Analysis of The Grand Consulation

George Canning 1770 (Marylebone, Middlesex) – 1827 (Chiswick, Middlesex)



"Ambubaiarum Collegia Pharmacopeiæ."

If the health and the strength, and the pure vital breath
Of old England, at last must be doctor'd to death,
Oh! why must we die of one doctor alone?
And why must that doctor be just such a one
 As Doctor Henry Addington?

Oh! where is the great Doctor Dominicetti,
With his stews and his flues, and his vapours to sweat ye?
O! where is that Prince of all Mountebank fame,
With his baths of hot earth, and his beds of hot name.
 Oh! where is Doctor Graham?

Where are Sonmambule Mesmer's convulsions magnetic?
Where is Myersbach, renown'd for his skills diuretic
Where is Perkins, with tractors of magical skill?
Where's the anodyne necklace of Basil Burchell?
 Oh! where is the great Van Butchell?

Where's Sangrado Rush, so notorious for bleedings;
Where's Rumford, so famed for his writings and readings;
Where's that Count of the Kettle, that friend to the belly,
So renown'd for transforming old bones into jelly--
 Where, too, is the great Doctor Kelly?

While Sam Solomon's lotion the public absterges,
He gives them his gold as well as his purges;
But our frugal doctor this practice to shun,
Gives his pills to the public, the Pells to his Son
 Oh! fie! fie! Doctor Addington!
 Oh! where is Doctor Solomon?

Where are all the great Doctors? No longer we want
This farrago of cowardice, cunning and cant,
These braggarts! that one moment know not what fear is,
And the next moment, trembling, no longer know where is--
 Lord Hawkesbury's march to Paris?

Then for Hobart and Sullivan, Hawkey and Hervey,
For Wallace and Castlereagh, Bleeke and Glenbervie,
For Sergeant, Vansittart, Monkhouse, and Lee,
Gives us Velno and Anderson, Locke, Spilsbury,
 Doctor Ball, Doctors Brodum and Bree.

And instead of the jack-pudding bluster of Sherry,
With his "dagger of lath," and his speeches so merry!
Let us bring to the field--every foe to appal--
Aldini's galvanic deceptions--and all
 The slight of hand tricks of Conjuror Val.

So shall Golding and Bond, the Doctor's tall yeomen,
Dame Hiley, Dame Bragge, and the other old Women,
For new mountebanks changed, their old tricks bid farewell to,
And to the famed D'Ivernois his arithmetic sell to,
 That wonderful wonder, the great Katterfelto!

So shall England, escaped from her "safe politicians,"
Such an army array of her quacks and physicians,
Such lotions and potions, pills, lancets, and leeches,
That Massena shall tremble our coasts when he reaches,
 And the Consul himself--his breeches.


Scheme X AABCC DEFFX GGHXH IIEEE IICCCC DDIII JJEXE EEHXX BCDDD IIIII
Poetic Form
Metre 111 101001001101 111011111011 11111111001 01111011101 11010100 11101101 111011011111 111111111 111111011111 1111010 1111010010 11101111010 111011011001 1011011010 1110111 1111010011 110111110010 1111010111010 1011010110110 111011010 11100100101 11111111110 110101011011 111101001111 11110100 11110100 111011011011 1111001001 11111011111 00110100110111 111110 11101001001 11001101 1101101 111010011 10110101 0011011010110 1110110110110 111101100111 101001001 0111111001 11100101011 110110010110 1111111111 01011101011 110010011 111001101010 1110011010010 110010110010 111101011110 00100111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 2,440
Words 417
Sentences 32
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 52
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 176
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:08 min read
66

George Canning

George Canning, FRS, was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and was briefly Prime Minister. Canning was born into an Anglo-Irish family at his parents' home in Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London. Canning described himself as "an Irishman born in London". His father, George Canning, Sr., of Garvagh, County Londonderry, Ireland, was a gentleman of limited means, a failed wine merchant and lawyer, who renounced his right to inherit the family estate in exchange for payment of his substantial debts. George Sr. eventually abandoned the family and died in poverty on 11 April 1771, his son's first birthday, in London. Canning's mother, Mary Anne Costello, took work as a stage actress, a profession not considered respectable at the time. Indeed when in 1827 it looked as if Canning would become Prime Minister, Lord Grey remarked that "the son of an actress is, ipso facto, disqualified from becoming Prime Minister". more…

All George Canning poems | George Canning Books

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