AN ELEGY On the DEATH of Dr. THOMAS SAFFOLD, Who Departed this LIFE May the 12th, 1691.
TOM SAFFOLD Dead, that famous
Operator,
And did no Blazing Star foretel the Matter?
No angry
Comet with bright Flames her Arse-on,
Foretel the Death of so Renown'd a
Person?
Ye ill-bred
Stars, ye know when he was Living,
He was each Day from you some Skill receiving;
And could ye not afford one
Link Celestial,
To Light him from
Black-Fryers House Terrestrial?
For very well ye Flaming Lights did know,
'Twas a dark way the
Doctor had to go:
But we, alas! in vain his Absence mourn;
For he is gone,
thence never to Return
Te's
House again, who with his
Bills alone,
Did with
Bumfodder furnish half the Town:
So Skill'd in
Drugs and
Verse, 'twas hard to show it,
Whether was best, the
Doctor or the
Poet.
For if one Read his
Rimes, a Stool would follow,
As sure as if he did a
Bolus swallow:
So for a double use they serv'd for some,
First give a Purge, and then to wipe the
Bum.
His Skill in
Physick did his Fame advance,
Tho some accuse him of dull Ignorance:
Powder of Post may sometimes do the Trick,
As we'l as
Rhaharb, Senna, Agarick;
For let the sad Disease be what it will,
The Patients Faith helps more than Doctors Skill;
Besides he had so quick, so short a way,
No
Patient under him long Grieving lay;
For was it
Fever, Pox, or
Calenture,
His Drugs could either quickly Kill or Cure.
Sometimes perhaps his
Guilded Pill prevails;
But if that fail,
the Dead can tell no Tales,
What if his Medicines thousands Lives should spill?
Hangmen and
Quacks are Authoriz'd to Kill.
How I and Lament ye who have had th' mishap,
While ye for Pleasure sought, to find a Clap;
Who now in
Sweating-Tubs devoutly
Drivel;
Faith Sparks, your Doctor's left you to the
Devil;
Throw Snot about and shed your briny Tears:
Ye
Shadwel Dames and
Wapping Wastcoteers,
Who blushing with your
Urinals of Water,
Came to his House to
understand the Matter,
Lament ye
Damsels of our
London City;
(Poor unprovided
Girls) tho Fair and Witty,
Who maskt, would to his House in couples come,
To understand your
Matrimonial Doom;
To know what kind of
Men you were to
Marry,
And how long time,
poor things, you were to Tarry:
Your Oracle is Silent, none can tell
On whom his
Astrologick Mantle fell;
For he when Sick refus'd all
Doctor's Aid,
And only to his
Pills Devotion Paid;
Yet it was surely a most sad Disaster,
The Sawcy Pills at last should Kill their
Master.
His EPITAPH.
Here Lyes the Corps of Thomas Saffold,
By Death, inspite of Physick, Bafft'd;
Who leaving off his working Loom,
Did Learned Doctor
soon become.
To Poetry
he made pretence,
Is plain to any man's own Sense:
But he when Living thought it Sin
To hide his Talent in Napkin;
Now Death does Poet Doctor
crowd
Within the Limits of a Shrond.
London: Printed for A. Turner, 1691.