The Three Doctors
by
doctoribus loetamur tribus.
1826.
Tho’ many great Doctors there be,
There are three that all Doctors out-top,
Doctor Eady, that famous M. D.,
Doctor Southey, and dear Doctor Slop.[1]
The purger, the proser, the bard–
All quacks in a different style;
Doctor Southey writes books by the yard.
Doctor Eady writes puffs by the mile![2]
Doctor Slop, in no merit outdone
By his scribbling or physicking brother,
Can dose us with stuff like the one.
Ay, and doze us with stuff like the other.
Doctor Eady good company keeps
With “No Popery” scribes, on the walls;
Doctor Southey as gloriously sleeps
With “No Popery” scribes on the stalls.
Doctor Slop, upon subjects divine,
Such bedlamite slaver lets drop,
Taat if Eady should take the mad line,
He’ll be sure of a patient in Slop.
Seven millions of Papists, no less,
Doctor Southey attacks, like a Turk;
Doctor Eady, less bold, I confess,
Attacks but his maid-of-all-work
Doctor Southey, for his grand attack,
Both a laureate and pensioner is;
While poor Doctor Eady, alack,
Has been had up to Bow-street for his!
And truly, the law does so blunder,
That tho’ little blood has been spilt, he
May probably suffer as, under
The Chalking Act, known to be guilty.
So much for the merits sublime
(With whose catalogue ne’er should I stop)
Of the three greatest lights of our time,
Doctor Eady and Southey and Slop!
Should you ask me, to which of the three
Great Doctors the preference should fall,
As a matter of course I agree
Doctor Eady must go to the wall.
But as Southey with laurels is crowned,
And Slop with a wig and a tail is,
Let Eady’s bright temples be bound
With a swingeing “Corona Muralis!”[3]
NOTES:
[1] The editor of the Morning Herald, so nicknamed.
[2] Alluding to the display of this doctor’s name, in chalk, on all the walls round the metropolis.
[3] A crown granted as a reward among the Romans to persons who performed any extraordinary exploits upon wall, such as scaling them, battering them, etc.–No doubt, writing upon them, to the extent Dr. Eady does, would equally establish a claim to the honor.