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(Sir Frederick Treves, Victorian surgeon, has the
following claims to our respect: (1) he discovered
and cared for Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man":
(2) He followed the route in Italy of the characters
in Browning's "The Ring & the Book", taking
priceless photos: and many more things!)

The Eloquent Man

Sir Frederick Treves enjoys four claims to fame:
the lifelong friend of Thomas Hardy, who
supped with him in the King’s Arms snug: the name
of Joseph Merrick (Robert Browning, too!)
is intimately linked with his: he’s due
a place in heaven for his healing feats:
and yes, he lived here, on the street of streets.

It’s Dorchester, or Casterbridge to some.
And Treves, a native, knew its ways and whims
as well as Hardy did.  When he succumbed
to his appendix, genteel pseudonyms
were dropped.  Tom Hardy chose the funeral hymns.
He also honored Treves in gentle rhymes,
to mark his passing, in the London Times.

The wretch named Merrick, or the Elephant Man,
could well have lived his loveless life untended,
had Treves not found him.  Merrick’s mortal span
was made more bearable, being befriended
by one of London’s foremost.  When it ended,
poor Joseph Merrick, long reviled and scorned,
found home in Wimpole Street, where he was mourned.

King Edward feels a grumble in his tripes,
and sends for Surgeon Treves, the kingdom’s best.
“You mustn’t operate,” the sovereign gripes,
“My coronation’s looming.”  “Which seems best,”
asks Treves – “a crowning, or cremation?”  Pressed
to give an answer, Edward takes the knife –
and Treves the genius saves his monarch’s life. 

The poet Browning wrote some novel verse,
or rather, a verse novel: ring and book,
Italian murder tale.  Treves was immersed
in it, obsessed with it, completely hooked: 
went off to Tuscany, made notes, and took
some photographs, made sketches, thus preserving
the base of fact.  The man defines “deserving”!
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