prescribe, and busy to apply; His shop the gazing vulgar's eyes employs, With foreign trinkets and domestic toys. Here mummies lay, 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 dried bladders and false teeth were laid. An inner room receives the num'rous shoals Of such as pay to be reputed fools; Globes stand by globes, volumes on volumes lie, And planetary schemes amuse the eye. The sage in velvet chair here lolls at ease, To promise future health for present fees; Then, as from tripod, solemn shams reveals, And what the stars know nothing of foretells. Our manufactures now they merely sell, And their true value treacherously tell; Nay, they discover, too, their spite is such, That health, than crowns more valued, cost not much; Whilst we must steer our conduct by these rules, To cheat as tradesmen, or to starve as fools. He is also remembered as the author of Claremont, a descriptive poem. He translated the Life of Otho in the fifth volume of Dryden's Plutarch, and also edited a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, to which Addison, Pope, and others contributed. His intervention ensured an honourable burial for John Dryden and he pronounced a eulogy at the funeral in Westminster Abbey. In 1704 he wrote the prologue for the play Squire Trelooby which his fellow Kit-Cat Club members Congreve, Vanbrugh and William Walsh had created. Notes References External links The Dispensary from Google Book Search The works of Sir Samuel Garth from Google Book Search 1661 births 1719 deaths People from County Durham (district) 17th-century English medical doctors 18th-century English medical doctors Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Knights Bachelor Members of the Kit-Kat Club English male poets 18th-century English male writers 17th-century English male writers