The nick-nackitory collection that forms this motley museum is exactly described by Doctor Garth; one would almost think Hogarth made the dispensary his model in designing the print.
"Here mummies lie, most reverently stale,
And there, the tortoise hung her coat of mail:
Not far from some huge shark's devouring head,
The flying fish their finny pinions spread;
Aloft, in rows, large poppy-heads were strung,
And near, a scaly alligator hung:
In this place, drugs in musty heaps decay'd,
In that, dry'd bladders and drawn teeth were laid."
An horn of the sea unicorn is so placed as to give the idea of a barber's pole; this, with the pewter basin and broken comb, clearly indicate the former profession of our mock doctor. The high-crowned hat and antique spur, which might once have been the property of Butler's redoubted knight, the valiant Hudibras, with a model of the gallows, and sundry nondescript rarities, show us that this great man, if not already a member of the Antiquarian Society, is qualifying himself to be a candidate. The dried body[11] in the glass-case, placed between a skeleton and the sage's wig-block, form a trio that might serve as the symbol of a consultation of physicians. A figure above the mummies seems at first sight to be decorated with a flowing periwig, but on a close inspection will be found intended for one of Sir John Mandeville's anthropophagi, a sort of men "whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Even the skulls have character; and the principal mummy has so majestic an aspect, that one is almost tempted to believe it the mighty Cheops, king of Egypt, whose body was certainly to be known, being the only one entombed in the large pyramid.[12]