The water doctor - Anonymous

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"Published without attribution in Warren's twenty-sixth collection of glees and catches.<br><br>This is one of those catches that is more lubricious in performance than the anodyne lyrics might suggest. It illustrates a brief but interesting period in social history: when purveyors of folk remedies (water doctors and cunning men) were accorded respect; when inoculation was still a folk remedy, yet to be established as an efficacious technique by Jenner; when the introduction of an item of armour was widely (but erroneously) credited to a specific personage; and when that innovator's name would, amongst the ton, be pronounced as "the Duke of Cundum"."

◈ Genre → Glees ♬ Voicing → TTT ¶ Language → English

Parts 3

Instruments A cappella

Pages 4

CPDL # 29123

Editor Christopher Shaw

Posted 2013-05-13

License Personal

¶Lyrics / Text

"O great and learned doctor, to you from far I'm come, To bring my daughter's water; Alas, poor girl, she's dumb." "Oh ho, is she so? I'll soon prescribe a charm; The girl must have a prick, sir, in the arm." "I humbly thank your honour, she'll not dislike the plan. Oh, what should we have done without a cunning man?"