Come, Oronoko Harkan, O,
Come, Oronoko Harkan, O;
I think your face
Is just the place
God fix'd the blockhead's mark on, O.
Come, Christ-denying Taylor, O,
Come, Christ-denying Taylor, O;
Hell made your phiz
On man's a quiz,
But made it for a jailor, O.
Come, Packwood, come, Carmichael, O,
Come, Packwood, come, Carmichael, O;
Your cancer-paste,
The fools who taste,
Whom it kills not does nigh kill, O.
Come next, Adonis Harty, O,
Come next, Adonis Harty, O;
Your face and frame
Shew equal claim,
Tam Veneri quam Marti, O.
Here ends my song on Doctors, O,
Here ends my song on Doctors, O;
Who, when all damn'd
In hell are cramm'd,
Will beggar all the Proctors, O."
Brenan (to do him justice) was as ready to fell a professional antagonist and brother with a bludgeon, hunting-whip, or pistol, as he was to scarify him with doggerel. He was as bold a fellow as Dr. Walsh, the Hibernian Æsculapius, who did his best to lay Dr. Andrew Marshall down amongst the daisies and the dead men. Andrew Marshall, when a divinity-student at Edinburgh, was insulted (whilst officiating for Stewart, the humanity professor) by a youngster named Macqueen. The insolence of the lad was punished by the professor (pro tem.) giving him a caning. Smarting with the indignity offered him, Macqueen ran home to his father, imploring vengeance; whereupon the irate sire promptly sallied forth, and entering Marshall's lodgings, exclaimed:—
"Are you the scoundrel that dared to attack my son?"
"Draw and defend yourself!" screamed the divinity student, springing from his chair, and presenting a sword-point at the intruder's breast. Old Macqueen, who had expected to have to deal only with a timid half-starved usher ready to crouch whiningly under personal castigation, was so astonished at this reception that he turned and fled precipitately. This little affair happened in 1775. As a physician Andrew Marshall was not less valiant than he had been when a student of theology. On Walsh challenging him, he went out and stood up at ten paces like a gentleman. Walsh, a little short fellow, invisible when looked at side-ways, put himself in the regular attitude, shoulder to the front. Marshall disdained such mean prudence, and faced his would-be murdered with his cheeks and chest inflated to the utmost. Shots were exchanged, Dr. Andrew Marshall receiving a ball in his right arm, and Dr. Walsh, losing a lock of hair—snipped off by his opponent's bullet, and scattered by the amorous breeze. Being thus the gainer in the affair, Dr. Andrew Marshall made it up with his adversary, and they lived on friendly terms ever afterwards. Why don't some of our living medici bury the hatchet with a like effective ceremony?
An affair that ended not less agreeably was that in which Dr. Brocklesby was concerned as principal, where the would-be belligerents left the ground without exchanging shots, because their seconds could not agree on the right number of paces at which to stick up their man. When Akenside was fool enough to challenge Ballow, a wicked story went about that the fight didn't come off because one had determined never to fight in the morning, and the other that he would never fight in the afternoon. But the fact was—Ballow was a paltry mean fellow, and shirked the peril into which his ill-manners had brought him. The lively and pleasant author of "Physic and Physicians," countenancing this unfair story, reminds us of the off-hand style of John Wilkes in such little affairs. When asked by Lord Talbot "How many times they were to fire?" the brilliant demagogue responded—
"Just as often as your Lordship pleases—I have brought a bag of bullets and a flask of gunpowder with me."