The Chevalier Ruspini

Mr Editor

As the Attic Society encourage all the Arts, I cannot resist the temptation to send you the inclosed specimen of more than one of them.

The first stanza of the Illustration is an imitation of a well known poem on the subject of George Barnwell, the rest appear quite original.

Yours &c. &c. &c.

An Irregular Contributor

Esculapius sat at his shop door,
 A customer hoping to find Sir;
His beard it was hanging before,
 And his serpent’s tail twisting behind Sir:

When Venus she brought him her son,
 For tooth-drawing to tip him a guinea,
Says he, “Ma’am your business is done
 If you go to Chevalier Ruspini.”

“Pray who is Ruspini?” says she — 
 “A sage who to me was apprentic’d
To learn all the myst’ry,” says he,
 “That belongs to the trade of a Dentist.”

“I wonder, my dear Esculape,
 You relinquish the lucrative custom
Of giving our teeth all a scrape,
 And selling a Dentifrice Nostrum!”

“Why, Venus, so great was the knack,
 The skill and the cunning of the gent:
That Pall Mall quickly saw my young quack
 Surgeon-Dentist unto the Prince Regent:

“Opposition I found of no use,
 My apprentice becoming so clever
At drawing, or fixing, teeth loose;
 And I gave up the bus’ness for ever.”