The accursed deed that dickies all my hopes!
From “Poems, by John Peter Roberdeau,” Chichester. 1803.
The following parody appeared in The New Tory Guide, a small collection of political and satirical jeux d’esprit published by J. Ridgway, London, in 1819. “The Doctor” was a nickname bestowed, by his political opponents, upon Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth, who was the son of a medical man, Anthony Addington, M.D.
Henry Addington was Prime Minister in 1801, he was created a Viscount in 1805, and held several lucrative appointments. He was the subject of many bitter lampoons, and in 1817 he attempted by strong measures to limit the freedom of the Press, in which he signally failed. Hone’s publications contain several caricatures of him by George Cruikshank, as well as the following parody, which is there ascribed to the pen of the Right Hon. George Canning, but without any mention of the paper in which it first appeared. It is also quoted in Vol. VIII. of The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1804, where it is stated to have been taken from the Oracle.
“My name’s the Doctor: on the Berkshire hills
My father purg’d his patients; a wise man,
Whose constant care was to increase his store,
And keep his only son—myself—at home.
“But I had heard of politics, and long’d