I Protest, my good friend, ’tis a sin and a pity,
That a man without wit should attempt to be witty;
Should write of great men with impertinent freedom,
And publish dull lines when the world will not heed ’em,
Don’t you know Dr. L. is a man of such knowledge
That physicians all hail him - the cock of the college?
Don’t you know, as a scholar, he swaggers and hectors,
With learning close cop’ed from Cullins’s lectures?
Don’t you know that he writes philosophic opinions
With e’er a dull duke in King George’s dominion?
Don’t you know that the Quacks and the Quakers all back him,
And yet, silly man, you presume to attack him.
Come, lay down your goose-quill, pray leave off such writing.
I read, Sir, no satire, but such as is biting;
Give your muse to the winds, hang your harp on the willow,
And let Dr. L.’s friend sleep sound on his pillow.
Sir I’ll have you to know that the Doctor’s so clever,
You shall ne’er see his equal, no, never Sir, never.
With a skill so profound he investigates causes,
And follows effects with such learned applauses,
Knows nature so well, all her joys and distresses,
And pursues the coy maid to such distant recesses,
That in vain she retreats without looking behind her,
For Death or the Doctor are certain to find her.
As an hare when pursued is appriz’d of her danger,
From brutes of the kennel and brutes of the manger;
Let her travel thro’ pig-sties, or thickets of roses,
Still the dogs find her out by the scent in their noses:
So in vain courses nature thro’ thick and thro’ thin,
For the Doctor’s the huntsman and Death’s whipper-in.
Sir ’twould do your heart good, if not comfort your gizzard,
To hear all his learning from great A to izzard;
How he soars by himself, without help of a leader,
From the roots of the shrub to the top of the cædar.
The Doctor, Sir, knows, and would have you to know it,
Many great things above ground, and all things below it;
And to aid his researches the Doctor, Sir, slaughters
The birds in the air, and the fish in the waters.
Yes, Galen, I’ll prove that you write
without reason,
I’ll prove, like L—d M—fi—d, that truth may be treason;
I’ll prove, Sir, in spite of your scurrilous verses,
The Doctor detects undertakers and hearses;
That he only prescribes in his physical station,
And leaves it to death to dispose of the nation.
He shall always prescribe, friend, in spite of your slanders,
(Not for me nor my wife) but my horse in the glanders;
He shall always prescribe, let who will think it strange, Sir,
To my hens in the pip, and my dogs in the mange,
Sir,
I know his great parts, and am pleas’d to protect ’em,
Tho’ the world is awake - and like wise men neglect ’em.
But suppose he’s a fool, is it you should hint it,
And seize your old friend, Billy Woodfall,
to print it?
If all fools were censor’d, I’ll lay what you dare on’t,
Master Galen himself would come in for
a share on’t;
He’d be taught better manners than censuring worth, Sir,
As distant from his, as the sky from earth, Sir.
As the son of great Philip once lov’d
his Hephestion,
Apollo, Sir, doats on the Doctor in question,
And has taught him to publish his thoughts as they strike him,
Tho’ respecting his thinkings no creature thinks like him.
Sir, the Doctor has wrote on torpedos so finely,
So deeply, so sweetly, in short, so divinely,
That a sage read his thoughts, and had reason to doubt ’em,
So he prov’d the Bark Doctor knew nothing about ’em;
Then the Doctor, Sir, prov’d frogs must never drink tea,
Neither Souchong, no Congou, nor Green, nor Bohea,
That it ruin’d their nerves, that it poison’d their juices,
And, in short, that all frogs must avoid such abuses;
Deducing strong proof on a physical plan,
That what poisons a frog must be death to a man;
Nor, Sir, notwithstanding that talking and croaking
May differ as widely as drinking and smoaking;
Tho’ the odds ’twist a man and a frog, Sir, are many,
One wears a big-wig, ’tother never wears any;
Yet the Doctor insists they’re so like one another,
That if tea destroys one, it must ruin the other.
Then I beg and intreat ye, dear frogs if ye love me,
Whether fixt by Dame Nature below or above me,
Never drink any tea,
Neither green nor bohea,
Be content with your mill ponds and ditches,
And if men don’t inherit
As noble a spirit,
I vow they’re not fit to wear breeches.
For a man and a frog
Are two chips of one log,
That equally merit the saving;
Dr. M. is a block
Of some Jesuit’s flock,
But poor Dr. L. is a shaving.
Dr. M. Doctor L.
Sirs I wish ye both well,
I protest I have spleen against neither,
But whenever I’m sick,
May I go to Old Nick,
If I take a prescription from either.
I beg ye to mark,
That both opium and bark,
Ask for genius and skill to employ ’em,
Tha p—s p—s will cure
Neither rich men nor poor,
Then Doctors why should you destroy ’em.