious report of his enemies, that he was turned a tub -preacher. However, he finished the oration with a superiourgrace and genius, to the loud acclamations of mirth, which inspired the mixed or rather mob -auditors.' (E. Malone, Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden. 3 vols. in 4, 1800, I, pt. 1, 360 -1) From 1699, Garth lived on the east side of the Haymarket, the sixth door from the top. (Cunningham-Wheatley, under 'The Haymarket'.) In 1705, Garth moved house to St. James' and married Martha, daughter of Sir Henry Beaufoy. There was one daughter, Martha, whose elopement is mentioned in the title of Godolphin's poem to Garth in 1711, where she is called 'Miss Dingle'. (see below) Lady Garth died on 1 May, 1717. (H. Cushing, 'Dr. Garth : The Kit -Kat Poet.' Bull. of the Johns Hopkins Hosp. XVII, Jan. ri;3ll 1906, 141Q In 1707, the Egmont Papers record that the Duke of Devonshire ZXXIVb 'The praises bestowed on this poem are more than have been given to any other; but our approbation at present is cooler, for it owed part of its fame to party' (Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith ed. A. Friedman. 5 vols. 1966, V, 324). gave Garth a ring from his finger (Hist. MSS. Comm. VI , 507), which indi- cates perhaps Garth's steady advancement in the higher echelons of contemporary society, while Ralph Palmer's letters from Chelsea twice mention Garth. (ibid. 434) But perhaps the most important single event of Garth's early career was his being elected a member of the Kit -Cat club. Oliver Goldsmith linked The Dispensary with contemporary political issues;1( owed part of its fame to party.' (Quoted C.B. Hill, John3on'3 Livc3 of Cushing remarks that the declaration in Garth's Harveian Oration of 1697, praising William III, would have been attractive to those who supported the Hanoverian succession, and that it may well have been the oration as much as The Dispensary which was instrumental in Garth's becoming a member of a club which comprised the principal Whig noblemen of the day. (H. Cushing, 'Dr. Garth : The Kit -Kat Poet.' Bull. of the Johns Hopkins Hosp XVII, Jan. 1906, 10) As a member of the club, which was established around 1700, Garth would have come into contact with some of the most influential Whigs of the time. James Caulfield lists 48 memoirs of the club's members, including Kneller, Marlborough, Godolphin, Walpole, Vanbrugh, Steele, Addison, Walsh, Congreve and Tonson. (Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing the Kit -Cat Club, 1821) In company with Addison, Maynwaring, Halifax, Dorset and Wharton, Garth contributed verses to be inscribed upon the toasting glasses of the club; Caulfield prints Garth's verses to Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde and Lady Wharton. (ibid. 156) Garth is early connected with the club and with the Whigs by William Shippen in Faction Display'd (1704). At a meeting of the Whigs, Bathillo (Halifax ?) is made to boast; I help'd to Polish G-th's rough, awkward Lays, Taught him in Tuneful Lines to Sound our Party's praise/ (13) Evidence of Garth's political activities increases after 1710, when the fortunes of the Whig party began to ebb. There is a record of the Duke of Argyll's anger at the possibility of appointing the Duke of Hamilton Governor of Edinburgh Castle. Argyll wrote a letter which he wanted published and sent a copy to Garth, who read the letter in and about the London coffee -houses. (Letter of Stratford to Harley; Hist. MSS. Comm. XXIX, e. - _.: _.. pt. 7, 17. 6 Sept. 1710) In 1710, Garth was involved in a dispute with Prior and was defended by Addison over the doctor's poem to Godolphin on his dismissal from office. (see IV, 222 n. for the details) The poem of Garth's, says Johnson, was 'so successfully either defended or excused by Mr. Addison that, for the sake of the vindication, it ought to be pre- served.' ('Life of Garth'; Lives ed. G.B. Hill. 3 vols. 1905, II, 61) Pope, always favourably inclined towards Garth, was ready to accept a critic': opinion of Garth's poem; 'Dr. Garths Poem I have not yet seen, but believe I shall be of that Criticks opinion you mention at Will's, who swore it ()J\ was Good' (Pope to Cromwell. 28 Oct. 1710. Corres. I, 101). Godolphin replied to Garth in 1711 with The E -1 of G-d -n to D -ct -r G-th, upon the f (' loss of Miss Dingle : In return Or the D- ct -r's Consolatory Verses to Him, upon the loss of his Rod., in which poem he defended Garth from Prior; Thou, who the Pangs of my embitter'd Rage Coud'st, with thy never -dying Verse, asswage; Immortal Verse, secure to live as long As that curs'd Prose that did Condemn thy Song: (1 -4) Later in 1710, the Whigs tried 'to win over Dr. Garth to share in the responsibilities of editorship, but he wisely declined ;' (C.K. Eves, Matthew Prior/ Poet and Diplomatist. Colum. Univ. Press 1939,266 -7) Garth did however contribute to the Medley r.or 5 Oct. 1710. (A. Andrews, History of British Journalism. at( 2 vols. 1859, I, OP Garth, as may be seen from the annotation to II, 78, was on intimate terms with the Duke of Marlborough and visited him in July 1711; the visit was recorded by General Hamilton in a letter to the Earl of Oxford; 'Dr. Garth made a short visit here of three days; the morning after his arrival he was locked up about two hours with 73 when no one else had admittance; he would willingly have stayed to see tomorrow's march, but was hastened away, and for more expedition goes to Ostend.' (Hist. MSS. Comm. XXIX, pt. 5, 54+) Watkins reported on the same visit in a letter to John Drummond of July 1711; 'I cannot find he has been very lavish with his tongue, but dare venture to assure you, per Lord Duke has trusted him with nothing but 7oGX,.), what may be safely proclaimed at Charing Cross. I dined with his Grace the day after the doctor's arrival, and he told us very merrily of the letters the doctor brought him from Lady Duchess, Lord Godolphin and Mr. craggs.' (ibid. 56 -7) In the same year, Garth was concerned in the organisation of a procession by the Whigs to celebrate the anniversary of the birthday of Elizabeth I. In the procession, effigies of the Pope, the devil, cardinals and Sacheverell were designed with a view to burning them. Swift, who aided the government in denouncing the motives of the organisers, remarked that 'Garth gave five guineas, Dr. Garth I mean, if ever you heard of him.' (Journal to Stella. ed. H. Williams. 2 vols. 1948, II, 415; see also H. Craik, Life of Swift.2 wols.! 1894, I, 305 -6) Garth appears to have been on good terms with Swift in 1710, since the Journal to Stella records their dining together three times in the autumn of that year. (ed. H. Williams. 2 vols. 1948, I 48 -9; 51; 75) Dobrée notes that the procession included 'a figure of Harley as the devil (the property of Dr. Garth).' (B. Dobrée, Essays in Biography, 1680 -1726. 1925, 135 -6) 1711 also saw Garth's Dedication to a proposed edition of Lucretius to the Elector of Brunswick, later George I. The Dedication was translated from the Latin by Oldmixon and published in 1714. An amusing instance of party feud occurred on the date of the first performance of Addison's Cato (1713), for which Pope wrote a Prologue and Garth an Epilogue. The Tories gave the cc player, Booth, fifty guineas and the Whigs hastened to do the same; 'so betwixt them, 'tis probable that Cato (as Drj Garth expressed it) may have something to live upon, after he dies.' (Pope to Caryll, 30 April 1713. Corres. I, 175) Garth obtained his reward as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession with the accession in 1714 of George I. He was knighted with Marlborough's sword (see II, 78n), made a physician-in-ordinary to the king and physician -general to the army. In 1718, Garth was again active, but sufficiently forthright to express a blunt opinion of the king's son; 'Dr. Garth is there, whom my brother saw. He speaks with respect of his master George, but says the Prince, his son, is such a scoundrel that he is despised by everybody, and has very few partisans, and that he will never be able to hold the reins, if he should ever come to govern.' (Sir T. Higgons, to the Duke of Mar. Hist. MSS. Comm. LVI, pt. 6, 556) Garth was in Paris to see Bolingbroke, the Tory minister of the last years of Queen Anne's reign. Menzies reports to the Duke of Mar; 'We hear that Staires comes away from Paris and Craggs remains, with Garth and some assistants.' (ibid. pt. 2, )422. Aug. 1716) Two letters of mese to the Duke of Mar, the leader of the Jacobites, report on the Whigs' activity; 'I am told by two persons that Boynton has had private meetings lately with some of Williamson's family. We have here of that gang Craggs, Garth, Addison and other smart men, but I know not who it was that saw Boynton.' (ibid. 469. 24 Sept. 1716); and 'It is no more to be doubted that Boynton has of late had several private meetings and suppers with the chief persons of Williamson's family here, especially with Dr. Garth, who is now returned to England, and Mr. Craggs, both Mildmay's creatures.' (ibid. 488. 29 Sept. 1716) Both letters expressed concern that Bolingbroke will be won over by the Whigs. Garth is reported as saying that Bolingbroke was 'one of the best subjects K Geo has. He found him so.' (Menzies to Fribourg. ibid. pt. 3, 25) In the year of the Jacobite rising, 1716, Garth wrote a brief poem, On the new Conspiracy, which defended the Brunswick succession. There is a contemporary tribute to Garth which appeals to him to aid the king in his verse. (BM. Add. MSS. 3395)4. 69 -74) It is interesting to note that one of the obituary writers in 1719 praised Garth even though a Whig; 'Tho' it is not usual with Whigs to give Merit of any Kind it's due, if it belongs to a Person of a Party opposite to themselves; yet, tho' tclv.fs this Gentleman was a Whig, I wish Peace to his AsKes; I will do Honour to Cs..) his Merit both as a Physician and a Poet,...' (The Weekly Medley. Jan. 17 -24, 1719) Garth's career as a physician was aided considerably by his success as a literary figure, despite Winslow's contention to the contrary that he 'never succeeded to any great extent... in the metropolis; he had a little practice, but not at all commensurate with his great abilities... When a physician is thrown into such society, it is, to a certain extent, a bar against his advancement as a professional man.' (F.B. Winslow, Physic and Physicians... 2 vols. 1839, I, 211) James Caulfield on the other ?oc.x:Jiü hand cites Garth and Radcliffe as the most fashionable physicians of the day, one Whig, the other Tory; when Radcliffe died, Garth 'amassed a very considerable property.' (Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing iÿ the Kit -Cat Club. 1821, 154) Jeaffreson talks of 'his numerous patients' who 'prized his bon -mots more than his prescriptions.' (J.C. Jeaffreson, A Book about Doctors. 2 vols. 1860, I, 86) The truth, inevitably, lies between the two extremes and may perhaps be resolved by the stress of the obituarists upon Garth's charity. The Original Weekly Journal for 24 Jan. 1719 styles Garth as 'one of the most celebrated Physicians of the Age. He is universally regreted, being a Gentleman of extraordinary Charity :', while the Weekly Packet for Jan. 17 -24, 1719 states; 'The moderate Estate which he has left behind him,shews at once the Greatness and Goodness of his Heart, since, considering the Esteem he was in, and the Opportunities he had, it is obvious he might have made himself wealthy, had he not made many others happy. Many of his Profession have grown rich by receiving fewer Fees than Sir Samuel has refus'd.' Thus if Garth did not amass a fortune, it was not due, as Winslow feels, to a lack of opportunity. Garth's finan- cial state in 1716 seems to have been comfortable. There is a record of a repayment to Garth of £1000 under an Act of Parliament for a Land Tax (Nat. Lib. of Scotland. MS. 585. 111), and in 1715, Garth had signed a South Sea warrant for £200, in a document witnessed by Congreve and Lee. yL (Bod. MS. Montagu . d.i. 91. 8 Jan. 1715) Garth had established himself as a physician of repute at the beginning of his career. In July 1699, he had testified with Dr. Hans Sloane at the trial of four men at Hertford assizes for the murder of one Sarah Stout. The evidence of the two physi- cians contributed towards a verdict of 'Not guilty'. (A. Rosenberg, 'The Sarah Stout Murder Case : An Early Example of the Doctor as an Expert Witness.' Journ. of Hist. of Med. XII, 1957, 61.70) The fact that Garth was called with Sloane suggests that his medical reputation had grown con- siderably six years after being elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians. Three years later, on 3 October 1702, Garth, together with Drs. Charleton, Pitt and Brook, was chosen Censor of the College. (Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 8th report, 231) There are reports at intermittant inter- vals of Garth's medical career. St. John wrote to Harley on 2 October 1705 c..Q to inform him of his journey into the country for a few days 'by Dr. Garth's direction.' (ibid. XXIX. pt. 4, 256) Bromley writes to the Earl of Oxford that Lieut -General Webb was dying; 'One of his servants overtook me on the road as I came from Windsor, riding post to town to carry Dr. Garth and Busière to him;' (ibid. pt. 5, 368) In 1708, Garth and other physicians attended Prince George of Denmark. There are letters of 1712 from Garth, Maynwaring's sister and Craggs to the Duke of Marlborough referring to the illness of Arthur Maynwaring, whom with Blackmore, Garth tried to save. (ibid. VII , 54) The Duchess of Marlborough refers in a letter to the serious illness of the Duchess of Newcastle, whom Garth and Sloane are expected to attend. (ibid.VZIL, 473) Garth was on familiar terms with the Duke of Newcastle, as witness several letters from Garth to the Duke in 1716. (BM. Add. MSS. 32, 685, 2 -12) In 1714, Garth with Blackmore attended the Marquis of Wharton. (see IV, 175n.) In addition to being Addison's physician (see IV, 215n.), there is a report of Garth's attending Count Kilmanseck in November 1717. (Hist. MSS. Comm. XXIX, pt. 5, 538), and of his waiting on the Princess of Wales in December 1717, when 'Earl Grantham sent for Dr. Mead, Duchess St. Albans for Dr. Garth, and some sent for Sloane.' (ibid. 546) Hearne retails the aftermath of this; 'My great friend, Dr. Richard Mead, bath recovered the princess of Wales (as she is called) when the other physicians had certainly killed her, had their prescriptions been followed. This hath gained Dr. Mead a great reputation at prince George's court, and Dr. Garth and Dr. Sloane are now out of favour, as well as others.' (Reliquae Hearnian..ae : The Remains of Thomas Hearne... 2 vols. 1857, I, 382) It is perhaps as well to add that Mead, 'Uninfluenced by prejudices of party, ... was equally the intimate of Garth, Arbuthnot, and Friend.' (John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. 9 vols. 1812 -15, VI, 213) Evidence of Garth's activities are seen in a series of twelve undated letters by him to Sloane, requesting his advice and help in medical matters. (BM. MS. Sloane 4059. 27 -4'0) Garth's abrupt manner with his patients is satirised in Arbuthnot's The History of John Bull... (G.A. Aitken, Life and Works of Arbuthnot. 1892, 250 ff.), where Garth is made to report on the 'old woman' (the xz Church of England). 'In no manner of danger, I vow to Gad, quoth Garth, the old woman is hysterical, fanciful, Sir, I vow to Gad...' And in Notes and Memorandums of the Six Days (P.eceding the Death of a Late Right Reverend -/ (ibid. 460ff.), Garth again features as a physician; 'Hear G-h coming uTktairs : now for my last sentence : how shall I receive it? What shall I say to him? Order my servant to give ten pieces : that may soften him perhaps. He comes in singing : looks with a bad aspect : recommends an undertaker to me. Sighs often. The doctor smiles; bows, and says, no good can be done! sad words!' J. Timbs records another anec- dote of Garth's forgetting over wine to go to his patients. Upon Steele's urging him to go, Garth is supposed to have said; 'It's no great matter whether I see them to- night, or not, for nine of them have such bad constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't save them; and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't kill them.' (Clubs and Club Life in London. 1872, 52) Steele gives another picture of Garth in the Dedication of The Lover (1715); 'we forgive You that our Mirth is often insipid to You, while You sit absent to what passes amongst us from your Care of such (tR4 5-c\ .I as languish in Sickness.'/ The success attendant upon The Dispensary led to other literary ventures, B. Boyce notes Garth's part in a translation of Don Quixote, announced in February, 1699; the first two volumes were published in November 1700, and the last two in 1703. The translation was published by Peter Motteux, 'and to his support in this ambitious effort he called a number of likely authors, including Wycherley, Garth, Congreve, Savage and Brown.' (Tom Brown of facetious memory. Harvard, 1939, 112) Motteux in the translator's preface (to vol. I) owns his debt to 'some other Gentlemen, who are not only Masters of the Spanish, but of the Delicacies of our Tongue. I have also Acknowledgments to pay to Mr. Wycherley, Mr. Congreve, Dr. Garth...' (The History Of the Renown'd Don Quixote..,4 vols. 1700- 1703.) Garth was also .zcc -e involved in another translation. Plutarchfs Lives.Translated from the Greek) by Several Hands, appeared in five volumes from 1683 -86. The life of Otho l(V, 739. 1686) was in the first and second editions (1693) translated by c. fac,ivs C XLZ Thomas Beaumont, but in the third editbn (1700) Garth provides a new version of the life of Otho. (V, 735 -61) If we are to accept Abel Boyer's evidence, Garth wrote two letters'to my Lady - at the Bath', dated September 6 and 13, 1692. (pub. in Letters of Wit, Politicks and Morality. 1701, 377 -80) It is possible that Garth was the author of Uraniae Metamor- phosis in Svdus T OIO TRA1 iak URATIOPT Late Glo ious Sovereign Queen i'4 .... Written by a Doctor of Physick. This Latin poem was dedicated to Montague and is dated 7 March 1694 -5; the writer in the Preface insists that he composes only very occasionally. (BIM Press -mark 11630 R. 41 (17) under 'Garth') Williams notes that Garth contributed verses to a quarto periodical, The Muses Mercury: or the Monthly Miscellany, edited by Oldmixon, which appeared from.January 1707 to January 1708. (H. Williams, Poems of Swift. 3 vols. 2nd ed. 1958, III, 911) Garth's friendship with Pope is another indication of the physician's prominence in the literary and social world. Later Pope was to refer to Garth's early encouragement of his work, when 'Well -natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praise,' (Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 137) The friendship is noted by Sherburn-; 'Granville and Garth, although less influential friends, were persons of importance in Pope's early work...Garth... touched Pope's orbit for a rather longer time.' Sherburn thinks it doubtful if Pope knew Garth as early as 1703, but their friendship is certain and lasted until Garth's death in 1719. (G. Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope. 1934, 60) Since Pope annotated a copy of the fifth edition of.The Dispensary (1703) and a copy of the sixth (1706), it is clear that he knew of Garth's work and followed its revisions carefully. (see notes to lines omitted between IV 213 and 214) Pope dedicated his pastoral, Summer, to Garth; Accept, 0 Garth, the Muse's early Lays, That adds this Wreath of Ivy to thy Bays; (9 -10) On the fly -leaf, opposite the first page of the original MS. of the Pastorals, Pope notes; 'This Copy is that wch. past thro ye hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Mainwaring, Dr. Garth....' (Sherburn, op.cit. 52) Pope remarks elsewhere that he was 'early acquainted with Lord Lansdown, Garth, Betterton, and Wycherley, and, not long after, with St. John.' (Spy ence, 194) rz. Spence also records Garth's partial influence on the additions to The Rape of the Lock; 'The machinery was added afterwards, to make it look a little more considerable, and the scheme of adding it was much liked and approved of by several of my friends, and particularly by Dr. Garth : who, as he was one of the best -natured men in the world, was very fond of it.' (195) Later, in May 1715, Garth's poem Claremont praised Pope's Windsor Forest over Cooper's Hill, because, says Sherburn, of Pope's defence of Garth in Essay on Criticism, 618 -19. (see initial note to Cheek's Comm. verses to The Dispensary) Garth's praise in 1715 came at a time when the wits at Button's were ho9tile to Pope. In 1716, Garth tried to make peace between Pope and Burnet and persuaded them to dine together. (Sherburn, op.cit. 60 ff. and 155) On the occasion of Garth's gathering support for his edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses in 1717, Pope noted Garth's efforts with wry amusement; Garth at St James's,and at White's, Beats up for Volunteers. (Sandy's Ghost, 4+7 -8) Pope nevertheless supported the edition; 'Dry Garth has published a trans- lation of Ovid's Metamorphoses by several hands, with a preface and dedication of a new fashion. Folio. Price 20s. I advertise (c) you to borrow it.' (To Caryll. 6 Aug. 1717. Corres. I, 418) Garth was also concerned in the reception of Pope's translation of the Iliad; 'I have just set down Sir Samuel Garth at the opera. He bid me tell you,that ever4body is pleastd with your translation,but a few at Button's; and that Sir Richard t1 Steele told hipythat Mr. Addison said Tickel /'s translation was the best that ever was in any language.' (Letter of Gay's dated 8 July 1715. Pope, Corres. I, 31) Pope gives an account of reading part of his translation to Halifax and of marking passages queried by the latter. Garth's advice to Pope on leaving Halifax was to read the same passages later to Halifax as if they had been revised. Halifax duly approved the 'revisions'. (Spence, 131+ -6) Although it is possible that Pope's companion was Congreve, it is more generally thought to have been Garth. Pope in his Preface to cogs the translation records his thanks to Garth; 'the humanity and frankness of 00,6)1 Sir Samuel Garth are what I never knew wanting on any occasion.' There seems to have been a very real friendship between Garth and Pope. The latter informs Teresa and Martha Blount in a letter of 23 July 1715 that Garth's proposed journey to Italy has been postponed for three days (Corres. I, 309), z and refers familiarly to Garth in a letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; 'Dr. Garth makes Epigrams in prose when he speaks of you' (Oct. 1717; Corres. I, 442). Lady Mary praised Garth; 'It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted with all of them - Addison was the best company in the world. - I never knew any body that had so much wit as Congreve. - Sir Richard Steele was a very good- natured man: - And Dr. Garth a very worthy one \' (Spence, 232). After Garth's death, Pope praised and mourned him, and in 1729, still retained his memory; 'so I live; so I shall die; and hope one day to meet you, Bishop Atterbury, poor Craggs, Dr. Garth, Dean Berkley, and Mr. Hutchenson, in that place, To which God of his infinite mercy bring us, and every body \' (To Swift. 28 Nov. 1729. Corres. III, 81). The last record of Pope's connection with Garth is his letter to Tonson of 7 June 1732, thanking him for a portrait of Garth; 'You oblige me in the copy of my old friend Dr. Garth;' (Corres. III, 291). The major production of the last years of Garth's life was his edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was advertised in the London Gazette, 5552, for July 2 -6 1717 as 'This Day is Published', but the beginnings of it are recorded in \1NN'Ia letter of Tonson's to Nth of 22 November 1715, referring to the proposed translation (BM. MS. Stowe 155. 97). Some eighteen writers aided in the el translation, including Addison, Gay, Pope, Congreve, Ozell, Row /and Welsted. Parts of Dryden's translations of Ovid ware. also utilised. Garth translated Book XIV and the story of Cippus in Book XV. In 1732, the same translation was again published in folio together with the Latin text. Johnson censures Garth's Preface as being written 'with more ostentation than ability :' ('Life of Garth'; Lives ed. G.B. Hill. 3 vols. 1905, II, 62), and elsewhere remarks on 'thé Ignorance of themselves, that Garth attempted. Criticism, and that Congreve waved his Title to dramatick Reputation, and desired to be considered only as a Gentleman' (Rambler 24). Garth's last two literary efforts were of a minor order. The Post -Boy for January 9 -11 1717 advertised for Lintot Poems on Several Occasions by Buckingham, Wycherley, Winchelsea, Garth, Rowe, etc., and the same newspaper for April 24 -6 1718 read that 'On Monday next will be deliver'd to the Subscribers,' a volume of Familiar letters of Love, Gallantry... in two volumes, to which Garth was a contributor. Garth died on 18 January, 1719. The Original Weekly Journal for January 17 1719, The Weekly Packet for January 10 -17, and The Weekly Medley for January 10 -17, all carried reports that Garth was dangerously ill. His death was reported in the Post -Boy for January 17 -20 1719; the White - Hall Evening Post for January 20 -22 records that 'Early this Morning the Corps of Sir Samuel Garth was privately carried to Harrow on the Hill, to be interr'd in a new Vault made for that purpose.' The Flying -Post for January 22 -24 notes that a Dr. Gibson had been appointed to replace Garth as physician -general to the army. Garth was accorded large praise at his death, part of which is already noted. The Weekly Packet for January 17 -24 characterised him as 'a Gentleman justly celebrated for his Wit and Humanity. It is said of him,that he never did an ill- natur'd Thing to any Person, nor ever refus'd a good One, when it lay within his Power: He has, on the contrary, done numberless Acts of Benevolence and Liberality, that were unsought, and even shunn'd.' This tribute is reinforced by Bolingbroke's description of Garth as 'the best -natured ingenious wild man I ever knew.' (Quoted G.B. Hill, Johnson's Lives of the Poets. 3 vols. 1905, II, 62 n. 3) If tributes to Garth's humanity were widespread, some writers were at pains to stress other aspects of his character, particularly his apparent indifference to matters of religion. Some of these comments are related by EC (VIII, 28 -9 n.3) and Garth's last days are recounted by A. Rosenberg. ('The Last Days of Sir Samuel Garth: A Footnote to a Pope Letter.' N &Q CCIV, July- August 1959, 272 -4) At first, attacks on Garth's 'atheism' were linked with his membership of the Kit -Cat club. Charles Leslie's Rehearsal (12 May 1705) quotes from the Prologue Spoken at the First Opening of the Queen's New Theatre in the Hay- Market, which was 'said to be Written by Dr. G-th, Chaplain to Kit -Kat, an Open and Profess'd Energy to all Religion.' (R.J. Allen, 'The Kit -Cat club and the Theatre.' RES VII, 1931, 56 -61, 58) Allen elsewhere notes contemporary objections to the 'godlessness of the x Tv Kit -Cats.' The charges were based 'upon the known indifference of many individual members-to matters of religion and upon the open atheism of such men as Dr. Garth.' (R.J. Allen, Clubs of Augustan London. Harvard 1933, 49) William Shippen's Faction Display'd (1704) accuses the club of irreligion; 'Twas there we first instructed all our Youth, To talk Prophane and Laugh at Sacred Truth. (p.15) 4I (quoted Allen, 4 9i) Similarly, Mary Astell's Bart'lemy Fair : or, an Enquiry after Wit, accused the club, among other things, of blasphemy and treason. (ibid. 48) Part of the provocation for such comment was perhaps stimulated by Garth's funeral address over the body of Dryden, (see Comm. verses by Boyle to The Dispensary, 20 n.), which G had consisted of an apostrophe to Apollo and the singing of an Horatián ode. This drew remarks in The Apparition (1710); J -n D -n, with his Brethren of the Bays, His Love to G -h, Blaspheming G-h conveys; And Thanks him for his Pagan Funeral Praise. (-c-p (quoted H. Macdonald, John Dryden. A bibliography of Early Editions and of Drydeniana. 1939, 292, n.3) The author of The Story of the St. Alban's Ghost, or the Apparition of Mother Haggy (1712) remarks sardonically of Garth that 'however he may have been abused by those who deny him to be the author of the Dispensary, and taxed by others with principles and practices unbecoming a man of his sense and probity, yet I will be bold to say in his defence, that I believe he is as good as a christian as he is a poet...' (In Works of Swift ed. W. Scott. 19 vols. 1814. VI, 194). It is reported by Atterbury that Garth wrote an epitaph on St. Evremond for Westminster Abbey, in which the Frenchman was commended for his indifference to all religion. (Addison's Works ed. R. Hurd, 6 vols. 1656 VI, 736) This kind of report would seem to justify the censure of EC of Garth as 'lax and epicurean, and he himself informed Mr. TownOley, that he had two veins opened with the intention of committing suicide after he had ascertained that he could not recover from his disease, but might survive for some years. The loss of blood relieved his pains, and he then said that "if it would continue so he could be content to live on. "' (VIII, 28 -9 n. 3) Added to this indication of Garth's religious disinterest is a more humorous picture of him in Notes and Memorandums of the Six Days preceding the Death of a Late Right Reverend - (in G.A. Aitken, Life and Works of Arbuthnot, 1892, 455) Garth attends the dying clergyman; Patient. 'I will, I will; - but prithee don't be so irreligious, Doctor; I have a great respect for your constancy in a good cause, and your name has done us service in verse and prose. Doctor. Why, Sir, have you the vanity to think that religion ever did our cause any service: If that comes into your head, and you squeak at last, it is time for me to bid you good night. Patient. I will do anything you order me; but I must confess, that I begin to think a man can't die easily without repentance. Doctor. Farewell then; my time is past; there can be no hopes if you talk at this rate : I'll tell the Kit -Cat Club of you, and it shall be known to every man at C t that you die like a pedant.' Pope defended Garth with great enemy and stated that the poet - physician died a Catholic, (Spence, 2, 380), as did James Caulfield. c,- s (Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing the Kit -Cat Club. 1821, 155) Despite Johnson's feeling that Garth was 'accused of voluptuousness and irreligion; and Pope,...seems not able to deny what he is angry to hear and loath to confess.' ('Life of Garth.' in Lives ed. G.B. Hill. 3 vols. 1905, II, 62 -3), Pope carefully stresses Garth's disinterest rather than antagonism to religious affairs. (see Spence, 380 and Pope's A Farewell to London. 1715, 15 -16) This is perhaps borne out by a remark of Hearne's; 'I am told Dr. Garth, who writ that famous English Poem called The cc1 Dispensary, was a man of no Religion, that when he was upon his Death -bed, '4 cce arid the subject of another Life mentioned to him, he said, he had done what good he could, and he did not trouble himself about what was to come.' (Hearne's Diary. Bod. MS. Hearne CIV, 66; entry for 24 July 1724) The relative oblivion in which Garth lies at the moment should not obscure the fact that as man and poet he enjoyed a considerable reputation both during his life and for a number of years after his death. However, on the publication of The Dispensary, William Adams struck a cautious note in his judgement of it; LK. 'As to the Satyr you mention of Dr\ Garth's, I've seen it : but understand it nok perfectly. you must in your next letter give me a kind of a Key etc. There are good whims in it, and the man seems to have a genius for poetry, but not overmuch judgmnt in the managemnt of it' (Letter to Tanner, 21 May 1699. Bod. MS. Tanner 21.63). Steele was anxious to read the poem : 'I long to see Dr. Garth's Nine days Wonder; of that date I think you say was the Edition\' (Letter to Mrs. De La Riviére Manley. Corres. ed. R. Blanchard. 1941, 436). Later, in 1715, Steele was to dedicate The Lover to Garth; 'and it is as common with Garth to supply Indigent Patients with Money for Food, as to receive it from Wealthy ones for Physick' (Dedication A4a). By some writers, Garth was hailed as Dryden's successor. In Luctus Britannici : Or The Tears Of The British Muses; For The Death Of John Dryden, Esq; (1700), Congreve, Addison and Garth are all cited as possible poetic heirs. B.K. of Trinity, Cambridge, looks to Congreve (p.12), while Hall hopes; 'Tis to engaging Garth, and Addison, The fittest now to fill thy Vacant Throne. (p.19) The anonymous 'Elegy on the much Lamented Death...' in the same collection feels that Dryden's qualities will live on; In Garth, or Congreve, shall his Genius shine, (p.46) The concluding poem appeals to Garth to take Dryden's place; As we with Sighs unfeign'd the Task persue, And Weep him Dead, who still must Live in You. (p.51) In a more ironical vein, Daniel Kenrick assesses Garth's potential in A New Session Of The Poets, Occasion'd by the Death of Mr. Dryden (1700). 'All- pleasing Garth' (p.8) is shown as an imitator of Boileau and a follower of Dryden; Just at the Word, a Brawny Bard came in, Cheerful his Look, and manly was his Mien; The Jolly Muse, attended by the Nine, Came into Court, reading Boileau'@) Lutrin' While to our wonder (how good Wits agree:) 'Twas strait transform'd to the Dispensary. Apollo finally pronounces on Garth's poem; Others by many Works have sought that Crown, Which you much more have merited by one. How much the World does to thy Genius owe, Who not Translate, but can Improve D'Espreaux: Your beauteous Turns your wondrous Sence express; While all your Thoughts in Dryden's Garb you dress. And would you but some fulsome Couplets raze, Full of low Flatt'ry, and of partial Praise, Believe your God, you might demand the Bays. (pp.8 -9) A Miscellany of 1701 chooses to praise Garth's double function as poet and physician. In A New Miscellany Of Ori:inal Poems On Several Occasions, Garth is attributed with 'The double charge of Health and Wit' and 'living Verse, and healing Arts'. (Henry St. John, A Pindarick Ode... Miscellany, 103, stanza V) By 1701, Garth is accepted by some as being firmly entrenched in the world of letters; 'The Company which now generally meets at Will's, may be divided into two Classes; the first of which contains the Wits, justly so call'd, and n.e. the other the Would -be- Wits. Among the first are Men of distinguish'd Merit and Abilities, such as Mr. Wicherley, Dr. Garth, Mr. Congreve, the Honorable Mr. Boyle... Mr. Vanbruk, Mr. Cheek, Mr. Walsh.... Mr. Rowe, ... ' (A. Boyer, letters of Wit, Politicks and Morality, 1701, 216) Boyer delivers extended appreciation of Garth; 'Dr. Garth is an eminent Physician, of universal Learning and polite Literature; his Looks is smiling and cheerful; his Conversation free and entertaining; he admires the Ancients no farther than they are to be admired; and understands and values our best French writers, especially Mons. Despreaux. He has writ a Poem in English, call'd the Dispensary; wherein he has equall'd, if not exceeded the Lutrin, which he had propos'd to himself as a Model. His Diction is pure and correct; his Verses numerous; his Satyr genteel and nice; and his Praises delicate and natural; in a word,this little Piece is worth an Epick Poem. The only difference I find between him and Boileau is, that our French Poet got a good Pension for commending his King, whereas Dr. Garth has got nothing Lk_ L p233(t, XL/X, for the just Praises he has bestow'd on his.' (ibid. 217 -18). Returning to his second category, the'Would -be- Wits', Boyer defends the 'Wits' from such slanders that 'Dryden little more than a good Versifier; Congreve a laborious unnatural Writer; and Garth a Copier:' (ibid. 221) There had been several accusations of this nature. (see Commendatory verses to The Dispensary by Cheek, initial note) Garth's immediate poetic influence was beginning to be seen in other productions. William King's The Furmetary (1699) had noticeably imitated Garth's poem, (see King's Preface, and pp. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11), and another poem, The Dissertator in Burlesque (1701), in octosyllabic couplets, had acknowledged Garth's satire; When flowing numbers, Verse Polite, Is labour'd to describe a fight, Betwixt Apothecaries Boys Engaging with Heroic Noise; Their Colours, Aprons blue display'd, Their Ammunition, Drugs decay'd; With Phyal broke, and Galley-pot, Instead of Gunpowder and Shot: Are the dire Warlike Arms they carry, So sung in famous Dispensary, Which in the Canto following Sings, The praises of the best of Kings. Epic Burlesque, and Satyr keen Dancing it th' same Heroic mein, Laughter at once affords, and loathing, Like Shakespear's Tincture in Lord's clothing. (pp. 7 -8; quoted R.P. Bond, English Burlesque Poetry. 1700 -1750. Harvard, 1932 243 -4) Abel Boyer returned to the attack on the 'Would -be -Wits' in The English Theophrastus : or The Manners of the Age... (1702; Augustan Reprint Soc.I, 3. 1947) He adjvises Blackmore bluntly not to write so much in his endeavour to gain a reputation. The image in Boyer's passage probably follows Blackmore's suggestion in A Satyr against Wit (1700) for a bank of wit to refine and cleanse the poetry of the day. (for the influence of The Dispensary on the Satyr against Wit, see app. AÌ); Cc,Qs .yL 'No,B -re, we judge of Poetry as we do of Metals, not by the Lump, but the intrinsick Value. New cast your Poems, purge 'em of their Dross, reduce 'em to the Bulk of the Dispensary, and if then they weigh in the Balance with that, we will allow you a Place among the First -Rate Heroick Poets.' (2) Boyer extravagently places Garth in a genealogy of poets including Virgil, Terence, Corneille and Shakespeare (2), and defends him, amongst others, from the protestations of the 'Fop -Poet' (9) Even Samuel Wesley, whom Garth had satirised (see V, 71 ff. and n.), admitted, albeit grudgingly, Garth's justifiable fame; And G-h, tho barren in his Theme and mean, By this has reach'd at least the famfd Lutrine. (An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry. 1700. Augustan Reprint Soc. Series II, 2, 1947, lines 821 -2) The anonymous panegyrist of L'Estrange in 1705, ranks Garth with Addison and Congreve: Since then great Dryden and L'Estrange are gone, The Pleasing Talent Congrieve is thine own, Unless you will allow a share to Garth or Addison. (Luctus Britannici, A Poem, to the Memory of Sir Roger L'Estrange, 1Z) Garth's reputation was allowed by Ozell in his translation of Le Lutrin (1708); And Thou who painted in a deathless Strain The Licens'd Homicides of Warwick -Lane: (Phoebus to thee his double Blessing gives; Thy Musick charms us, and thy Art relieves) (3rd ed. 1714, 44) William Coward, somewhat prematurely, praises Garth for resisting the temptation to repeat his performance; In this the Dispensarían Poet's wise, Once He wrote well, and lets that once suffice: Provokes no Critics in a second Muse, Establish'd Fame, by new Attempts to lose. (Licentia Poetica c-ti15 discuss'd : or, the True Test of Poetry. 1709, 25) Coward links Garth with Waller in asking the Muse to ; Spy out a WALLER, or a G-TH inspire, Find a fit Object for thy Heavenly Fire; (ibid. 84) li Garth's poem attained a status whereby more than fifty passages from The Dispensary were included in Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry. (4th ed. 1710) The poem was eulogised by Gay in Lesser Epistles.On a Miscellany of Poems to Bernard Lintott; Whenever Garth shall raise his sprightly song, Sense flows in easie numbers from his tongue; Great Phoebus in his learned son we see, Pw,40,P,i3( Alike in physick, as in poetry. (76 -9) Tatler 78 had accorded similar praise to Garth under the name of Hippocrates 'who shows as much liberality in his practice as he does wit in his con - versationjand skill in his profession.' Garth's poem came to be included in many discussions as to the nature of burlesque. Thus Addison employs The Dispensary in order to distinguish two kinds of burlesque; 'It is a Dispute among the Criticks, whether Burlesque Poetry runs best in Heroic Verse, like that of the Dispensary, or in Doggerel, like that of Hudibras. I think where the low Character is to be raised the Heroic is the proper Measure, but when an Hero is to be pulled down and degraded, it is done best in Doggerel.' (Spectator 21t9) Again, with references to allegory, Addison cites Garth; 'We find in Mock -Heroic Poems, particularly in the Dispensary and the Lutrin, several Allegorical Persons of this Nature, which are very beautiful in these Compositions, and may, perhaps, be used as an Argument, that the Authors of them were of Opinion, such Characters might have a Place in an Epic Work./ (Spectator 273) Garth's poem is held up as a good example of satire in the epic vein by the translator of Boileau's L'Art Poétique, in the course of attacking 'low' burlesque; Let not so mean a Stile your Muse debase; But learn from Garth the true Satiric grace: And let Burlesque in Ballads be employ'd; (in Works of M. Boileau. 2 vols. 1712, I, 89) Charles Gildon's attack on The Rape of the Lock links Le Lutrin and The Dispensary as mock -heroic poems; 'Ah, Sir, that won't do; Boileau and Garth have treated of little things with Magnificence of Verse, as Homer did of the Frogs; but that is now Old, we must have something New;' 1, (i rs or Bays New Reheaal, the Younger. 171+; quoted R.P. Bond, English lii Burlesque Poetry 1700 -1750. Harvard 1932, 75). Richardson Pack chose 1719 to praise The Dispensary; 'The DISPENSARY of Sir SAMUEL GARTH hath lost and gain'd in every Edition. Almost every Thing he left out was a Robbery from the Publick: Every Thing he added hath been an Embellishment to his Poem' (Miscellanies in Verse and Prose, 96 -7). John Dennis is more sceptical of the poem's worth: 'We have since had Libels which have pass'd for Satires, as Absalom and Achitophel, the Medal, Mac Fleckno, and the Dispensary. They are indeed... beautiful Libels, but they are every where full of Flattery or Slander, and a just Satire admits of neither... The business of Sir Samuel Garth in his Dispensary was to expose much better Physicians than himself, for no other reason but because they were not of his Opinion in the affair of the Dispensary' (The Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar... 1720; Hooker II, 201; see also Boyle's Comm. verses to The Dispensary, 20 n.). Walter Harte praised Garth as a true successor of Dryden; His Spirit ceas'd not (in strict truth) to be: For dying Dryden breath'd, 0 Garth: on thee, Bade thee keep alive his genuine Rage, (An Essay On Satire 1730, 20). Joseph Spence's unpublished poem 'The Charliad' (BM. Add. MSS. 25897) describes a region where the spirits of 'Satyrogelists' sit, including Brown, Butler, Dryden, Garth, Pope, Prior and Swift (in Something instead of a Preface f.5), J.T. Hillhouse notes a tribute to Garth in the Grub -Street Journal, in the course of an analysis of James Miller's Harlequin Horace (The Grub- Street Journal. Duke Univ. Press, 1928, 29). An anonymous poem, Studley Royal : the Seat of John Aislabie Esq;, praises Garth's Claremont; Shall Waller'(s) verse St. James'(6) groves refine, And Windsor's Pope, out -charm themselves in thine? ow. Shall Denham 's muse bloom Cooper'( hill with bays, And Claremont shine in Garth'( immortal Lays? (The Gentleman's Ila atine II, 1732, 1122). From the same magazine, during the course of a piece entitled The Apotheosis of Milton : A vision., Garth's position in letters is estimated; ¿Ií1 'While I was attentive to the Genius, I perceiv'd a Member who had entered unobserved by me, ... He had a most engaging Smile, and a winning Deportment, and his Dress was composed of a very rich French Brocade made up in the English Fashion, of an uncommon Pattern, on which the medicinal and poetic Ensigns of Phoebus were enigmatically represented. While he talked to Butler he was shaking Hands with Dryden; he nodded to Addison, but blushed when he saw Prior observing him, and seem'd industrious to avoid meeting the Eyes of the Bishop of Rochester. The Genius then informed CL me that the Person I saw was Sir Samuel Garth, more eminent for the pro- ductions of his Genius, than his Dignity of Knighthood.' (The Gentleman's Magazine IX, 1739, 74) The writer wittily suggests Garth's use of Le Lutrin as a model for The Dispensary, notes his service of Apollo both as a poet and physician, his similarity in poetic tyre to Butler and Dryden, his animosity subsequent to The Dispensary towards Prior (see IV, 222 and note), and his satiric portrait of Atterbury. (see I, 143, ff.) In 1751, R.O. Cambridge comically mistakes the point of early mock - heroics in decrying their trivial origins. After stating that Le Lutrin, The Dispensary, The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad do not 'come up to the true idea of a Mock- Heroic poem.', Cambridge selects Garth and Pope as further objects of censure; 'The comic humor of Garth, was strongly excited by the factious div- isions in his own profession, and would probably have vented itself in prose, but that the admir'd performance of Boileau invited his imitation. And Pope wrote his first essay of this kind to put an end, by ridicule, to a quarrel between two families... and not from any form'd design to write a true Mock- Heroic Poem.' (The Scribleriad: An Heroic Poem. In Six Books. 1751. Preface, VI) On the whole, Joseph Warton praises The Dispensary. Although he styles it 'a palpable imitation of the LUTRIN...' (Essayi on the Genius and Writings of Pope. 3rd ed. corr. 1772, 221), Warton notes that ' Garth's versification is flowing and musical; his style perspicuous, and neat; and the poem in general abounds with sallies of wit, and nervous satire.' (ibid. 224) In Adventurer 133 (12 Feb. 1754), Warton cites yes The Dispensary as a modern production; 'Above all, the Lutrin, the Rape C yP43' ZV of the Lock, the Dispensatoryjand the Dunciad, cannot be paralleled by any-works that the wittiest of the ancients can boast of:' Charles Churchill in 1763, took a different view; for him, The Dispensary is remote; Calling to mind, in antient time, One GARTH who err'd in Wit and Rhine, (The Ghost. IV, 69 -70 Works ed. D. Grant 1956p Nevertheless, The Dispensary was still sufficiently well -read for Bonnell Thornton to write in 1768 The Battle of the Wigs, which was styled an additional aato to Garth's poem, although Thornton denies any intention of imitating Garth. Jonathan Richardson also indicates the poem's continuing popularity; 'Nay, a work that has had a great vogue, and which is afterwards altered by the author himself, is generally thought, at first, to be altered for the worse; as was the case with Garth's Dispensary. People had been so accustomed to read it over and over, and even to repeat whole passages by heart of the first edition, that their ear could not bear the change, and they thought it was their judgment. We now see fairly, that every edition was for the. better.' (Richardsoniana... 1776, I, 195) He also supports the man; 'and it was a fine character of Garth, that "No physician knew his art more, nor his trade less ".' (ibid. 333) Garth continued to receive critical attention as in G. Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric (2 vols. 1776); after quoting Dispensary VI, 1I7 -50, Campbell comments that 'The wit in these lines doth not so much arise from the comparison they contain of the dropsy to a miser,... as from the union of contraries they present to the imagination, poverty in the midst of opulence, and thirst in one who is already drenched in water.' (I, 53) V. Knox's Cursory Thoughts on Satire and Satirists (1778), whilst attacking Voltaire, praises Garth together with Milton, Dryden and Pope. (Quoted A.F.B. Clark, Boileau and the French Classical Critics in EnGland, 1660 -1830. Paris, 1925, 51) William Hayley's An Essay on Epic Poetry (1782) elevates Garth at the expense of Blackmore; The shame he suffer'd from Sir RICHARD's case, Swift at the word his sprightly GARTH began To make an helmet of a Close -stool Pan; Iv An Urinal he for his trumpet takes, And at each blast he blows see Laughter shakes. (III, 460 -4 .) In 1792, Walpole's opinion of Garth is high; 'Is it not extraordinary, dear Sir, that two of our very best poets, Garth and Darwin, should have been physicians? I believe that they have left all the lawyers wrangling at the turnpike of Parnassus...' ( To Barrett, 14 May 1792; Quoted H. Cushing, 'Dr. Garth : The Kit -Kat Poet.' Bull. of T,,, / the Johns Hopkins Hosp. XVII, Jan. 1906,416) Thomas Powell of Monmouth in Emma, or the Baculiniad (1805 ?), states; 'My Lord Orford declared that the Rae of the Lock, the Dispensary, and the Lutrin, were three poems unrivalled for elegance by any antient or modern productions. Every competent reader must set his seal to that h testimony.' (Quoted R.P. Bond, English Burlesque Poetryr ¡ 1700 -17500 Harvard 1932, 72) Hallam considered the poem in detail; 'In the year 1699, a poem was published, Garth's Dispensary, which deserves attention, not so much for its on merit, though it comes nearest to Dryden, at whatever interval, as from its indicating a transitional state in our versification... But, perhaps, it had not been so uniform in any former production as in the Dispensary. The versifi- cation of this once famous mock- heroic poem is smooth and regular, but not forcible; the language clear and neat; the parodies and allusions happy. Many lines are excellent in the way of pointed application,... This poem may be called an imitation of the Lutrin, inasmuch as but for the Lutrin, it might probably not have been written, and there are even particu- lar resemblances. The subject... may vie with that of Boileau in want of at J general interest; yet it seems to afford more diversity to the satiric poet. Garth... is a link of transition between thestyle and turn of poetry under Charles and William, and that we find in Addison, Prior, Tickell, and Pope, in the reign of Anne.' (H. Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe.... 4 vols. 1837 -9, IV, 440 -1) Hallam's comments on Garth's versification are echoed by Gosse, as well as a feeling that the appeal of The Dispensary has waned; 'The fun has all faded out of The Dispensaryland Garth is no longer in the least degree attractive. But his didactic verse is the best between Dryden and Pope, though we see beginning in it the degradation of the over- lc mannered style of the eighteenth century.1' (E. Gosse, History of Eighteenth Century Literature. 1922, 34) Gosse's opinion that The Dispensary is beyond recovery is a fairly representative one in modern criticism. (see, for example, W.M. Dixon, English Epic and Heroic Poetry. 1912, 259; A.C. Baugh, A Literary History of England. New York 1948, 899; and nodefc,Atl the more mod /fied opinion of H. Walker, English Satire and Satirists. 1925, 167) Nevertheless, it is accurate to say that whatever]ater opinion may make either of Garth as a person or of the poem as a satire, Garth's contemporaries held him and his work, for the most part, in high esteem. n, A Check -List of Garth's Works, apart from the Dispensary : With the exception of Claremont and the edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Garth's verse and prose is occasional and slight. 1692 Sept. 6 and 13. Two letters 'to my Lady - at the Bath.' ( ?) (in A. Boyer's Letters of Wit, Politicks and Morality. 1701, 377 -80) C.c16 1693 -4. Uraniae Metamorphosis in Sydus : or, The Transfiguration of our Ç, fire, Why S - - -- rages to survive Desire. Whence Milo's Vigour at Olympick's shown, Whence Tropes to F --ch, or Impudence to S - --- How Matter, by the vary'd shape of Pores, Or Idiots frames, or solemn Senators. Hence 'tis we wait the wondrous Cause to find, How Body acts upon impassive Mind. How Fumes of Wine the thinking part can fire, Past Hopes revive, and present Joys inspire: Why our Complexions oft our Soul declare, And how the Passions in the Features are. How Touch and Harmony arise between Corporeal Figure, and a Form unseen, How quick their Faculties the Limbs fulfil, 45 50 55 60 18. And act at ev'ry Summons of the Will. With mighty Truths, mysterious to descry, Which in the Womb of distant Causes lie. But now no grand Enquiries are descry'd, Mean Faction reigns, where Knowledge shou'd preside, Feuds are encreas'd, and Learning laid aside. Thus Synods oft, Concern for Faith conceal; And for important Nothings show a Zeal: The drooping Sciences neglected pine, And Paean's Beams with fading Lustre shine. No Readers here with Hectick looks are found, Or Eyes in Rheum, thro' midnight -watching drown'd: The lonely Edifice in Sweats complains, That nothing there but sullen Silence reigns. This Place so fit for undisturb'd Repose, The God of Sloth for his Asylum chose. Upon a Couch of Down in these Abodes Supine with folded Arms he thoughtless nods. Indulging Dreams his Godhead lull to Ease, With Murmurs of soft Rills, and whisp'ring Trees. 65 70 75 80 19. The Poppy and each numming Plant dispense Their drowzy Virtue, and dull Indolence. No Passions interrupt his easie Reign, No Problems puzzle his lethargick Brain. But dark Oblivion guards his peaceful Bed, And lazy Fogs hang ling'ring o'er his Head. As at full length the pamper'd Monarch lay, Batt'ning in Ease, and slumb'ring Life away: A spightful Noise his downy Chains unties, Hastes forward, and encreases as it flies. First, some to cleave the stubborn Flint engage, Till urg'd by Blows, it sparkles into Rage. Some temper Lute, some spacious Vessels move; These Furnaces erect, and Those approve. Here Phyals in nice Discipline are set, There Gally -pots are rang'd in Alphabet. In this place, Magazines of Pills you spy; In that, like Forrage, Herbs in Bundles lye. While lifted Pestles, brandish'd in the, Air, Descend in Peals, and Civil Wars declare. 85 90 95 100 20. Loud Streaks, with pounding Spice, the Fabrick rend, 105 And Aromatick Clouds in Spires ascend. So when the Cyclops, o'er their Anvils sweat, And swelling Sinews ecchoing Blows repeat; From the Vulcano's gross Eruptions rise, And curling Sheets of Smoke obscure the Skies. The slumb'ring God amaz'd at this new Din, Thrice strove to rise, and thrice sunk down agen. Listless he stretch'd, and gaping rubb'd his Eyes, And faulter'd thus betwixt half Words and Sighs. How impotent a Deity am I! With Godhead born, but curs'd, that cannot die! Thro' my Indulgence, Mortals hourly share A grateful Negligence, and Ease from Care. Lull'd in my Arms, how long have I with -held The Northern Monarchs from the dusty Field. How have I kept the British Fleet at ease, From tempting the rough Dangers of the Seas. Hibernia owns the mildness of my Reign, 110 115 120 21. And my Divinity's ador'd in Spain. I Swains to Sylvan Solitudes convey, Where stretch'd on Mossy Beds, they waste away, In gentle Joys the Night, in Vows the Day. What marks of wondrous Clemency I've shown, Some Rev'rend Worthies of the Gown can own. Triumphant Plenty, with a chearful Grace, Basks in their Eyes, and sparkles in their Face. How sleek their Looks, how goodly is their Mien, When big they strut behind a double Chin. Each Faculty in Blandishments they lull, Aspiring to be venerably dull. No learn'd Debates molest their downy Trance, Or discompose their pompous Ignorance: But undisturb'd, they loiter Life away, So wither Green, and blossom in Decay. Deep sunk in Down, they, by my gentle Care, Avoid th'Inclemencies of Morning Air, And leave to tatter'd Crape the Drudgery of Pray'r. Urim was civil, and not void of Sense, Had Humour, and a courteous Confidence. 125 1 30 135 140 22. So spruce he moves, so gracefully he cocks; The hallow'd Rose declares him Orthodox. He pass'd his easie Hours, instead of Pray'r, In Madrigals, and Phillising the Fair, Constant at Feasts, and each Decorum knew; And soon as the Desert appear'd, withdrew. Always obliging and without Offence, And fancy'd for his gay Impertinence. But see how ill mistaken Parts succeed; He threw off my Dominion, and would read; Engag'd in Controversie, wrangled well; In Convocation -Language cou'd excel. In Volumns prov'd the Church without Defence, By nothing guarded but by Providence: How Grace and Moderation disagree; And Violence advances Charity. Thus writ 'till none would read, becoming soon A wretched Scribler, of a rare Buffoon. Mankind my fond propitious Pow'r has try'd, Too oft to own, too much to be deni'd. And all I ask are Shades and silent Bow'rs, 145 150 155 160 165 To pass in soft Forgetfullness my Hours. Oft have my Fears some distant Villa chose, O'er their Quietus where fat Judges dose, And lull their Cough and Conscience to repose: Or if some Cloyster's Refuge I implore, Where holy Drones o'er dying Tapers snore: The Peals of Nassau Arms these Eyes unclose, Mine he molests, to give the World Repose. That Ease I offer with Contempt He flies, His Couch a Trench, his Canopy the Skies. Nor Climes nor Seasons his Resolves controul, Th'Aequator has no Heat, no Ice the Pole. With Arms resistless o're the Globe he flies, And leaves to Jove the Empire o' the Skies. But as the slothful God to yawn begun, He shook off the dull Mist, and thus went on. 'Twas in this rev'rend Dome I sought Repose, These Walls were that Asylum I had chose. Here have I rul'd long undisturb'd with Broils, And laugh'd at Heroes, and their glorious Toils. My Annals are in mouldy Mildews wrought, 3 23. 170 175 180 185 24. With easie Insignificance of Thought. But now some busie, enterprizing Brain Invents new Fancies to renew my Pain, And labours to dissolve my easie Reign. } With that, the God his darling Phantom calls, And from his fault'ring Lips this Message falls. Since Mortals will dispute my Pow'r, I'll try Who has the greatest Empire, they or I. Find Envy out, some Prince's Court attend, Most likely there you'l meet the famish'd Fiend. Or where dull Criticks Author's Fate foretel; Or where stale Maids, or meager Eunuchs dwell. Tell the bleak Fury what new Projects reign, Among! the Homicides of Warwick -Lane. And what th'Event, unless she streight enclines To blast their Hopes, and baffle their Designs. More he had spoke, but sudden Vapours rise, And with their silken Cords tie down his Eyes. 190 195 200 25. THE Dispensary. CANTO II. c & G.c Soon as the Ev'ning veil'd the Mountains Heads, And Winds lay hush'd in subterranean Beds; Whilst sick'ning Flow'rs drink up the Silver Dew, And Beaus, for some Assembly, dress anew; The City Saints to Pray'rs and Play -house haste; The Rich to Dinner, and the Poor to Rest: Officious Phantom then prepar'd with Care To slide on tender Pinions through the Air. Oft he attempts the Summit of a Rock, And oft the Hollow of some blasted Oak; At length approaching where bleak Envy lay, The hissing of her Snakes proclaim'd the way. Beneath the gloomy Covert of an Eugh, That taints the Grass with sickly Sweats of Dew; No verdant Beauty entertains the Sight, But baneful Hemlock, and cold Aconite; In a dark Grott the baleful Haggard lay, Breathing black Vengeance, and infecting Day. 5 10 15 26. But how deform'd, and worn with spightful Woes, When Accius has Applause Dorsennus shows. The cheerful Blood her meager Cheeks forsook, And Basilisks sate Brooding in her Look. A bald and bloted Toad -stool rais'd her Head; The Plumes of boding Ravens were her Bed. From her chapp'd Nostrils scalding Torrents fall, And her sunk Eyes boil o'er in Floods of Gall. Volcano's labour thus with inward Pains, Whilst Seas of melted Oar la waste the Plains. Around the Fiend in hideous Order sate Foul bawling Infamy, and bold Debate: Gruff Discontent, thro' Ignorance miss -led, And clam'rous Faction at her Party's Head: Restless Sedition still dissembling Fear, And sly Hypocrisie with Pious Leer. Glouting with sullen Spight the Fury shook Her clotter'd Locks, and blasted with each Look. Then tore with canker'd Teeth the pregnant Scrolls. Where Fame the Acts of Demi -Gods enrolls. And as the rent Records in pieces fell, 20 25 30 35 27. Each Scrap did some immortal Action tell. This show'd, how fix'd as Fate Torquatus stood, That, the fam'd Passage of the Granick Flood. The Julian Eagles, here their Wings display; And there, like setting Stars, the Decii lay. This does Camillus as a God extol, That points at Manlius in the Capitol. How Cochles did the Tyber's Surges brave, How Curtius plung'd into the gaping Grave. Great Cyrus, here, the Medes and Persians join, And, there, th' immortal Battel of the Boyn. As the light Messenger the Fury spy'd, A while his curdling Blood forgot to glide. Confusion on his fainting Vitals hung, And fault'ring Accents flutter'd on his Tongue. At length, assuming Courage, he convey'd His Errand, then he shrunk into a Shade. The Hag lay long revolving what might be The blest Event of such an Embassy. Then blazons in dread Smiles her hideous Form, 45 50 55 28. So Lightning gilds the unrelenting Storm. Thus she - Mankind are bless'd, they riot still Unbounded in Exorbitance of Ill. By Devastation the rough Warrior gains, And Farmers fatten most when Famine reigns; For sickly Seasons the Physicians wait, And Politicians thrive in Boils of State.. The Lover's easie when the Fair One sighs, And Gods subsist not but by Sacrifice. Each other Being some Indulgence knows, Few are my Joys, but infinite my Woes. My present Pain Brittania's Genius wills, And thus the Fates record my future Ills. A Heroine shall Albion's Scepter bear, With Arms shall vanquish Earth, and Heav'n with Pray'r. She on the World her Clemency shall show'r, And only to preserve, exert her Pow'r. Tyrants shall then their impious Aims forbear, And Blenheim's Thunder, more than Aetna's, fear. 60 65 70 75 29. Since by no Arts I therefore can defeat The happy Enterprizes of the Great, I'll calmly stoop to more inferiour things; And try if my-lov'd Snakes have Teeth or Stings. She said; and straight shrill Colon's Person took, In Morals loose, but most precise in Look. Black -Fryar's Annals lately pleas'd to call Him Warden of Apothecaries -Hall. And, when so dignifi'd, he'd not forbear That Operation which the Learn'd declare Gives Cholicks ease, and makes the Ladies fair. In trifling Show his Tinsel Talent lies, And Form the want of Intellects supplies. In Aspect grand and goodly He appears, Rever'd as Patriarchs in primaeval years. Hourly his Learn'd Impertinence affords A barren Superfluity of Words. The Patient's Ears remorseless he assails, Murthers with Jargon where his Med'cine fails. The Fury thus assuming Colon's Grace, So flung her Arms, so shuffl'd in her Pace. 80 85 90 95 30. Onward she hastens to the famed Abodes, Where Horoscope invokes th 'infernal Gods; And reached the Mansion where the Vulgar run, For Ruin throng, and pay to be undone. This Visionarie various Projects tries, And knows, that to be Rich is to be Wise. By useful Observations he can tell The Sacred Charms, that in true Sterling dwell. How Gold makes a Patrician of a Slave, A Dwarf an Atlas, a Thersites brave. It cancels all Defects, and in their Place Finds Sense in Br --w, Charms in Lady G- -ce It guides the Fancy, and directs the Mind; No Bankrupt ever found a Fair One kind. So truly Horoscope its Virtue knows, To this loved Idol 'tis, alone, he bows; And fancies such bright Heraldry can prove, The vile Plebeian but the third from Jove. Long has he been of that amphibious Fry, Bold to Prescribe, and busie to Apply. 100 105 110 115 31 . His Shop the gazing Vulgar's Eyes employs 120 With foreign Trinkets, and domestick Toys. Here, Mummies lay most reverendly stale, And there, the Tortois hung her Coat o'Mail; Not far from some huge Shark's devouring Head, The flying Fish their finny Pinions spread. Aloft in Rows large Poppy Heads were strung, And near, a scaly Alligator hung. In this place, Drugs in musty Heaps decay'd, In that, dri'd Bladders, and drawn Teeth were laid. An inner Room receives the num'rous Shoals Of such as Pay to be reputed Fools. Globes stand by Globes, Volumns on Volumns lie, And Planetary Schemes amuse the Eye. The Sage, in Velvet Chair, here lolls at Ease, To promise future Health for present Fees. Then, as from Tripod, solemn Shams reveals, And what the Stars know nothing of, foretels. One asks how soon Panthea may be won, And longs to feel the Marriage Fetters on. 125 1 30 135 32. Others,convinc'd by melancholy Proof, 140 Enquire when courteous Fates will strike 'em off. Some, by what means they may redress the Wrong, When Fathers the Possession keep too long. And some wou'd know the Issue of their Cause, And whether Gold can sodder up its Flaws. Poor pregnant Lais his Advice would have, To lose by Art what fruitful Nature gave: And Portia old in Expectation grown, Laments her barren Curse, and begs a Son. Whilst Iris, his Cosmetick Wash, wou'd try, To make her Bloom revive, and Lovers dye. Some ask for Charms, and others Philtres choose To gain Corinna, and their Quartans loose. Young Hylas, botch'd with Stains too foul to name In Cradle here renews his Youthful Frame: Cloy'd with Desire, and surfeited with Charms, A Hot -house he prefers to Julia's Arms. And. old Lucullus wou'd th'Arcanum prove, Of kindling in cold Veins the Sparks of Love. 145 1 50 155 33. Bleak Envy these dull Frauds with Pleasure sees, And wonders at the senseless Mysteries. In Colon's Voice she thus calls out aloud On Horoscope environ'd by the Crowd. Forbear, forbear, thy vain Amusements cease, Thy Wood -Cocks from their Gins a while release; And to that dire Misfortune listen well, Which thou shou'dst fear to know, or I to tell. 'Tis true, Thou ever avast esteem'd by me The Great Alcides of our Company. When we with Noble Scorn resolv'd to ease Our selves from all Parochial Offices; And to our Wealthier Patients left the Care, And draggl'd Dignity of Scavenger: Such Zeal in that Affair thou didst express, Nought cou'd be equal, but the great Success. Now call to mind thy Gen'rous Prowess past, Be what thou shou'dst, by thinking what thou wast. The Faculty of Warwick -Lane Design, If not to Storm, at least to Undermine: Their Gates each day Ten thousand Night -caps crowd, 160 165 170 175 180 34. And Mortars utter their Attempts aloud. If they shou'd once unmask our Mystery, Each Nurse, e're long, wou'd be as Learn'd as We; Our Art expos'd to ev'ry Vulgar Eye, And none, in Complaisance to us, would dye. What if We claim their Right t'Assassinate, Must they needs turn Apothecaries straight? Prevent it, Gods! all Stratagems we try, To crowd with new Inhabitants your Sky. 'Tis we who wait the Destinies Command, To purge the troubl'd Air, and weed the Land. And dare the College insolently aim To equal our Fraternity in Fame? Then let Crabs Eyes with Pearl for Virtue try, Or Highgate -Hill with lofty Pindus vie: So Glow -worms may compare with Titan's Beams, And Hare -Court Pump with Aganippe's Streams. Our Manufactures now they meanly sell, And their true Value treacherously tell: Nay, They discover too, (their spight is such,) That Health, than Crowns more valu'd, costs not much. 185 190 195 200 35. Whilst we must steer our Conduct by these Rules, To cheat as Tradesmen, or to starve as Fools. At this, fam'd Horoscope turn'd pale, and straight In Silence tumbl'd from his Chair of State. The Crowd in great Confusion sought the Door, And left the Magus fainting on the Floor. Whilst in his Breast the Fury breath'd a Storm, Then sought her Cell, and reassum'd her Form. Thus from the Sore altho' the Insect flies, It leaves a Brood of Maggots in Disguise. Officious Squirt in haste forsook his Shop, To succour the expiring Horoscope. Oft he essay'd the Magus to restore, By Salt of Succinum's prevailing Pow'r; Yet still supine the solid Lumber lay An Image of scarce animated Clay; Till Fates, indulgent when Disasters call, By Squirt's nice Hand apply'd a Urinal; The Wight no sooner did the Steam receive, But rous'd, and bless'd the Stale Restorative. The Springs of Life their former Vigour feel, Such Zeal he had for that vile Utensil. 205 210 215 220 36. So when the Great Pelides, Thetis found, He knew the Sea -weed Scent, and th'Azure Goddess own'd. 225 37. THE Dispensary. CANTO III. All Night the Sage in Pensive Tumults lay, Complaining of the slow approach of Day; Oft turn'd him round, and strove to think no more, Of what shrill Colon said the Day before; Cowslips and Poppies o'er his Eyes he spread, And S- --nd's Works he laid beneath his Head. But those bless'd Opiats still in vain he tries, Sleep's gentle Image his Embraces flies. Tumultuous Cares lay rouling in his Breast, And thus his anxious Thoughts the Sage express'd. Oft has this Planet roul'd around the Sun, Since to consult the Skies, I first begun: Such my Applause, so mighty my Success, Some granted my Predictions more than Guess. But, doubtful as I am, I'll entertain This Faith, there can be no Mistake in Gain. For the dull World most Honour pay to those Who on their Understanding most impose. 5 10 38. First Man creates, and then he fears the Elf, Thus others cheat him not, but he himself: He loaths the Substance, and he loves the Show, You'll ne'er convince a Fool, Himself is so: He hates Realities, and hugs the Cheat, And still the only Pleasure's the Deceit. So Meteors flatter with a dazling Dye Which no Existence has, but in the Eye, At distance Prospects please us, but when near, We find but desart Rocks, and fleeting Air. From Stratagem, to Stratagem we run, And he knows most, who latest is undone. Mankind one day serene and free appear; The next, they're cloudy, sullen, and severe: New Passions, new Opinions still excite, And what they like at Noon, they leave at Night: They gain with Labour, what they quit with Ease, And Health, for want of Change, becomes Disease. Religion's bright Authority they dare, And yet are Slaves to Superstitious Fear. They Councel others, but themselves deceive, 20 25 30 35 39 . And tho' they're Cozen'd still, they still believe. So false their Censure, fickle theirEst- <..-, This Hour they Worship; and the next Blas_- 40 Shall I then, who with penetrating Sign. Inspect the Springs that guide each Appetite: Who with unfathom'd Searches hourly pierce 45 The dark Recesses of the Universe, Be avid, if puny Esw ets you'd oppress; Or fear their Fury, or their Name caress? If all the Fiends that in low Darkness reign, Be not the Fictions of a s ¡T = n; 5D That Project, the Di spe nm - t r. Before the Moon can blunt her .ens, shall fall- With that, a Glance fr ~ : - ; Aurora's +eyes, Shoots thro' the Crystai "" I: 17 of "?4e gki esp The Savage lind in Forests cease to 5, And Sots o'ercirnarg'd with nauseous Loads reel Home. Drums, Trnumpets, '. aut-boys wake the sllumbrimo Faairp Whilst Bridegroom sighs, and thinks the Bride less fair- Light's chearfUl. Smiles o'er tth"Azmne Waste are sgreaañp And Miss from Inns o' Court bolts out unpaid. The Sage transported at th'approaching Hour, Imperiously thrice thunder'd on the Floor; Officious Squirt that moment had access, His Trust was great, his Vigilance no less. To him thus Horoscope. My kind Companion in this dire Affair, Which is more Light, since you assume a Share; Fly with what hast you us'd to do of old, When Clyster was in danger to be cold: With Expedition on the Beadle call To summon all the Company to th'Hall. Away the friendly Coadjutor hies, Swift as from Phyal Steams of Harts -horn rise. The Magus in the int'rim mumbles o'er Vile Terms of Art to some Infernal Pow'r, And draws Mysterious Circles on the Floor. But from the gloomy Vault no glaring Spright Ascends, to blast the tender Bloom of Light. No mystick Sounds from Hell's detested Womb, S 40. 60 65 70 75 41. In dusky Exhalations upwards come. And now to raise an Altar He decrees, To that devouring Harpy call'd Disease; Then Flow'rs in Canisters he hastes to bring, The wither'd Product of a blighted Spring, With cold Solanum from the Pontick Shore, The Roots of Mandrake and Black Ellebore. The Griper Senna, and the Puker Rue, The Sweetner Sassafras are added too; And on the Structure next he heaps a load Of Sulphur, Turpentine and Mastick Wood: Gums, Fossiles too the Pyramid increas'd, A Mummy next, once Monarch of the East. Then from the Compter he takes down the File, And with Prescriptions lights the solemn Pile. Feebly the Flames on clumsie Wings aspire, And smoth'ring Fogs of Smoke benight the Fire. With Sorrow he beheld the sad Portent, Then to the Hag these Orizons he sent. Disease! thou ever most propitious Pow'r, 80 85 90 95 Whose kind Indulgence we discern each Hour; 100 42. Thou well canst boast thy num'rous Pedigree Begot by Sloth, maintáin'd by Luxury. In gilded Palaces thy Prowess reigns, But flies the-humble Sheds of Cottage Swains. To You such Might and Energy belong, You nip the Blooming, and unnerve the Strong. The Purple Conqueror in Chains you bind, And are to us your Vassals only kind. If, in return, all Diligence we pay To fix your Empire, and confirm your Sway, Far as the weekly Bills can reach around, From Kent- Street end to fam'd St. Giles's- Pound; Behold this poor Libation with a Smile, And let auspicious Light break through the Pile. He spoke; and on the Pyramid he laid Bay -Leaves and Viper's Hearts, and thus he said; As These consume in this mysterious Fire, So let the curs'd Dispensary expire; And as Those crackle in the Flames, and die, So let its Vessels burst, and Glasses fly. But a sinister Cricket straight was heard, 105 110 115 120 43. The Altar fell, the Off'ring disappear'd. As the fam'd Wight the Omen did regret, Squirt brought the News the Company was met. Nigh where Fleet -Ditch descends in sable Streams, To wash his sooty Naiads in the Thames; There stands a Structure on a rising Hill, Where Tyro's take their Freedom out to kill. Some Pictures in these dreadful Shambles tell, How, by the Delian God, the Pithon fell; And how Medea did the Philter brew, That cou'd in Aeson's Veins young force renew; How mournful, Myrrha for her Crimes appears, And heals hysterick Matrons still with Tears. How Mentha and Althea, Nymphs no more, Revive in sacred Plants, and Health restore. How sanguine Swains their am'rous Hours repent, When Pleasure's past, and Pains are permanent; And how frail Nymphs, oft by Abortion, aim To lose a Substance, to preserve a Name. Soon as each Member in his Rank was plac'd, Th'Assembly Diasenna thus address'd: 125 1 30 135 140 44. My kind Confed'rates, if my poor Intent, As 'tis sincere, had been but prevalent, We here had met on some more safe Design, And on no other Bus'ness but to Dine; The Faculty had still maintain'd their Sway, And Int'rest then had bid us but obey; This only Emulation we had known, Who best cou'd fill his Purse, and thin the Town. But now from gath'ring Clouds Destruction pours, Which ruins with mad rage our Halcyon hours: Mists from black Jealousies the Tempest form, Whilst late Divisions reinforce the Storm. Know, when these Feuds, like those at Law,are past, The Winners will be Losers at the last. Like Heroes in Sea -Fights we seek Renown, To Fire some hostile Ship, we burn our own. Who -e're throws Dust against the Wind, descries He throws it, in effect, but in his Eyes. That Jugler which another's Slight will show, But teaches how the World his own may know. Thrice happy were those golden Days of old, When dear as Burgundy, Ptisans were sold; When Patients chose to die with better will, 145 150 155 160 165 45. Than breathe, and pay th'Apothecary's Bill. And cheaper than for our Assistance call, Might go to Aix or Bourbon Spring and Fall. Then Priests -increaa'd, and Piety decay'd, Churchmen the Church's Purity betray'd; Their Lives and Doctrine, Slaves and Atheists made. The Laws were but the hireling Judge's Sense; Juries were sway'd by venal Evidence. Fools were promoted to the Council -Board, Tools to the Bench, and Bullies to the Sword. Pensions in private were the Senate's Aim; And Patriots for a Place abandon'd Fame. But now no influencing Art remains, For S --rs has the Seal, and Nassau reigns. And we, in spight of our Resolves, must bow, And suffer by a Reformation too. For now late Jars our Practices detect, And Mines, when once discover'd, lose Effect. Dissentions, like small Streams, are first begun, Scarce seen they rise, but gather as they run: So Lines that from their Parallel decline, More they proceed, the more they still dis -join. 170 175 180 185 46. 'Tis therefore my Advice, in haste we send, And beg the Faculty to be our Friend. Send swarms of Patients, and our Quarrels end. So awful Beadles, if the Vagrant treat, Strait turn familiar, and their Fasces quit. In vain we but contend, that Planet's Pow'r Those Vapours can disperse It rais'd before. As He prepared the Mischief to recite, Keen Colocynthis paus'd and formed with Spight, Sow'r Ferments on his shining Surface swim, Work up to Froth and bubble o'er the Brim: Not Beauties fret so much if Freckles come, Or Nose shou'd redden in the Drawing -Room; Or Lovers that mistake th'appointed Hour, Or in the lucky Minute want the Pow'r. Thus He - Thou Scandal of great Paean's Art, At thy approach, the Springs of Nature start, The Nerves unbrace: Nay, at the sight of thee, A Scratch turns Cancer, Itch a Leprosie. Cou'dst thou propose that we, the Friends o'Fates, Who fill Church -yards, and who unpeople States, 190 195 200 205 47. Who baffle Nature, and dispose of Lives, Whilst Russel, as we please, or starves, or thrives; Shou'd e'er submit to their despotick Will, Who out o'Consultation scarce can kill? The tow'ring Alps shall sooner sink to Vales, And Leaches, in our Glasses, swell to Whales; Or Norwich trade in Implements of Steel, And Bromingham in Stuffs and Druggets deal: Allys at Wapping furnish.us new Modes, And Monmouth street, Versailles with Riding- hoods; The Sick to th'Hundreds in pale Throngs repair, And change the Gravel -Pits for Kentish Air. Our Properties must on our Arms depend; 'Tis next to Conquer, bravely to Defend. 'Tis to the Vulgar, Déath too harsh appears; The Ill we feel is only in our Fears. To Die, is Landing on some silent Shoar, Where Billows never break, nor Tempests roar: E'er well we feel the friendly Stroke, 'tis o'er. The Wise thro' Thought th'Insults of Death defy; 210 215 220 225 48. The Fools, thro' bless'd Insensibility. 'Tis what the Guilty fear, the Pious crave; Sought by the Wretch, and vanquish'd by the Brave. It eases Lovers, sets the Captive free; And, tho' a Tyrant, offers Liberty. Sound but to Arms, the Foe shall soon confess Our Force encreases, as our Funds grow less; And what requir'd such Industry to raise, We'll scatter into nothing as we please. Thus they'll acknowledge, to Annihilate Shews no less wondrous Pow'r than to Create. We'll raise our num'rous Cohorts, and oppose The feeble Forces of our Pigmy Foes; Legions of Quacks shall join us on the Place, From Great Kirleus down to Doctor Case. Tho' such vile Rubbish sink, yet we shall rise; Directors still secure the greatest Prize. Such poor Supports serve only like a Stay; The Tree once fix'd, its Rest is torn away. So Patriots in the time of Peace and Ease, 230 235 240 245 49. Forget the Fury of the late Disease: On Dangers past, serenely think no more; And curse the Hand that heal'd the Wound before. Arm therefore, gallant Friends, 'tis Honour's Call, Or let us boldly Fight, or bravely Fall. To this the Session seem'd to give consent, Much lik'd the War, but dreaded much th'Event. At length, the growing Diff'rence to compose, Two Brothers, nam'd Ascarides, arose. Both had the Volubility of Tongue, In Meaning faint, but in Opinion strong. To speak they both assum'd a like Pretence, The Elder gaintd his just Preeminence; Thus he: 'Tis true, when Privilege and Right Are once invaded, Honour bids us Fight. But e're we once engage in Honour's Cause, First know what Honour is, and whence it was. Scorn'd by the Base, 'tis courted by the Brave, The Heroe's Tyrant, and the Coward's Slave. 250 255 260 265 50. Born in the noisy Camp, it lives on Air; And both exists by Hope and by Despair. Angry when e're a Moment's Ease we gain, And reconcil'd at our Returns of Pain. It lives, when in Death's Arms the Heroe lies, But when his Safety he consults, it dies. Bigotted to this Idol, we disclaim Rest, Health, and Ease, for nothing but a Name. Then let us, to the Field before we move, Know, if the Gods our Enterprize approve. Suppose th'unthinking Faculty unvail What we, thro' wiser Conduct, wou'd conceal; Is't Reason we shou'd quarrel with the Glass That shews the monstrous Features of our Face? Or grant some grave Pretenders have of late Thought fit an Innovation to create; Soon they'll repent, what rashly they begun, Tho' Projects please, Projectors are undone. All Novelties must this Success expect, When good, our Envy; and when bad, Neglect: If Reason cou'd direct, e'er now each, Gate Had born some Trophy of Triumphal State. 270 275 280 285 51. Temples had told how Greece and Belgia owe Troy and Namur to Jove and to Nassau. Then since no Veneration is allow'd, Or to the real, or th'appearing Good; The Project that we vainly apprehend, Must, as it blindly rose, as vilely end. Some Members of the Faculty there are, Who Int'rest prudently to Oaths prefer. Our Friendship with feign'd Airs they poorly court, And boast their Politicks are our Support. Them we'll consult about this Enterprise, And boldly Execute what they Advise. But from below (while such Resolves they took) Some Aurum Fulminans the Fabrick shook. The Champions, daunted at the Crack, retreat, Regard their Safety, and their Rage forget. So when at Bathos Earth's big Offspring strove To scale the Skies, and wage a War with Jove; Soon as the Ass of old Silenus bray'd, The trembling Rebels in confusion fled. 290 295 300 305 52. THE Dispensary. CANTO I V. &ç Not far from that frequented Theater, Where wandring Punks each Night at five repair; Where Purple Emperors in Buskins tread, And Rule imaginary Worlds for Bread; Where Bently, by Old Writers, wealthy grew; And Briscoe lately was undone by New: There triumphs a Physician of Renown, To none, but such as rust in Health, unknown. None e'er was plac'd more fitly to impart His known Experience, and his healing Art. When Bur --ss deafens all the listning press With Peals of most Seraphick Emptiness; Or when Mysterious F - - --n mounts on high, To preach his Parish to a Lethargy: This Aesculapius waits hard by, to ease The Martyrs of such Christian Cruelties. Long has this darling Quarter of the Town, For Lewdness, Wit, and Gallantry been known. All Sorts meet here, of whatsoe'er Degree, 5 10 15 53. To blend and justle into Harmony. The Criticks each advent'rous Author scan, And praise or censure as They like the Man. The Weeds of Writings for the Flowers They cull; So nicely Tasteless, so correctly Dull! The Politicians of Parnassus prate, And Poets canvass the Affairs of State; The Cits ne'er talk of Trade and Stock, but tell How Virgil writ, how bravely Turnus fell. The Country -Dames drive to Hippolito's, First find a Spark, and after lose a Nose. The Lawyer for Lac'd Coat the Robe does quit, He grows a Mad -man, and then turns a Wit. And in the Cloister pensive Strephon waits, Till Chloe's Hackney comes, and then retreats; And if th'ungenerous Nymph a Shaft lets fly More fatally than from a sparkling Eye, Mirmillo, that fam'd Opifer, is nigh.. The trading Tribe oft thither throng to Dine, And want of Elbow -room supply in Wine. Cloy'd with Variety, they surfeit there, Whilst the wan Patients on thin Gruel fare. 20 25 30 35 40 54. 'Twas here the Champions of the Party met, Of their Heroick Enterprize to treat. Each Hero a tremendous Air put on, And stern Mirmillo in these Words begun: 'Tis with concern, my Friends, I meet you here; No Grievance you can know, but I must share. 'Tis plain, my Int'rest you've advanc'd so long, Each Fee, tho' I was mute, wou'd find a Tongue. And in return, tho' I have strove to rend Those Statutes, which on Oath I should defend; Such Arts are Trifles to a gen'rous Mind, Great Services, as great Returns should find. And you'll perceive, this Hand, when Glory calls, Can brandish Arms as well as Urinals. Oxford and all her passing Bells can tell, By this Right Arm, what mighty Numbers fell. Whilst others meanly ask'd whole Months to slay, I oft dispatch'd the Patient in a Day: With Pen in hand I push'd to that degree, I scarce had left a Wretch to give a Fee. 45 50 55 60 55. Some fell by Laudanum, and some by Steel, And Death in ambush lay in ev'ry Pill. For save or slay, this Privilege we claim, Tho' Credit "suffers, the Reward's the same. What tho' the Art of Healing we pretend, He that designs it least, is most a Friend. Into the Right we err, and must confess, To Oversights we often owe Success. Thus Bessus got the Battel in the Play, His glorious Cowardise restor'd the Day. So the fam'd Grecian Piece ow'd its desert To Chance, and not the labour'd Stroaks of Art. Physicians, if they're wise, shou'd never think Of any Arms but such as Pen and Ink: But th'Enemy, at their expence, shall find, When Honour calls, I'll scorn to stay behind. He said; and seal'd th'Engagement with a Kiss, Which was return'd by Younger Askaris;. Who thus advanc'd: Each Word, Sir, you impart, Has something killing in it, like your Art. How much we to your boundless Friendship owe, 65 70 75 80 56. Our Files can speak, and your Prescriptions show. Your Ink descends in such excessive Show'rs, 'Tis plain, you can regard no Health but ours. Whilst poor Pretenders puzzle o'er a Case, You but appear, and give the Coup de Grace. 0 that near Xanthus Banks you had but dwelt, When Ilium first Achaian Fury felt, The horned River then had curs'd in vain Young Peleus' Arm, that choak'd his Stream with Slain. No Trophies you had left for Greeks to raise, Their ten Years Toil, you'd finish'd in ten Days. Fate smiles on your Attempts, and when you list, In vain the Cowards fly, or Brave resist. Then let us Arm, we need not fear Success, No Labours are too hard for Hercules. Our military Ensigns we'll display; Conquest pursues, where Courage leads the way. 85 90 95 To this Design sly Querpo did agree, 100 A zealous Member of the Faculty; 57. His Sire's pretended pious Steps he treads, And where the Doctor fails, the Saint succeeds. A Conventicle flesh'd his greener Years, And his full age the righteous Rancour shares. Thus Roys hatch Game -Eggs under Birds o' prey, To make the Fowl more furious for the Fray. Slow Carus next discover'd his intent, With painful Pauses mutt'ring what he meant. 105 His Sparks of Life in spight of Druggs retreat, 110 So cold, that only Calentures can heat. In his chill Veins the sluggish Puddle flows, And loàds with lazy Fogs his sable Brows. Legions of Lunaticks about him press, His Province is lost Reason to redress. 115 So when Perfumes their fragrant Scentgive o're, Nought can their Odour, like a Jakes, restore. 58. When for Advice the Vulgar throng, he's found With lumber of vile Books besieg'd around. The gazing Throng acknowledge their Surprize, And deaf to Reason still consult their Eyes. Well he perceives the World will often find, To catch the Eye is to convince the Mind. Thus a weak State, by wise Distrust, enclines To num'rous Stores, and Strength in Magazines. So Fools are always most profuse of Words, And Cowards never fail of longest Swords. Abandon'd Authors here a Refuge meet, And from the World, to Dust and Worms retreat. Here Dregs and Sediment of Auctions reign, Refuse of Fairs, and Gleanings of Duck -lane; And up these Walls, much Gothick Lumber climbs, With Swiss Philosophy, and Runick Rhimes. 120 125 1 30 59. Hither, retriev'd from Cooks and Grocers, come M--- Works entire, and endless Rheams of Bloom. Where wou'd the long neglected C- - --s fly, If bounteous Carus should refuse to buy? But each vile Scribler's happy on this score, He'll find some Carus still to read him o're. Nor must we the obsequious Umbra spare, Who, soft by Nature, yet declar'd for War. But when some Rival Pow'r invades a Right, Flies set on Flies, and Turtles Turtles fight. Else courteous Umbra to the last had been Demurely meek, insipidly serene. With Him, the present still some Virtues have, The Vain are sprightly, and the Stupid, grave. The Slothful, negligent; the Foppish, neat; The Lewd are airy, and the Sly, discreet. A Wren an Eagle, a Baboon a Beau; C - - --t a Lycurgus, and a Phocion, R - - - -. Heroick Ardour now th'Assembly warms, Each Combatant breaths nothing but Alarms. 135 140 145 150 60. For future glory, while the Scheme is laid, Fam'd Horoscope thus offers to disswade; 155 Since of each Enterprise th'Event's unknown, We'll quit the Sword, and hearken to the Gown. Nigh lives Vagellius, one reputed long, For Strength of Lungs, and Pliancy of Tongue. For Fees, to any Form he moulds a Cause, The Worst has Merits, and the Best has Flaws. Five Guinea's make a Criminal to Day, And ten to Morrow wipe the Stain away. Whatever he affirms is undeny'd, Milo's the Lecher, Clodius th'Homicide. Cato pernicious, Cataline a Saint, Or - - --rd suspected, D- --comb innocent. To Law then Friends, for 'tis by Fate decreed, Vagellius, and our Mony, shall succeed. Know, when I first invok'd Disease by Charms To prove propitious to our future Arms; Ill Omens did the Sacrifice attend, Nor wou'd the Sybil from her Grott ascend. As Horoscope urg'd farther to be heard, He thus was interrupted by a Bard; 160 165 170 175 61 . In vain your Magick Mysteries you use, Such sounds the Sybil's Sacred Ears abuse. These Lines the pale Divinity shall raise, Such is the Pow'r of Sound, and Force of Lays. Arms meet with Arms, Fauchions with Fauchions clash, And sparks of Fire struck out from Armour flash. Thick Clouds of Dust contending Warriours raise, And hideous War o're all the Region brays. Some raging ran with huge Herculean Clubs, Some massy Balls of Brass, some mighty Tubs Of Cynders bore. Naked and half burnt Hulls, with hideous wreck, Affright the Skies, and fry the Oceans back. As he went rumbling on, the Fury straight Crawl'd in, her Limbs cou'd scarce support her Weight. A rufull Rag her meager Forehead bound, And faintly her furr'd Lips these Accents found. Mortal, how dar'st thou with such Lines address My awful Seat, and trouble my Recess? 180 185 190 In Essex Marshy Hundreds is a Cell, Where lazy Fogs, and drisling Vapours dwell: Thither raw Damps on drooping Wings repair, And shiv'ring Quartans shake the sickly Air. There, when fatigu'd, some silent Hours I pass, And substitute Physicians in my place. Then dare not, for the future, once rehearse The Dissonance of such untuneful Verse. But in your Lines let Energy be found, And learn to rise in Sense, and sink in Sound. Harsh words, tho' pertinent, uncouth appear, None please the Fancy, who offend the Ear. In Sense and Numbers if you wou'd excel, Read W --- -y, consider D - --den well. In one, what vig'rous Turns of Fancy shine, In th'other, Syrens warble in each Line. If D-- -sets sprightly Muse but touch the Lyre, The Smiles and Graces melt in soft desire, And little Loves confess their am'rous Fire. The gentle Isis claims the Ivy Crown, To bind th'immortal Brows of A - -- -son. As tuneful C-- -greve trys his rural Strains, 62. 195 200 205 210 215 63. Pan quits the Woods, the list'ning Fawns the Plains; And Philomel, in Notes like his, complains. And Britain, since Pausanias was writ, Knows Spartan Virtue, and Athenian Wit. When St - --ny paints the Godlike Acts of Kings, Or, what Apollo dictates, P - --r sings: The Banks of Rhine a pleas'd Attention show, And Silver Sequana forgets to flow. Such just Examples carefully read o're, Slide without falling, without straining, soar. Oft tho' your Stroaks surprize, you shou'd not choose, A Theme so mighty for a Virgin Muse. Long did Appelles his Fam'd Piece decline, His Alexander was his last Design. 'Tis M--- -gue's rich Vein alone must prove, None but a Phidias shou'd attempt a Jove. The Fury paus'd, 'tillwith a frightful Sound A rising Whirlwind burst th'unhallow'd Ground. Then she -- The Deity we Fortune call, Tho' distant, rules and influences all. 220 225 230 235 64. Strait for her Favour to her Court repair, Important Embassies claim Wings of Air. Each wond'ring stood, but Horoscope's great Soul That Dangers ne'er alarm, nor Doubts control; Rais'd on the Pinions of the bounding Wind, Out -flew the Rack, and left the Hours behind. The Ev'ning now with Blushes warms the Air, The Steer resigns the Yoke, the Hind his Care. The Clouds above with golden Edgings glow, And falling Dews refresh the Earth below. The Bat with sooty Wings flits thro' the Grove, The Reeds scarce rustle, nor the Aspine move, And all the feather'd Folks forbear their Lays of love. Thro' the transparent Region of the Skies, Swift as a Wish the Missionary flies. With Wonder he surveys the upper Air, And the gay gilded Meteors sporting there. How lambent Jellies kind'ling in the Night, Shoot thro' the Aether in a Trail of Light. How rising Steams in th'azure Fluid blend, 240 2.45 250 255 65. Or sleet in Clouds, or in soft Show'rs descend; Or if the stubborn Rage of Cold prevail, In Flakes they fly, or fall in moulded Hail. How Hony Dews embalm the fragrant Morn, And the fair Oak with luscious Sweats adorn. How Heat and Moisture mingle in a Mass, Or belch in Thunder, or in Light'ning blaze. Why nimble Coruscations strike the Eye, And bold Tornado's bluster in the Sky. Why a prolifick Aura upwards tends, Ferments, and in a living Show'r descends. How Vapours hanging on the tow'ring Hills In Breezes sigh, or weep in warbling Rills: Whence Infant Winds their tender Pinions try, And River Gods their thirsty Urns supply. The wond'ring Sage pursues his airy Flight, And braves the chill unwholsom Damps of Night; He views the Tracts where Luminaries rove, To settle Seasons here, and Fates above. The bleak Arcturus still forbid the Seas, The stormy Kidds, the weeping Hyades: 260 265 270 275 66. The shining Lyre with Strains attracting more Heav'n's glitt'ring Mansions now, than Hell's before. Glad Cassiopeia circling in the Sky, And each brave CHURCHILL of the Galaxy. Aurora on Etesian Breezes born, With blushing Lips breaths out the sprightly Morn; Each Flow'r in Dew their short -liv'd Empire weeps, And Cynthia with her lov'd Endymion sleeps. As thro' the Gloom the Magus cuts his Way, Imperfect Objects tell the doubtful Day. Dim he discerns Majestick Atlas rise, And bend beneath the Burthen of the Skies. His tow'ring Brows aloft no Tempests know, Whilst Lightning flies, and Thunder rolls below. Distant from hence, beyond a Waste of Plains, Proud Teneriff his Giant Brother reigns; With breathing Fire his pitchy Nostrils glow, As from his Sides he shakes the fleecy Snow. Around this hoary Prince, from wat'ry Reds, His Subject Islands raise their verdant Heads; 285 290 295 67. The Waves so gently wash each rising Hill The Land seems floating, and the Ocean still. Eternal "Spring with smiling Verdure here Warms the mild Air, and crowns the youthful Year. From Crystal Rocks transparent Riv'lets flow, The Tub'rose ever breathes, and Violets blow. The Vine undress'd her swelling Clusters bears, The lab'ring Hind the mellow Olive cheers; Blossoms and Fruit at once the Citron shows, And as she pays, discovers till she owes. The Orange to the Sun her Pride displays, And gilds her fragrant Apples with his Rays. No Blasts e'er discompose the peaceful Sky, The Springs but murmur, and the Winds but sigh. The tuneful Swans on gliding Rivers float, And warbling Dirges, die on ev'ry Note. Where Flora treads her Zephyr Garlands flings, And scatters Odours from his Purple Wings; And Birds from Woodbine Bow'rs and Jesmin Groves Chaunt their glad Nuptials, and unenvy.'d Loves. Mild Seasons, rising Hills, and silent Dales, 300 305 310 315 68. Cool Grotto's, Silver Brooks, and flow'ry Vales, Groves fiil'd with balmy Shrubs in pomp appear, And scent with Gales of Sweets the circling Year. These happy Isles, where endless Pleasures wait, Are stil'd, by tuneful Bards - The Fortunate. On high, where no hoarse Winds nor Clouds resort, The hoodwink'd Goddess keeps her partial Court. Upon a Wheel of Amethyst she sits, Gives and resumes, and smiles and frowns by fits. In this still Labyrinth, around her lye Spells, Philters, Globes, and Schemes of Palmistry: A Sigil in this Hand the Gypsie bears, In th'other a prophetick Sive and Sheers. The Dame by Divination knew that soon The Magus wou'd appear - and then begun Hail, sacred Seer! thy Embassie I know, Wars must ensue, the Fates will have it so. Dread Feats shall follow, and Disasters great, Pills charge on Pills, and Bolus Bolus, meet: Both Sides shall conquer, and yet Both shall fail; The Mortar now, and then the Urinal. 320 325 330 335 69. To Thee alone my Influence T owe; Where Nature has deny'd, my Favours flow. 'Tis I that give (so mighty is my Pow'r) Faith to thé Jew, Complexion to the Moor. I am the Wretch's Wish, the Rook's Pretence, The Sluggard's Ease, the Coxcomb's Providence. Sir Scrape -Quill,, once a supple smiling Slave, books lofty now, and insolently Grave; Builds, Settles, Purchases; and has each Hour Caps from the Rich, and Curses from the Poor. Spadillio, that at Table serv'd o' late, Drinks rich Tockay himself, and eats in Plate; Has Levees, Villas, Mistresses in store, And owns the Racers which he rubb'd before. Souls heav'nly born my faithless Boons defy; The Brave is to himself a Deity. Tho' bless'd Astrea's gone, some Soil remains Where Fortune is the Slave, and Merit reigns. The Tyber boasts his Julian Progeny, Thames his Nassau, the Nyle his Ptolomy. 340 345 350 355 70. Iberia, yet for future Sway design'd, Shall, for a Hess, a greater Mordaunt find. Thus Ariadne in proud Triumph rode, She lost a Heroe, and she found a God. 360 71. THE Dispensary. CANTO V. -s. When the still Night, with peaceful Poppies crown'd, Had spread her shady Pinions o're the Ground; And slumbring Chiefs of painted Triumphs dream, While Groves and Streams are the soft Virgin's Theme. The Surges gently dash against the Shoar, Flocks quit the Plains, and Gally- Slaves the Oar. Sleep shakes its downy Wings o're mortal Eyes, Mirmillo is the only Wretch, it Flies. He finds no respite from his anxious Grief, Then seeks, from this Soliloquy, relief. Long have I reign'd unrival'd in the Town, Oppress'd with Fees, and deafen'd with Renown. None e'er cou'd dye with due Solemnity, Unless his Pass -port first was sign'd by Me. My arbitrary Bounty's undeny'd, I give Reversions, and for Heirs provide. None cou'd the tedious Nuptial State support; But I, to make it easie, make it short. 5 10 15 72, I set the discontented Matrons free, And Ransom Husbands from Captivity. Shall One of such Importance now engage In noisie Riöt, and in Civil Rage? No, I'll endeavour straight a Peace, and so Preserve my Character, and Person too. But Discord, that still haunts with hideous Mien Those dire Abodes where Hymen once has been, O'er -heard Mirmillo's Anguish, then begun In peevish Accents to express her own. Have I so often banisht lazy Peace From her dark Solitude, and lov'd Recess? Have T made S --th and S- --lock disagree, And puzzle Truth with learn'd Obscurity? And does my faithful F - --son profess His Ardour still for Animosities? Have I, Britannia's Safety to insure, Expos'd her naked, to be most secure? Have T made Parties opposite, unite, In monstrous Leagues of amicable Spight To curse their Country, whilst the common Cry, 20 25 30 35 ?3. Is Freedom, hut their Aim, the ministry? And shall a Dastard's Cowardise prevent The War, so long I've labour'd to foment? No, 'tis resolv'd, he either shall comply, Or I'll renounce my wan Divinity. 40 With that, the Hag approach'd Mirmillo's Bed, 45 And taking Querpo's meager Shape, She said; At Noon of Night I hasten, to dispel, Those Tumults in your pensive Bosom dwell. T dreamt but noV T heard your heaving Sighs, Nay, saw the Tears debating in your Eyes. 0 that 'twere but a Dream! But Threats I find Low'r in your Looks, and rankle in your Mind. Speak, whence it is this late disorder flows, That shakes your Soul, and troubles your Repose. Mistakes in Practice scarce cou'd give you pain, Too well you know the Dead will ne're complain. What Looks discover, said the Homicide, Wou'd be a fruitless Industry to hide. 50 55 74. My Safety first T must consult, and then I'll serve our suff'ring Party with m3r Pen. 60 All shou'd, reply'd the Hag, their Talent learn, The most attempting oft the least discern. Let P - --h speak, and V - --k write, Soft Acon court, and rough Caecinna fight: Such must succeed, but when th'enervate aim Beyond their Force, they still contend for shame. Had C- --h printed nothing of his own, He had not been the S- --fold o' the Town. Asses and Owls, unseen, their kind betray, If These attempt to Hoot, or Those to Bray. Had We - --y never aim'd in Verse to please, We had not rank'd him with our Ogilbys. Still Censures will on dull Pretenders fall, A Codrus shou'd expect a Juvenal. Ill Lines, but like ill Paintings, are allow'd, To set off, and to recommend the good. So Diamonds take a Lustre from their Foyle; And to a B - --ly 'tis, we owe a B - --le. 65 70 75 75. Consider well the Talent you possess, To strive to make it more wou'd make it less; And recollect what Gratitude is due, To those whose Party you abandon now. To Them you owe your odd Magnificence, But to your Stars your Magazine of Sense. Haspt in a Tombril, aukward have you shin'd With one fat Slave before, and none behind. Then haste and join your true intrepid Friends, Success on Vigour and Dispatch depends. Lab'ring in Doubts Mirmillo stood, then said, 'Tis hard to undertake, if Gain disswade; What Fool for noysie Feuds large Fees wou'd leave'? Ten Harvests more, wou'd all I wish for give. True Man, reply'd the Elf; by Choice diseas'd, Ever contriving Pain, and never pleas'd. A present Good they slight, an absent chuse, And what they have, for what they have not, lose. False Prospects all their true Delights destroy, Resolv'd to want, yet lah'ring to enjoy. 80 85 90 95 76. in restless Hurries thoughtlessly they live, At Substance oft unmov'd, for Shadows grieve. Children at Toys, as Men at Titles aim; And in effect both covet but the same. This Philip's Son prov'd in revolving Years; And first for Rattles, then for Worlds shed Tears. 100 The Fury spoke, then in a moment fir'd 105 The Herce's Breast with Tempests, and retir'd. In boding Dreams Mirmillo spent the Night, And frightful Phantoms danc'd before his Sight. Till the pale Pleiads clos'd their Eyes of Light. At length gay Morn glows in the Eastern Skies, The Larks in Raptures thro' the Aether rise, The Azure Mists skud o'er the dewy Lawns, The Chaunter at his early Matins yawns. The Amaranth opes its Leaves, the Lys its Bells, And Progne her Complaint of Tereus tells. As bold Mirmillo the gray Dawn descries, Arm'd Cap -a -pe, where Honour calls, he flies, And finds the Legions planted at their Post; } 110 115 77. Where mighty Querpo fill'd the Eye the most. His Arms were made, if we may credit Fame, By Mulciber, the Mayor of Bromingham. Of temper'd Stibium the bright Shield was cast, And yet the Work the Metal far surpass'd. A Foliage of the Vulnerary Leaves, Grav'd round the Brim, the wondring sight deceives. Around the Center Fate's bright Trophies lay, Probes, Saws, Incision Knives, and Tools to slay. Embost upon its Field, a Battle stood Of Leeches spouting Hemorrhoidal Blood. The Artist too exprest the solemn state Of grave Physicians at a Consult met; About each Symptom how they Disagree, But how unanimous in case of Fee. Whilst each Assassin his learn'd Collegue tires With learn'd Impertinence, the Sick expires. Beneath this Blazing Orb bright Querpo shone, Himself an Atlas, and his Shield a Moon. A Pestle for his Truncheon led the Van, And his high Helmet was a Close -stool pan. 1 20 125 1 30 1 35 His Crest an Ibis, brandishing her Beak, 140 And winding in loose Folds her spiral Beck. ty Young Qu'- rpoides beheld, : - _. r. ', ¡rse's Breast the F3"cy conceai'd: Then pet, and with th' effulgent Helm nioNu'd play, --pt as the Monster gap'd wou'.d shrink away: Thus sometimes Joy prevail'd, and sometimes Fear; A r: 1 Tears and Smi le s alternate Passions were. As Qm"er mo tow' ri na stood in Martial Might, Faci fick Ca*_^u.s sparsl'd on the >F?Ilz&at. An Cram Cletar!ID o'er his Shoulders hums, His FIlmme comess'd the Capon whence it svrung. Ris v!ott lg Mail scarce cou"rd. the Rerce bear, arara>suing thus the Tribunes of the War. Faam"d Chiefs, For present Triumphs brnram , de sñ gr."d for more, Tour 'Virtue 1< adMi re , anuar Valour more if BatttteIl te rescIlv"d, you" lIl find this Rand tC;ara deal out Destiny, and Fate command, Cur Foes in ^trhnraomtgs shall hide the cCk^im1.s00n 71?aiivn, mmd their Apollo interpose Eiaar sra.-än. 145 155 79. Tho' Gods themselves engage, a Diamed With ease cou'd show a Deity can bleed. But War's rough Trade shou'd be by Fools profest, The truest Rubbish fills a Trench'the best. Let Quinsies throttle, and the Quartan shake, Or Dropsies drown, and Gout and Colicks rack; Let Sword and Pestilence lay waste, whilst we Wage bloodless Wars, and fight in Theory. Who wants not Merit heeds not arm for Fame; The Dead I raise my Chivalry proclaim. Diseases baffl'd, and lost Health restor'd, In Fame's bright List my Victories record. More Lives from me their Preservation own, Than Lovers lose if Fair Cornelia frown, Your Cures, shrill Querpo cry'd, aloud you tell, But wisely your Miscarriages conceal. Zeno,a Priest, in Samothrace of old, Thus reason'd with Philopidas the bold; Immortal Gods you own, but think 'em -blind To what concerns the State of Human Kind. 165 170 175 180 80. Either they hear not, or regard not Pray'r, That argues want of Pow'r, and This of Care. Allow that Wisdom infinite must know; Pow'r infinite must act. I grant it so. Haste strait to Neptune's Fane, survey with Zeal The Walls. What then? reply'd the Infidel. Observe those num'rous Throngs in Effigy, The Gods have sav'd from the devouring Sea. 'Tis true, their Pictures that escap'd you keep, But where are Theirs that perish'd in the Deep? Vaunt now no more the Triumphs of your Skill, But, tho' unfee'd, exert your Arm, and kill. Our Scouts have learn'd the Posture of the Foe; In War, Surprizes surest Conduct show. But Fame, that neither good nor -bad conceals, That Pembrook's Worth, and Ormond's Valour Tells. How Truth in Benting, how in Candish reigns Varro's Magnificence with Maro's Strains. But how at Church and Bar all gape and stretch, If W - -- plead, or S - - -- or 0 - --ly preach, 185 190 195 200 81. On nimble Wings to Warwick -Lane repairs, And what the Enemy intends, declares. Confusion in each Countenance appear'd, A Council's call'd, and Stentor first was heard; His lab'ring Lungs the throng'd Praetorium rent, Addressing thus the passive President. Machaon, whose Experience we adore, Great as your matchless Merit, is your Pow'r. At your approach, the baffl'd Tyrant Death, Breaks his keen Shafts, and grinds his clashing Teeth; To you we leave the Conduct of the Day, What you command, your Vassals must obey. If this dread Enterprize you wou'd decline, We'll send to Treat, and stifle the Design. But if my Arguments had force, we'd try To humble our audacious Foes, or die. Our Spight, they'll find, to their Advantage leans, The End is good, no matter for the Means. So modern Casuists their Talents try, Uprightly for the sake of Truth to lye. He had not finish'd, 'till th' Out -guards descry'd Bright Columns move in formidable Pride. 205 210 215 220 82. The passing Pomp so dazzl'd from afar, It seem'd a Triumph, rather than a War. Tho' wide the Front, tho' gross the Phalanx grew, It look'd less dreadful as it nearer drew. The adverse Host for Action strait prepare; All eager to unveil the Face of War. Their Chiefs lace on their Helms, and take the Field, And to their trusty Squires resign their Shield: To paint each Knight, their Ardour and Alarms, Wou'd ask the Muse that sung the Frogs in Arms. And new the Signal summons to the Fray; Mock Falchions flash, and paltry Ensigns play. Their Patron God his silver Bow -string twangs; Tough Harness rustles, and bold Armour clangs. The piercing Causticks ply their spightful Pow'r; Emeticks ranch, and keen Catharticks scour. The deadly Drugs in double Doses fly; And Pestles peal a martial Symphony. Now from their levell'd Syringes they pour The liquid Volley of a missive Show'r. Not Storms of Sleet, which o're the Baltick drive, 225 230 235 240 83. Push't on by Northern Gusts, such Horrour give. Like Spouts in Southern Seas the Deluge broke, And Numbers sunk beneath th' impetuous Stroak. So when Leviathans dispute the Reign, And uncontrol'd Dominion of the Main; From the rent Rocks whole Coral Groves are torn, And Isles of Sea -weed on the Waves are born. Such watry Stores from their spread Nostrils fly, 'Tis doubtful which is Sea; and which is Sky. And now the stagg'ring Braves, led by Despair, Advance, and to return the Charge, prepare. Each seizes for his Shield a spacious Scale, And the Brass Weights fly thick as show'rs of Hail. Whole heaps of Warriours welter on the Ground, With Gally -Pots, and broken Phials crown'd; Whilst empty Jarrs the dire'Defeat resound. Thus when some Storm its Chrystal Quarry rends, And Jove in rattling Showrs of Ice descends; Mount Athos shakes the Forests on his Brow, Whilst down his wounded Sides fresh Torrents flow, And Leaves and Limbs of Trees o'er spread the Vale below. -J 245 250 255 260 84. But row, all Order lost, promiscuous Blows Confusedly fall; perplexed the Battel grows. From Stentor's Arm a massy Opiate flys, And straight -a deadly Sleep clos'd Carus' Ryes, At Colon great Sertorius Buckthorn flung, Who with fierce Gripes, like those of Death, was stung; But with a dauntless and disdainfull Mien url'd back Steel Pills, and hit Mir, on the Spleen. Chiron attacked Talthibius with sac* One Pass had paunched the huge hydr __ck Knight, Who strait retreated to evade the Wound, But in a Flood of APoz?m was drowned. This sylas saw, and to the Victor said, Thou shalt not long survive the unweildy Dead, Thy Fate shall follow; to confirm it, swore y tb'Iiage of Priapus, which he bore; And raised an Eagle-stone, invoking loud On Cynthia, leaning o'er a Silver Cloud, Great Queen of Night, and Empress of the Seas, If fai t&nflial to thy MB dnIl g°n* Mysteries, If still Observant of my early Vows, These Bards have eased the lnm watron' s Throws; Direct this raised averagi ng 255 270 275 280 285 85. So may loud Cymbals aid thy laboring Light. He said, and let the pond'rous Fragment fly At Chiron, but learn'd Hermes put it by. Tho' the haranguing God survey'd the War, That Day the Muses Sons were not his Care. Two Friends, Adepts, the Trismegists by Name, Alike their Features, and alike their Flame. As simpling ne'er fair Tweed each sung by turn, The list'ning River wou'd neglect his Urn. Those Lives They fail'd to rescue by their Skill, Their Muse cou'd make immortal with her Quill. But learn'd Enquiries after Nature's State Dissolv'd the League, and kindl'd a Debate. The One, for lofty Labours fruitful. known, Fill'd Magazines with Volumes of his own. At his once- favour'd Friend a Tome he threw That from its Birth had slept unseen 'till now. Stunn'd with the Blow the batter'd Bard retir'd, Sunk down, and in a Simile expir'd. And now the Cohorts shake, the Legions ply, The yielding Flanks confess the Victory. 290 295 300 305 86. Stentor undaunted still, with noble Rage Sprung thro' the Battei, Querpo to engage. Fierce was the Onset, the Dispute was great, Both cou'd not vanquish, Neither wou'd retreat; Each Combatant his Adversary mauls With batter'd Bed -pans, and stav'd Urinals. On Stentor's Crest the useful Chrystal breaks, And Tears of Amber gutter'd down his Cheeks. But whilst the Champion, as late Rumours tell, Design'd a sure, decisive Stroak, he fell: And as the Victor hov'ring o'er him stood, With Arms extended, thus the Suppliant su'd. When Honour's lost, 'tis a Relief to die; Death's but a sure Retreat from Infamy. But to the lost, if Pity might be shown, Reflect on young Querpoides thy Son; Then pity mine; for such an Infant- Grace, Smiles in his Eyes, and flatters in his Face. If he was near, Compassion he'd create, Or else lament his wretched Parent's Fate. Thine is the Glory, and the Field is thine; To Thee the lov'd Dispens'ry T resign. 310 315 320 325 330 87. At this the Victors own such Extasies, As Memphian Priests if their Osiris sneeze; Or Champions with Olympick Clangour fir'd; Or simpring Prudes with sprightly Nantz inspír'd; Or Sultans rais'd from Dungeons to a Crown; Or Fasting Zealots when the Sermon's done. A while the Chief the deadly Stroak declin'd, And found Compassion pleading in his Mind. But whilst He view'd with pity the Distress'd, He spy'd Signetur writ upon his Breast. Then tow'rds the Skies He toss'd his threat'ning Head, And fir'd with more than mortal Fury, said; Sooner than I'll from vow'd Revenge desist, His Holiness shall turn a Quietist. Jansenius and the Jesuits agree, The Inquisition wink at Heresy. Warm Convocations own the Church secure, And more consult her Doctrine than her Pow'r. With that, he drew a Lancet in full Rage, To puncture the still supplicating Sage. 335 340 345 350 88. But while his Thoughts that fatal Stroke decree, Apollo interpos'd in form of Fee. The Chief great Paean's golden Tresses knew, He own'd the -God, and his rais'd Arm withdrew. Thus often at the Temple -Stairs we've seen Two Tritons of a rough Athletick Mien, Sowrly dispute some quarrel of the Flood, With Knuckles bruis'd, and Face besmear'd in Blood. But at the first appearance of a Fare. Both quit the Fray, and to their Oars repair. The Heroe so his Enterprise recalls, His Fist unclinches, and the Weapon Palls. 355 360 89. THE Dispensary. CANTO V I. "c. While the shrill clangour of the Battei rings; Auspicious Health appear'd on Zephir's Wings; She seem'd a Cherub most divinely bright, More soft than Air, more gay than morning Light. A Charm she takes from each excelling Fair, And borrows C- --11's Shape, and G-- -ton's Air. Her Eyes like R-- -agh's their Beams dispence, With Ch-- -ill's Bloom, and B--- kley's Innocence. On Iris thus the differing Beams bestow The Die, that paints the Wonders of her Bow, From the fair Nymph a vocal Musick falls, As to Machaon thus the Goddess calls. Enough th' atchievement of your Arms you've shown, You seek a Triumph you shou'd blush to own. Hast to th' Elysian Fields, those bless'd abodes, Where Harvy sits among the Demi -Gods. Consult that sacred Sage, soon He'll disclose The method that must mollify these woes. 5 10 15 90. Let Celsus for that Enterprize prepare, His conduct to the Shades shall be my care. 20 Aghast the Heroes stood dissolv'd in fear, A Form so heav'nly bright They cou'd not bear, Celsus alone unmov'd, the Sight beheld, The rest in pale confusion left the Field. So when the Pigmies marshal'd on the Plains, Wage puny War against th' invading Cranes; The Poppets to their bodkin Spears repair, And scatter'd Feathers flutter in the Air. But when the bold imperial Bird of Jove Stoops on his sounding Pinions from above, Among the Brakes, the Fairy Nation crowds, And the Strimonian Squadron seeks the Clouds. And now the Delegate prepares to go And view the Wonders of the Realms below; Then takes Amomum for the Golden Bough. Thrice did the Goddess with her Sacred Wand The Pavement strike; and straight at her Command } 25 30 91. The willing Surface opens, and descries A deep Descent that leads to nether Skies. Higeia to the silent Region tends; And with his Heav'nly Guide the Charge descends. Thus Numa when to hallow'd Caves retir'd, Was by Aegeria guarded and inspir'd. Within the Chambers of the Globe they spy The Beds where sleeping Vegetables lie, Till the glad Summons of a Genial Ray Unbinds the Glebe, and calls them out to Day. Hence Pancies trick themselves in various Hew, And hence Junquils derive their fragrant Dew. Hence the Carnation, and the bashful Rose Their Virgin Blushes to the Morn disclose. Hence the chast Lilly rises to the Light, Unveils her snowy Breasts, and charms the Sight. Hence Arbours are with twining Greens aray'd, T' oblige complaining Lovers with their Shade. And hence on Daphne's Laurel'd Forehead grow Immortal Wreaths, for Phoebus and Nassau. 40 45 50 55 92. The Insects here their lingring Trance survive: Benumn'd they seem, and doubtful if alive. From Winter's fury hither they repair, And stay for milder Skies and softer Air. Down to these Cells obscener Reptils creep, Where hateful Nutes and painted Lizzards sleep. Where shiv'ring Snakes the Summer Solstice wait; Unfurl their painted Folds, and slide in State. Here their new Form the numb'd Erucae hide, Their num'rous Feet in slender Bandage ty'd: Soon as the kindling Year begins to rise, This upstart Race their native Clod despise, And proud of painted Wings attempt the Skies. Now, those profounder Regions they explore, Where Metals ripen in vast Cakes of Oar. Here, sullen to the Sight, at large is spread The dull unwieldy Mass of lumpish Lead. There, glimm'ring in their dawning Beds, are seen The more aspiring Seeds of sprightly Tin. The Copper sparkles next in ruddy Streaks; 60 65 70 75 93. And in the Gloom betrays its glowing Cheeks. The Silver then, with bright and burnish'd Grace, Youth and a blooming Lustre in its Face, To th' Arms of those more yeilding Metals flyes, And in the Folds of their Embraces lyes. So close they cling, so stubbornly retire; Their Love's more violent than the Chymist's Fire. Near These the Delegate with Wonder spies Where Floods of living Silver serpentize: Where richest Metals their bright Looks put on, And Golden Streams thro' Amber Channels run. Where Light's gay God descends to ripen Gems, And lend a Lustre brighter than his Beams. Here he observes the subterranean Cells, Where wanton Nature sports in idle Shells. Some Helicoeids, some Conical appear, These, Miters emulate, Those, Turbans are: Here Marcasites in various Figure wait, To ripen to a true Metallick State: Till Drops that from impending Rocks descend, Their Substance petrifie, and Progress end. 80 85 90 95 94. Nigh, livid Seas of kindl'd Sulphur flow; And, whilst enrag'd, their Fiery Surges glow: Convulsions in the lab'ring Mountains rise, Which hurl their melted Vitals to the Skies. He views with Horror next the noisy Cave; Where with hoarse Dinns imprison'd Tempests rave; Where Clam'rous Hurricanes attempt their Flight, Or, whirling in tumultuous Eddies, fight. The warring Winds unmov'd Hygeia heard, Brav'd their loud Jars, but much for Celsus fear'd. Andromeda, so whilst her Heroe fought Shook for his Danger, but her own forgot. And now the Goddess with her Charge descends, Where scarce one cheerful Glimpse their Steps befriends. Here his forsaken Seat old Chaos keeps; And undisturb'd by Form, in Silence sleeps. A grisly Wight, and hideous to the Eye; An awkard Lump of shapeless Anarchy. With sordid Age his Features are defac'd; His Lands unpeopl'd, and his Countries waste. 100 105 110 115 95. To these dark Realms much learned Lumber creeps, There copious M - -- safe in Silence sleeps Where Mushroom Libels in Oblivion lye, And, soon as born, like other Monsters die. Upon a Couch of Jett in these Abodes, Dull Night, his melancholy Consort, nods. No Ways and Means their Cabinet employ; But their dark Hours they waste in barren Joy. Nigh this Recess, with Terror they survey, Where Death maintains his dread tyrannick Sway: In the close Covert of a Cypress Grove, Where Goblins frisk, and airy Spectres rove, Yawns a dark Cave, with awful Horror wide; And there the Monarch's Triumphs are descry'd. Confus'd, and wildly huddled to the Eye, The Beggar's Pouch, and Prince's Purple lye. Dim Lamps with Sickly Rays scarce seem to glow; Sighs heave in mournful Moans, and Tears o'er -flow. Restless Anxiety, forlorn Despair, And all the faded Family of Care, Old mouldring Urns, Racks, Daggers and Distress Make up the frightful Horror o' the Place. 120 1 25 1 30 135 140 96. Within its dreadful Jaws those Furies wait, Which execute the harsh Decrees of Fate. Febris is first: The Hagg relentless hears The Virgin's Sighs; and sees the Infant's Tears. In her parch'd Eye -balls fiery Meteors reign; 145 And restless Ferments revel in each Vein. Then Hydrops next appears amongst the Throng; Bloated, and big, she slowly sails along. But, like a Miser, in Excess, she's poor; And pines for Thirst amidst her wat'ry Store. Now loathsom Lepra, that offensive Spright, With foul Eruptions stain'd, offends the Sight. Still deaf to Beauty's soft -persuading Pow'r: Nor can bright Hebe's Charms her Bloom secure. Whilst meagre Phthisis gives a silent Blow; Her Stroaks are sure; but her Advances slow. No loud Alarms, nor fierce Assaults are shown: She starves the Fortress first; then takes the Town. 150 155 97. Behind stood Crouds of much inferiour Name, Too num'rous to repeat, too foul to name; The Vassals of their Monarch's Tyranny: Who, at his Nod, on fatal Errands fly. Now Celsus, with his glorious Guide, invades The silent Region of the fleeting shades. Where Rocks and ruful Desarts are descry'd; And sullen Styx rouis down his lazy Tide. Then shews the Ferry -man the Plant he bore, And claims his Passage to the further Shore. To whom the Stygian Pilot smiling, said, You need no Pass -port to demand our Aid. Physicians never linger on this Strand: Old Charon's present still at their Command. Our awful Monarch and his Consort owe To them the Peopling of their Realms below. Then in his swarthy Hand he grasp'd his Oar, Receiv'd his Guests aboard, and shev'd from Shoar. Now, as the Goddess and her Charge prepare To breathe the Sweets of soft Elysian Air; 160 165 170 175 98. Upon the left they spy a pensive Shade, Who on his bended Arm had rais'd his Head: Pale Grief sate heavy on his mournful Look: To whom, not unconcern'd, thus Celsus spoke: Tell me, Thou much afflicted Shade, why Sighs Burst from your Breast, and Torrents from your Eyes: And who those mangl'd Manes are, which show A sullen Satisfaction at your Woe? Since, said the Ghost, with Pity you'll attend, Know, I'm Guiácum, once your firmest Friend. And on this barren Beach in Discontent, Am doom'd to stay till th' angry Pow'rs relent. Those Spectres seam'd with Scars that threaten there, The Victims of my late ill Conduct are. They vex with endless Clamours my Repose: This wants his Palate; That demands his Nose: And here they execute stern Pluto's Will, And ply me ev'ry moment with a Pill. Then Celsus thus: 0 much lamented State! How rigid is the Sentence you relate! 180 185 190 195 99. Methinks I recollect your former Air, But ah, how much you're chang'd from what you were: Insipid as your late Ptisans you lye, That once were sprightlier far than Mercury. At the sad Tale you tell, the Poppies weep, And mourn their vegetable Souls asleep. The unctuous Larix, and the healing Pine Lament your Fate in Tears of Turpentine. But still the Off- spring of your Brain shall prove The Grocer's Care, and brave the Rage of Jove. When Bonfires blaze, your vagrant Works shall rise In Rockets, 'till they reach the wond'ring Skies. If Mortals e'er the Stygian Pow'rs cou'd bend; Entreaties to their awful Seats I'd send. But since no human Arts the Fates dissuade; Direct me how to find bless'd Harvy's Shade. In vain th'unhappy Ghost still urg'd His stay; Then rising from the Ground, he shew'd the way. Nigh the dull Shoar a shapeless Mountain stood, That with a dreadful Frown survey'd the Flood. Its fearful Brow no lively Greens put on, No frisking Goats bound o'er the ridgy Stone. 200 205 210 215 220 100. To gain the Summit the bright Goddess try'd, And Celsus follow'd, by degrees, his Guide. Th'Ascent thus conquer'd, now They tow'r on high, And taste th'Indulgence of a milder Sky. Loose Breezes on their airy Pinions play, Soft Infant Blossoms their chast Odours pay; And Roses blush their fragrant Lives away. Cool Streams thro' flow'ry Meadows gently glide; And as They pass, their painted Banks they chide. These blissful Plains no Blights, nor Mildews fear, The Flow'rs ne'er fade, and Shrubs are Myrtles here. The Morn awakes the Tulip from her Bed; E'er Noon in painted Pride she decks her Head: Roab'd in rich Dye she triumps on the Green, And ev'ry Flow'r does Homage to their Queen. So when bright Venus rises from the Flood, Around in Throngs the wond'ring Nereids crowd; The Tritons gaze, and tune each vocal Shell, And ev'ry Grace Unsung, the Waves conceal. 225 230 235 101. The Delegate observes, with wondring Eyes, Ambrosial Dews descend, and Incense rise. Then hastens onward to the pensive Grove, The silent Mansion of disastrous Love. Here Jealousie with Jaundice Looks appears, And broken Slumbers, and fantastick Fears. The widowed Turtle hangs her moulting Wings, And to the Woods in mournful Murmurs sings. No Winds but Sighs there are, no Floods but Tears, Each conscious Tree a Tragick Signal bears. Their wounded Bark records some broken Vow, And Willough Garlands hang on ev'ry Bough. Olivia here in solitude he found, Her down -cast Eyes fix'd on the silent Ground: Her Dress neglected, and unbound her Hair, She seem'd the dying image of Despair. How lately did this celebrated Thing Blaze in the Box, and sparkle in the Ring, Till the Green -sickness and Love's force betrayed To Death's remorsless arms th' unhappy Maid. 240 245 250 255 102. All o'er confus'd the guilty Lover stood, The Light forsook his Eyes, his Cheeks the Blood; An icy horrour shiver'd in his Look, As to the cold -complexion'd Nymph He spoke: Tell me,dear Shade, from whence such anxious care, Your Looks disorder'd and your Bosom bare? Why thus you languish like a drooping Flow'r, Crush'd by the weight of some relentless shower. Your languid looks your late ill Conduct tell, 0 that instead of Trash you'd taken Steel: Stabb'd with th'unkind Reproach, the Conscious Maid Thus to her late insulting Lover said; When Ladies listen not to loose Desire, You stile our Modesty, our want of Fire. Smile or Forbid, Encourage or Reprove, You still find Reasons to believe we love: Vainly you think a Liking we betray, And never mean the peevish Things we say. Few are the Fair Ones of Rusilla's make, Unask'd she grants, uninjur'd she'll forsake: But sev'ral Caelias, sev'ral Ages boast, That like, where Reason recommends the most. Where heav'nly Truth and Tenderness conspire, Chast Passion may perswade us to desire. 260 265 270 275 280 103. Your Sex, he cry'd, as Custom bids, behaves; In Forms the Tyrant tyes such haughty Slaves. To do nice Conduct Right, you Nature wrong; Impulses are but weak, where Reason's strong. Some want the Courage, but how Few the Flames They like the Thing, That startle at the Name. The lonely Phoenix, tho' profess'd a Nun, Warms into Love, and kindles at the Sun. Those Tales of spicy Urns and fragrant Fires, Are but the Emblems of her scorch'd Desires. Then as he strove to clasp the fleeting Fair, His empty Arms confess'd th' impassive Air. From his Embrace the unbody'd Spectre flies, And as she mov'd, she chid him with her Eyes. They hasten now to that delightful Plain, Where the glad Manes of the Bless'd remain: Where Harvy gathers Simples to bestow Immortal Youth on Heroes Shades below. Soon as the bright Higeia was in view, The Venerable Sage her Presence knew. 285 290 295 300 104. Thus He - Hail, blooming Goddess: Thou propitious Pow'r, Whose Blessings Mortals more than Life implore. With so much Lustre your bright Looks endear, That Cottages are Courts where Those appear. Mankind, as you vouchsafe to smile or frown, Finds ease in Chains, or anguish in a Crown. With just Resentments and Contempt you see The foul Dissentions of the Faculty; How your sad sick'ning Art now hangs her Head, And once a Science, is become a Trade. Her Son's ne'er rifle her Mysterious Store, But study Nature less, and Lucre more. Not so when Rome to th' Ezidaurian rais'd A Temple, where devoted Incence blaz'd. Oft Father Tybër views the holy Fire, As the learn'd Son is worship't like the Sire: The Sage with Romulus like Honours claim; The Gift of Life and Laws were then the same. I show'd of old, how vital Currents glide, And the Meanders of their refluent Tide. 305 310 315 320 105. Then, Willis, why spontaneous Actions here, And whence involuntary Motions there: And how the Spirits by mechanick Laws, In wild Careers, tumultuous Riots cause. Nor wou'd our Wharton, Bate, and Glisson lie In the Abyss of blind Obscurity. But now such wondrous Searches are forborn, And Paean's Art is by Divisions torn. Then let your Charge attend, and I'll explain How her lost Health your Science may regain. Haste, and the matchless Atticus Address, From Heav'n, and great Nassau he has the Mace. Th' oppress'd to his Asylum still repair; Arts He supports, and Learning is his care. He softens the harsh rigour of the Laws, Blunts their keen Edge, and cuts their Harpy Claws; And graciously he casts a pitying Eye On the sad state of vertuous Poverty. When e'er he speaks, Heav'ns: how the list'ning Throng Dwells on the melting musick of his Tongue. His Arguments are Emblems of his Mien, Mild, but not faint, and forcing, tho' serene; 330 335 340 345 106. And when the Pow'r of Eloquence, He'd try, Here, Lightning strikes you, there, soft Breezes sigh. To him you must your sickly state refer, Your Charter claims Him as your Visiter. Your Wounds he'll close, and sov'reignly restore Your Science to the height it had before. Then Nassau's Health shall be your glorious Aim, His Life shou'd be as lasting as His Fame. Some Princes claims from Devastations spring, He condescends in pity to be King: And when, amidst his Olives plac'd, He stands, And governs more by Candour than Commands: Ev'n then not less a Heroe he appears, Than when his Laurel Diadem he wears. Wou'd Phoebus, or his Granvil, but inspire Their sacred veh'mence of Poetick Fire; To celebrate in Song that God -like Power, Which did the lab'ring Universe restore; Fair Albion's Cliffs wou'd Eccho to the Strain, 350 355 360 365 107. And praise the Arm that Conquer'd to regain The Earth's repose, and Empire o'er the Main. Still may th'immortal Man his Cares repeat, To make his Blessings endless as they're great: Whilst Malice and Ingratitude confess They've strove for Ruin long without success. When late, Jove's Eagle from the Pyle shall rise To bear the Victor to the boundless Skies, Awhile the God puts off Paternal Care, Neglects the Earth, to give the Heav'ns a Star. Near Thee, Alcides, shall the Heroe shine; His Rays resembling, as his Labours, Thine. Had some fam'd Patriot of the Latin Blood, Like Julius Great, and like Octavius Good, But thus preserv'd the Latian Liberties, Aspiring Columns soon had reach'd the Skies: Loud Io's the proud Capitol had shook, And all the Statues of the Gods had spoke. 370 375 380 108. No more the Sage his Raptures cou'd pursue, He paus'd; and Celsus with his Guide withdrew. 385 FINIS

The British dispensatory, 1747

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The British dispensatory, 1747

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