Heard ye the gang of Fielding say, Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn hail! Not frizz’d and fritter'd, pinn'd and rollid, Sublime their artless locks they wear, And gorgeous dames and judges old Without their têtes and wigs appear; In the midst a form divine, Her dress bespeaks the Pennsylvanian line; Her port demure, her grave religious face Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.. * Sir John Fielding, the active police magistrate of that day. + Coe's father, the blacksmith of Cambridge. What sylphs and spirits wanton through the air! What crowds of little angels round her play! Hear from thy sepulchre, great Penn! oh hear! A scene like this might animate thy clay. Simplicity now, soaring as she sings, [wings. Waves in the eye of Heaven her Quaker-colourd No more toupees are seen That mock at Alpine height, And queues with many a yard of ribbon bound; All now are vanish'd quite. No tongs or torturing pin, But every head is trimm'd quite snug around: Like boys of the cathedral choir, Curls, such as Adam wore, we wear, Each simpler generation blooms more fair, Till all that's artificial shall expire. Vain puppy boy! think'st thou yon essenced cloud, Raised by thy puff, can vie with Nature's hue? To morrow see the variegated crowd With ringlets shining like the morning dew! Enough for me: with joy I see The different dooms our fates assign: Be thine to love thy trade and starve; To wear what Heaven bestow'd be mine.' He said, and headlong from the trap-stairs’height, Quick through the frozen street he ran in shabby plight. LORD ERSKINE. MODERN MARRIAGE. DORINDA and her spouse were join'd, As modern men and women are, In matrimony, not in mind, A fashionable pair. Fine clothes, fine diamonds, and fine lace, The smartest vis-a-vis in town, With title, pin-money, and place, Made wedlock's pill go down. The wish’d-for heir Dorinda bore; Dorinda bred no more. Dorinda's brain-but ah! the curse; Go, take them to the nurse!' The lovely babes improve apace By dear ma'amselle's prodigious care; Miss gabbles French with pert grimace, And master learns to swear. So natural he, and she so wild; "Twere sin to snub a child.' Time runs- My God!'-Dorinda cries, " How monstrously the girl is grown! She has more meaning in her eyes Than half the girls in town.' VOL. V. L L Now teachers throng; miss dances, sings, Learns every art beneath the sun, Scrawls, scribbles, does a thousand things Without a taste for one: Enough to make Sir Joshua jealous; Of small talk for the fellows: Mobs to the milliners for fashions, Reads every tawdry tale that's new, Has fits, opinions, humours, passions, And dictates in virtù. Ma'amselle to miss's hand conveys A billet-doux; she's très commode, The dancing master's in the chaise, They scour the northern road. Away to Scottish land they post, Miss there becomes a lawful wife; Her frolic over, to her cost, Miss is a wretch for life. In modern manners and in vice, Rattles the desperate dice; To France, to Italy, and there Commences adept in the schools Of Rousseau and Voltaire ; Returns in all the dernier goût Of Brussels point and Paris clothes, Buys antique statues vampt anew, And busts without a nose. Then hey! at Dissipation's call To every club that leads the ton, He's pigeon'd and undone. The old receipt to pay new debts ; And doubles all his betts. He drains his stewards, racks his farms, Annuitizes, fines, renews, .With swindlers and with Jews. The guinea lost that was his lasti Desperate at length the maniac cries“This through my brain !''tis done; 'tis pass’d; He fireshe falls--he dies ! CUMBERLAND. RONDEAU. By two black eyes ! But she, regardless of her prize, Thought proper to reward my flame By two black eyes. ANONYMOUS. |