Thus as her faults each day were known,s
He thinks her features coarser grown;
He fancies every vice she shows
Or thins her lip, or points her nose
Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz ;
And, though her fops are wondrous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravell'd noose,
As each a different way pursues,
While sullen or loquacious strife
Promis'd to hold them on for life,
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty's transient flower,
Lo! the smallpox, with horrid glare,
Levell❜d its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.
The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a perfect fright:
Each former art she vainly tries
To bring back lustre to her eyes.
8 Each day the more her faults were known.
In vain she tries her paste1 and creams, To smooth her skin, or hide its seams; Her country beaux and city cousins, Lovers no more, flew off by dozens; The 'squire himself was seen to yield, And e'en the captain quit the field.
Poor madam now condemn'd to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old:
With modesty her cheeks are dyed,
Humility displaces pride;
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean;
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good-nature every day;
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a perfect beauty.
* LONG had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind;
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit, and sense, and nature's spite:
Till reading, I forget what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there
To suit my purpose to a hair.
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius:
You'll find him pictur'd at full length
In book the second, page the tenth :
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.
Imprimis, pray observe his hat, Wings upon either side, mark that. Well! what is it from thence we gather? Why, these denote a brain of feather.
1 Printed among the Essays (the xxvii.)
a I long had rack'd my brains to find.
A brain of feather! very right,
With wit that's flighty, learning light; Such as to modern bard's decreed:
In the next place, his feet peruse, Wings grow again from both his shoes; Design'd, no doubt, their part to bear, And waft his godship through the air: And here my simile unites; For in the modern poet's flights, I'm sure it may be justly said, His feet are useful as his head.
Lastly, vouchsafe t' observe his hand,
Fill'd with a snake-encircled wand,
By classic authors term'd caduceus,
And highly fam'd for several uses:
To wit, most wondrously endued,
No poppy water half so good;
For let folks only get a touch,
Its soporific virtue's such,
Though ne'er so much awake before,
That quickly they begin to snore.
Add, too, what certain writers tell,
With this he drives men's souls to hell.
Now to apply, begin we then: His wand's a modern author's pen; The serpents, round about it twin'd,
Denote him of the reptile kind;
Denote the rage with which he writes,
His frothy slaver, venom❜d bites;
An equal semblance still to keep,
Alike, too, both conduce to sleep.
This difference only, as the god
Drove souls to Tartarus with his rod,
With his goosequill the scribbling elf,
Instead of others, damns himself.
And here my simile almost tript,
Yet grant a word by way of postscript.
Moreover, Mercury had a failing:
Well! what of that? out with it — stealing;
In which all modern bards b agree,
Being each as great a thief as he.
But e'en this deity's existence
Shall lend my simile assistance:
Our modern bards! why, what a pox
Are they but senseless stones and blocks?
VARIATIONS.
b our scribbling bards
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