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A Poetical Translation Of The Fables of Phaedrus

With The Appendix of Gudius, And an accurate Edition of the Original on the opposite Page. To which is added, A Parsing Index For the Use of Learners. By Christopher Smart

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FABLE XIV. The Cobler turn'd Doctor.
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FABLE XIV. The Cobler turn'd Doctor.

A bankrupt Cobler, poor and lean,
(No bungler e'er was half so mean)
Went to a foreign place, and there
Began his med'cines to prepare:
But one, of more especial note,
He call'd his sov'reign antidote;
And by his technical bombast
Contriv'd to raise a name at last.
It happen'd that the king was sick,
Who, willing to detect the trick,
Call'd for some water in an ew'r,
Poison in which he feign'd to pour;
The antidote was likewise mix'd;
He then upon th'empiric fix'd
To take the medicated cup,
And, for a premium, drink it up—
The quack, thro' dread of death, confess'd
That he was of no skill possess'd;
But all this great and glorious jobb
Was made of nonsense and the mob.
Then did the king his peers convoke,
And thus unto th'assembly spoke:
“My lords and gentlemen, I rate
“Your folly as inordinate,

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“Who trust your heads into his hand,
“Where no one had his heels japann'd.”—
This story their attention craves,
Whose weakness is the prey of knaves.