Classic Poem

I T'S all up I may tell you, good Thomas Barlow,
The new medicine is wholly broken and done for:
You must give up Profession and College, Barlow.

Your fine Address , man, on the basis of treatment ,
So practical so blindly hopeful of progress,
'Tis but delusion; all is ended and done for.

For lately Stephen Coleridge in a current Monthly
Has wittily in a few words the system exploded.
Better retire and leave the stage, my dear Barlow.

You've been accustom'd in matters of importance
To look to me to give you earliest tidings;
So I devote a penful of little scazons
To write the dirge of medicine and modern science.

The wonder is how nearly both of us miss'd it:
Nor would any whisper'd hint of it have ever reach'd me,
Had not the well-deserving excellent author
Most kindly frank'd me a copy of his dissertation.