The Battle of the Wigs An Additional Canto to Dr. Garth's Poem of the Dispensary. Occasioned by The Disputes between the Fellows and Licentiate of the College of Physicians, in London. By Bonnell Thornton |
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| II. | PART THE SECOND. |
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| III. |
 | The Battle of the Wigs |  |
II. PART THE SECOND.
Striving to force a passage through the gates,
In vain he strives;—then, drooping with despair,
To Venus he addrest his humble pray'r.
“If they approve my lotion or my pill;—
If Drury, and The Garden, sound my fame;—
If many a mother, that would pass for maid,
In secret calls for my obstetric aid;—
If, to prevent th' affected sneer of prude,
My juice of S--- can the shame preclude;—
If with my Drops I rouse the enervate rake,
And wives unfruitful happy mothers make;—
O help!—Let Mars's arms awhile be staid,
And send your cuckold to my instant aid.”
With protestations and repeated vows
Of strict fidelity in time to come,
(“No more she'd wander, but would cleave to home,”)
Prevail'd upon her fond and easy dear
On earth in form of Blacksmith to appear.
The tedious hours of absence to beguile,
'Tis said, with Mars she solac'd all the while.
By the black bristles of his beard and breast;
A leathern apron tyed about his waist,
And on his head a woollen night-cap plac'd;
A massy hammer in his hand he held,
Which scarce two men of modern strength could weild.
Forthwith th' inhospitable bars he broke:
To quaff the earthly nectar of Butt Beer.
In rush'd Licentiato with his band;
Through constables, through butchers onward prest
To Fuming Chamber , an unwelcome guest;
Where, from intrusion (as they thought) secure,
In lolling posture, and with look demure,
Immers'd in politicks and sober chat
The Dons serenely o'er their bottle sat;
Save that the peruke whitens down the back.
Slow from their lips proceeds the puff'd perfume,
And sleep-inviting vapours cloud the room.
Each was struck dumb, as Mute at funeral.—
So sat the Roman Curules, dully wise,
When Gauls rush'd in, and view'd them with surprize,
Taking their awful forms for deities.
The solemn silence, and thus coughing spoke.
“Give us, (hem, hem,) one drop to clear our lungs,
“(Hem, hem,) one little drop to cool our tongues.”
“No; not a single drop”, stern Socio roar'd,
And up he snatch'd the bottle from the board.
“How dares Licentiato force our gate?”
He said, and hurl'd the bottle at his pate.
The glass, less hard, quick from his front rebounds,
Scarce leaving on the skin some superficial wounds.
In thickest case, by leaden skull secur'd!
Drug-venders else had rued th' adventure cross,
And callous undertakers mourn'd thy loss.
Stun'd,—from the floor unable to arise;
And, as when cupping-utensil's applied,
The trickling streams from narrow sluices glide,
So down his face slow flows a purple flood:—
The muse affirms not, whether wine or blood.
Richard Rock, a very noted practitioner. We have not been able to learn the import of those two significant letters M. L. which constantly accompany his name. Flugger. Dr. Flugger, no less noted, but not of so long standing.
Drury Lane, of antient renown. Covent Garden is emphatically stiled The Garden, as the principal singers in the Opera are called The Guarducci, The Lovatini &c.
Doctor Mead, in his essay on poison says, “I had once in my possession, given me by an ingenious chemist, a clear liquor, which though ponderous, was so volatile, that it would all fly away in the open air, without being heated, and so corrosive, that a glass stopple of the bottle, which contained it, was in a short time so eroded, that it could never be taken out. The fume of it was so thin, that if a candle was set at some distance from the bottle, upon a table, the heat would direct its course that way; so that it might be poisonous to any one that sat near to the light, and to no body else. I know (adds the doctor) the composition of this stygian spirit; but it is better, that the world should not be instructed in such arts of death.”
For the same reason the author, as a lover of his king and country, and consequently a friend to Population, chuses not to print the word S--- at full length.
Pointed above, and rough and gross below;
Not two strong men th' enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days.
Pope's Homer.
In justice to the honest landlord that keeps the house, and the worthy alderman that serves it, we think ourselves obliged to acquaint all true lovers of Entire Butt, that they will be sure to meet with an excellent tankard of it at the Three Jolly Butchers, the corner of Warwick-Court.
The author ingenuously acknowledges, that some of the best lines (if any may be called so) in his poem, are owing to the inspiration of this excellent liquor.
Vulgarly called, Smoaking Room.
We cannot but take notice here of an infamous addition to those admirable lines in favour of this noble exotic plant; to wit,
'Twill make you well, if you are sick.
An enemy to Tobacconists has reversed the sentiment, by saying,
If you are well, will make you sick.
“When the crowd of superannuated patriots had, by their advice and exhortations to the soldiers, done all that was in their power towards the defence of the capital, [Rome] they returned to their houses, there to wait, with steady resolution, the coming of the enemy, and death. Such of them, as had triumphed for victories, or had been Curule magistrates, that they might die with the greater dignity, adorned themselves with the insignia of those honours which they had acquired by their virtue Cloathed in their triumphal robes, or in those of their magistracies, they repaired to the Forum, and seating themselves there, in their Curule chairs, maintained the same respectable air of greatness, as when in the fullness of their former power.
“As the Gauls had met with little resistance from the Romans in the field, and were not put to the trouble of an assault to take the city, they entered it (at the gate Collina) without any thing, in their appearance, of hostile anger, that raging flame kindled by opposition, difficulty and danger. Moving on, they beheld, with amazement, the streets unpeopled as a desert; and when they came to the Forum, and cast their eyes all around, they could observe no shew of war but in the Citadel alone. What chiefly drew and fixed their Attention, was the company of venerable Victims, who had devoted themselves to Death. Their Magnificent Purple Robes, their long White Beards, their Air of Greatness, their Silence, Stillness, and Serenity, all these astonished the Gauls, held them at an awful distance, and inspired them with the same Respect which they would have had for so many Gods. It chanced, however, that one of the soldiers (who was, probably, less apt to be religiously affected than his comrades) took the freedom gently to put his hand towards the beard of Manlius Papirius, as if he meant to stroke it; a familiarity which so offended the Magestic Figure, that, with a smart blow of his Ivory Truncheon, he broke the fellow's head. There needed no more to put an end to all reverence for such a cholerick deity. The Gauls instantly killed Papirius; and, as if he had given the signal for a general massacre, all the rest were now slain, sitting, like him, in state, in their Curule Chairs.”
Hooke's Roman History, Book II. Chap. XXXVIII.Let the Reader figure to himself the DOCTORS,—their Magnificent Full-trim'd Black,—their long White Perukes,—their Air of Greatness,—their Silence, Stillness, and Serenity,—their Gold-headed Canes, (no less respectable than the Ivory Truncheon)—their sitting in State, in their Elbow Chairs;—Let the Reader, I say, figure to himself these Magestick Figures, and we are confident, he must be struck with awe and admiration.
The sound is here designedly made to ecchoe to the sense. So Virgil,
------procumbit humi Bos.Many instances may be brought, not only from the Greek and Latin poets, of a similar attention, but also from our own. Let one suffice.—
Shakespeare, in his King Lear, has the following line,
“Many a fathom down precipitating,”the Precipitation of which Tate has chosen to stop (in his alteration of this play) by substituting
“Many a fathom tumbling down.”O what a tumbling down is here!
| The Battle of the Wigs | |