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Aesop Dress'd

or A Collection of Fables Writ in Familiar Verse. By B. Mandeville

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The two Physicians.

Two graduate Physicians,
Of many Years Experience,
With Coaches to proclaim their Skill,
Are sent for to a Man that's ill.
One feels his Pulse and gives him over:
But th'other says he may recover;
I have great hopes, we'll give him some
Of my Antithanaticum.
No, cries the first, he is too weak;
Yes truly Sir, I'm very sick,
Replies the Patient; down they sate,
And enter'd in a deep Debate:
One quotes four Words of Arabick,
Th'other an Aphorism in Greek.
They're very hot, and every one
Sticks to his own Opinion.
The Upshot was, they writ a Bill,
Which neither lik'd of very well:

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They visit him some Days, and vent
Many a learned Argument;
But as his Life went on full Speed,
He could not stay till they agreed,
And so march'd off; and when he's dead,
Both still are in the right; one said,
I told you so, his very Eye
Prognosticated he would dye:
And th'other cry'd, had I been believ'd,
I'm very sure, he would have liv'd.