Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,
Tremble before a noble serving-man?
O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puft nobility?
Thou who, since yesterday, hast roll'd o'er all
The busy idle blockheads of the ball,
Hast thou, oh Sun! beheld an emptier sort
Than such as swell this bladder of a Court?
Now pox on those who shew a court in wax!
It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs;
Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race
Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!
Such waxen notes, such stately staring things 210 No wonder some folks bow, and think them kings.
Fear frowns, and, my mistress Truth! betray thee
To th' huffing, braggart, puft nobilitie?
No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O Sun! in all thy journey, vanity
Such as swells the bladder of our Court? I
Think he which made your waxen garden, and
Transported it from Italy, to stand
With us at London, flouts our courtiers; for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
Taste have in them, ours are; and natural
Some of the stocks are, their fruits bastards all.
See! where the British youth, engag'd no more At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore, Pay their last duty to the Court, and come All fresh and fragrant to the drawing room,
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
As the fair fields they sold to look so fine,
That's velvet for a king! the flatt'rer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules,
That helps it both to fools'-coats and to fools.
And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?
For these are actors too as well as those.
Wants reach all states: they beg but better drest,
And all is splendid poverty at best.
'Tis ten a-clock, and past; all whom the meuse,
Baloun, tennis, diet, or the stews
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready, that day in flocks are found
In the presence, and I, (God pardon me!)
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them. For a king
Those hose are, cries the flatt'rer; and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell.
Wants reach all states. Me seems they do as well At stage as Court. All are players; whoe'er looks (For themselves dare not go) o'er Cheapside books,
Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal,
Sail in the ladies: how each pirate eyes
So weak a vessel and so rich a prize!
Top-gallant he and she in all her trim,
He boarding her, she striking sail to him.
Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!
And, sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!
Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
'Twould burst e'en Heraclitus with the spleen
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin :
The presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod.
Shall find their wardrobe's inventory. Now
The ladies come As pirates, which do know
That there come weak ships fraught with cochineal,
The men board them, and praise (as they think) well
Their beauties; they the men's wits: both are bought.
Why good wits: ne'er wear scarlet gowns I thought.
This cause; these men men's wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets dye.
He call'd her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net :
She fears her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set.
Wouldn't Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe himself at door refine,
See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules,
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw:
But, oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime-a hole?
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey tails that wag behind their head;
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd chaplain goes,
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac❜late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.
As if the presence were a Moschite; and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate?
And then by Durer's rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odd tries
Of his neck to his legs, and waist to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady, which owes
Let but the ladies smile and they are blest: Prodigious! how the things protest, protest. Peace, fools! or Gonson will for Papists seize you, If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!
Nature made ev'ry fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.
But here's the captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries arm! whose very look's an oath. 261
The captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff:
He spits fore right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring-rams, beats open ev'ry door;
Him not so much as good-will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests;
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into the Inquisition,
And whispers by Jesu so oft', that a
Pursuivant would have ravish'd him away
For saying of our Lady's psalter. But 'tis fit
That they each other plague; they merit it.
But here comes Glorious, that will plague them both, Who in the other extreme only doth
Call a rough carelessness good fashion;
Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if arm, arm !
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