DOCTOR BONOMI.

By chance

An alchymist doctor whose fortunes were down,
Shifted quarters, and set up one day in a town

In France.

He hired a house, and affixed to the door

A name that the people had never before

Seen.

The doctor was upright and stiff as a wall,
Remarkably bony, uncommonly tall,

And lean.

Now into his house from a waggon was brought,

Whilst a crowd gathered staring, a monstrous retort; And sweating and swearing, a staggering porter

Bore in a leviathan pestle and mortar ;

Then hideous syringes, alchymical fixtures,

And great podgy bottles of all-coloured mixtures.

A flutter

Among the gazers, who deemed every drop

Explosive material to go off with a pop

And splutter.

Therefore the people kept back in the street
Ready to beat an immediate retreat,

Should the doctor a tendency show to be loading

The squirts, or the bottles give signs of exploding

By fizzing.

Some gazed in mute awe on his spectacles big,
Whilst others the cut of his comical wig

Were quizzing.

Unheeding, the doctor paced solemnly round
In silence that whispered of wisdom profound

And vast.

But when all his chattels were carried within

To the last,

The physician's grave features relaxed to a grin,

As he said, 'That will do; I think now I have nearly all'

For this little city, the needful material.'

Now round with the speed of a fire, the report

Of the squirts, the great bottles, the tubes, the retort,

Flew ;

And from every quarter the inquisitive pour,

Men, and of women, of course, a great store,

And the multitude fast round the alchymist's door

Grew.

Sudden, the crier emerged with a horn,
Calling, 'O yes, O yes, this blessed morn
Into our city, of doctors e'er born

The chief

Has come, Psalmanazar Bonomi,

Physician extraordinary to the King of Dahomy.
A deeper read doctor no mortal can show me;
He's doctor of medicine of famous Louvain;
Salamanca boasts of him (Salamanca's in Spain);
And, to prove that his qualifications are thorough,
He passed at Montpelier, Bologne, Edinboro'.

In brief

This alchymist-doctor of learn'd Salamanca

(Expressive though vulgar the term) is a spanker. Now vain the delusion of him who supposes

The doctor sets plasters, lets blood, or gives doses,

Applies leeches, pounds powders, rolls pills, spreads a

blister :

Far other, good people, the practice of Mister

Bonōmi.

Don't dream, if you're ill, for this doctor to send,
For certainly on you he will not attend.

Whatever your malady, be well assured,

You must not seek him, if you want to be cured. Should he, like a common hack doctor, go roundHe the elixir of life who has found

In Dahomy?

No! he visits not prince, noble, burgher, or peasant. Why should he? A score

Of doctors and more

Are set up in this poky old city at present.

So those who have croup,

And those with the hoop,

And those who have cholera, liver complaint,
Rheumatics, lumbago, have bile, inflammation,
Influenza, or measles, have fits, or who faint,
Have fevers, convulsions, tic, gout, palpitation,
Don't

Let them by calling Doctor Bonomi bother.
He will not attend; they must summon another;
Nor strive to induce, by a quadrupled fee,

Or by flattery, to bring him to visit, for he

Won't.

But, when you have found all physicians to fail,
And every prescription has ceased to avail,

When the pulse beats no more, and the last sigh is sped,

When the last tear has trickled, the last word been said,

When

Rigid the muscles, when motionless lies

The patient, sans breath, and sans ears, and sans eyes, Sans feeling, sans thinking, sans all things, in bed;

In a word, when you know that the patient is dead,—

Then

Send for the illustrious Doctor Bonomi,

For then, in his own graphic words, "All will know me

To be

The Only Physician who has any science,

The only Bonomi, with none in alliance,

Who sets all the doctors of France at defiance."

So he

Urges all those of high rank or low station

By mortality robbed of a darling relation,

Father or mother,

Sister or brother,

Uncle or aunt, wife, husband, or lover,

And the same from the power of the grave

would recover,