The Dispensary. A Poem. In Six Cantos. The Sixth Edition, With several Descriptions and Episodes never before Printed

London, Printed: And Sold by John Nutt..., 1706. 8vo, 191 x 123 mms., pp. [xxx], 120, engraved frontispiece, with annotations in a contemporary hand throughout, and a separate leaf with identifications in the same hand at the end of the text, bound in recent full antique-style calf. A fine copy. Garth published The Dispensary in 1699, and as the website for The Royal College of Physicians notes, " his satirical poem in six cantos, mocking some of the key protagonists in the dispute. The poem begins with a description of the newly constructed college building on Warwick Lane, with its striking 'Dome, Majestick to the Sight…' But within its walls the fellows and members are disunited and the God Sloth has taken up residence. He is awakened from his slumbers by the sound of the construction of the dispensary, so sends his servant Phantom to summon the Goddess Envy. Phantom finds Envy, who assumes the shape of Colon, an apothecary. Colon in turn visits a fellow apothecary, Horoscope, in his shop, where 'Mummies lay most reverendly stale, / And there, the Tortois hung her Coat o'Mail; / Not far from some huge Shark's devouring Head.'"