The Quack Doctors. A Satire. In Hudibrastic Stile.

London. Printed for C. Moran, in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden. MDCCLXII 1772. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION 4to, 245 x 190 mms., pp. [ii], 22, disbound, with title-page and other leaves detached or loose at innter margin title-page and last page of text soiled, short tear in fore-margin of E1, top margin closely trimmed, inner margin of title-page frayed. The work was reviewed in both The Monthly Review The Critical Review for 1762, with the latter remarking, "We fancy that this author writes as Pistol ate the leek - in token of revenge. Facit inginatio Versus - for he seems to have no other muse -indeed, if he had been a favourite of the Nine, Apollo would probably have twitched his ear, and exhorted him to chuse other subjects than R---ck, F---ks, and the rest of that empirical fraternity, which are by no means worth power. We would, in the mean time, advise our bard to study the elements of English grammar that he may for the future avoid...solecisms." The Monthly Review was succicnt to the point of rudeness: "The vilest Poem on the vilest Subject." Doctors were frequentely regared in the 18th century as Johnson defined them in his Dictionary: "1. A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. 2. A vain boastful pretender to physic, one who proclaims his own Medical abilities in public places. 3. An artful, tricking practitioner in Physic." Robert Campbell in The London Tradesman (1747) observed that, "To acquire this Art of Physic, requires only being acquainted with a few Books, to become Master of a few Aphorisms and Commonplace Observations, to purchase a Latin Diploma from some Mercenary College, to step into a neat Chariot and put on a grave Face, a Sword and a long wig; then MD is flourished to the Name, the pert Coxcomb is dubbed a Doctor, and has a License to kill as many as trust him with their Health." ESTCC locates only five copies: BL, Cambridge, and Rylands in UK; and Yale and University of Washington in the United States.