Modern Manners, A Poem. In Two Cantos

CANTO I In these enlightened times, when critic elves Attack each wit, less barb’rous than themselves: With pens, deep drench’d in Satire’s thickest ink, Condemn, before they condescend to think! Who arm’d in paper panoply, stalk forth, 5 The calm assassins of poetic worth! Who bid the Muse conceal her radiant face, With Baviad’s, blushing for their Bard’s disgrace, Who, with the poisons of the ‘grey goose quill,’² Large reams of paper, – with small nonsense fill; 10 Or with their pompous nothings cloy the town, By flatt’ring fools, – and running Genius down. For, like the Sun, her eyes diffuse 5 O’er her fair face so bright a ray, That tears must fall, like heav’nly dews, Lest the twin roses fade away. 197Ye solemn potentates! whose secret trade Befits the sullen solitude of shade! Ye self-nam’d monarchs of the laurel’d crown, 15 Props of the press, and tutors of the town! Who in your cobweb’d attics toil for bread, While lesser dunces are on dainties fed! Who ride poor Pegasus like any hack, Like monkeys mounted on a camel’s back; 20 Who chill with cold disdain th’ Aonian maids, And stain the letter’d world, – with pasquinades.³ Who rail at scribblers, yet remorsely steal From every starving scribe, – a scanty meal! Who spare nor age or sex, nor friend or foe, 25 But deal on all alike, the recreant blow. Who batten on the pasture you abuse, And while ye slander, pilfer from the Muse. Think not, because each meek and timid wight Shrinks from your touch, and dwindles in your sight, 30 That Men of Genius dread your feeble sway, – The Lion trembles not when Asses bray! Ye giants gaunt, of Lilliputian birth, Laborious libellers of letter’d worth! Who with waste paper cram the gaping town, 35 And sell whole years of toil, – for half a crown! Who stock the pastry-cooks with sweetest rhymes, Whose puffs, and trifles, cloy the sick’ning times; Who slander Juvenal with useless lies, To cover custards, and conceal mince pies! 40 Or if, perchance in some more envied shape, One blotted sheet barbarian hands escape, What valiant Virgil, on the critic throne, Would claim the dirty foolscap for his own? O, if transcendent Genius did but know, 45 What deathless wreaths, ’midst critic nettles grow: What blooming bays, ’midst vapid poppies thrive, How Envy’s poisons – keep the Muse alive; How many a med’cine, springs from many a weed, How dullest sland’rers, make the wisest read. – 50 Each son of Phoebus would invite their strains, And thank the lab’ring reptiles for their pains. Though dunce with dunce, – a phalanx should unite, One man of sense, puts all the troop to flight. When angry scribblers wordy war begin, 55 Keep but your temper, and you’re sure to win. Like mists, that perish at the sight of day, They’ll scatter o’er the earth, and fade away. 198Like morning dew, they glitter for an hour, Dim every leaf – and sadden every flower; 60 ’Till Sol consigns them to their native dirt, To renovate the root they could not hurt. When Pope his Dunciad⁴ wrote, (for Pope was wise, And knew, that honey catches greedy flies,) His lines, Medusa-like, so sweetly shone, 65 That every leaden head was turned to stone! The cunning poet, triumph’d o’er their shame, And on their senseless noddles built his fame! Though legions every day, his pen subdu’d, Each morn beheld, unfledg’d, a gaping brood: 70 Like bees, around the Bard, the wretched things Buzz’d in his ears, and threaten’d with their stings; In restless myriads hover’d o’er his lays, As atoms glitter in the Sun’s proud blaze! The Poet smil’d to see the harmless host, 75 In seas of ink, despis’d, unpitied, – lost, Sinking unknown, unheeded by the Nine, Each head a plummet – for each feeble line. If, to destroy, they had but known the way, They had admir’d – and not abus’d the lay; 80 Flatt’ry, in ev’ry shape is fraught with ill, But a fool’s flatt’ry never fails to kill: About the Muse the sunny mischief flies, While, like a rose, – she blushes till she dies! Let spleen and envy fret and fume in vain, 85 Abuse gives pinions to the loft iest strain. As wind extinguishes a feeble flame, The breath of folly smothers sinking fame; As gentlest breezes aid resistless fires, So critic blasts the soaring theme inspires. 90 ’Tis Wisdom’s proudest pleasure to commend What solemn idiots cannot comprehend! Wisdom, with penetrating eye, surveys Each cause for censure, and each claim for praise; Divides the good from bad; – the right from wrong; 95 The sons of Genius from the vulgar throng; O’erlooks each venial fault; – each charm commends; And human skill, with human frailty blends; But of all plagues, with which mankind are curs’d, A pedant snarler surely is the worst: 100 Impatient to condemn, – but never pleas’d, A self-tormentor, – by each brother teaz’d. 199When Genius gains applause, each fool’s amaz’d, For only dunces are by dunces prais’d: Congenial souls by sympathy unite, 105 And dullest minds in dullest themes delight; Why should the Muse her soaring pinions try, When owls and geese usurp her native sky? When lords lay by their coronets for bays, And trifling poets thrive by trifling praise: 110 When the poor Muses, dragg’d from their abodes, Are hash’d, and fritter’d, – into Patent Odes! When every quack in rhymes, – (like those in pills,) Vends sugar’d nostrums for all courtly ills: And, with each brother mountebank, essays 115 Which poison proves the sweetest, – drugs or praise. When Scandal deals her deadly arrows round, ’Tis ill-judg’d pity that inflames her wound. Full many a flippant Miss, with simp’ring look, Well read in every learned – Modern Book! 120 Whose taste each vulgar precept can disdain; Who learns each moral lesson, – taught by Lane!⁵ Who weeps with Werter, and with Charlotte mourns, With Ovid blushes, – and with Sappho burns! Reluctant opes her eyes, ’twixt twelve and one, 125 To skim ‘the World,’ and criticise ‘the Sun!’ And when she sees her darling friend abus’d, Is half enrag’d, – yet more than half amus’d, Orders her coach, and with impatience flies, To tell, each pitying soul, – the barbarous lies! 130 Some men will praise the wise, the brave commend; But gossip Scandal always finds a friend! Yet let reflection tell the busy jade, That popularity will sometimes fade: Fashion who made her, can again unmake; 135 The fondest lovers, – will their loves forsake! Mountains have mov’d, as learned trav’llers say, And lordly Eagles, – stoop’d to geese for prey: If miracles are not believ’d, – what use, Have modern readers, – for the page of Bruce?⁶ 140 If wonders are not probable, why look For information, in the lines of Cook?⁷ Or with Munchausen⁸ fly from pole to pole, Though comets intervene, and cataracts roll! Time out of mind, the maxim is confess’d, 145 That every eye can tell what pleases best; That many men have many minds ’tis known, 200Each forming beauty’s model by his own; What to an Ethiop seems divine! would prove, To Europe’s sons, an antidote to love! 150 Fashion would shudd’ring turn from Nature’s child, The shaggy offspring of the desart wild; Yet in the savage breast a flame may glow, More pure, – than modern feeling deigns to know! Some men the graces of fift een adore; 155 While others fondly doat on forty-four; Matrons have charms; experience too they boast, The skilful pilot hovers near the coast; While the unpractis’d sailor, rashly brave, Strikes on the rock; – and sinks beneath the wave. 160 Where pompous Dullness⁹ holds her crowded court, And fools, and knaves, and parasites resort, Go, gentle Muse; with eye impartial view The many-visag’d monster’s varying hue; The hydra-headed Sorc’ress, so renown’d, 165 By venal hands with tinsel garlands crown’d; Exulting Fashion! from whose Gorgon eye Affrighted Nature meditates to fly! See on her airy throne the goddess sits, Her altar fann’d by self-created wits; 170 Her handmaid, Prodigality, behold, With cautious care the daily gift s unfold; Here the last off’ring of a spendthrift heir; A widow’s mite, – of sacred honour, – there! Here the soft blushes of a modern bride; 175 There a fond husband’s hopes, – a father’s pride! Double entendres from a timid maid, A patriot’s speech; – a tradesman’s bill unpaid! Next from the precious hoard the damsel draws Seditious pamphlets, and new-fangled laws; 180 Neat epigrams, and laureat odes, right fit, To prove that learning serves in place of wit; Where Pye,¹⁰ with classic knowledge richly stor’d, Proves a mere tartlet at the Muse’s board! A rebus next each studious eye invites; 185 Baviads, and ballads from barbarian wights; Who with huge scythe, and desolating hand, Sweep truth and genius from their native land; While each his scroll of solemn nonsense brings, To fix the fate of kingdoms, and of kings! 190 While in tremendous tones the tiny elves Harangue the multitude, – to please themselves; Where many a pension’d slave, with sage oration, 201Recites his given task – to save the nation! While Erskine’s¹¹ eloquence essays in vain, 195 To prove that wond’rous pleasure, – springs from Paine! There in blue stocking dignity divine, The blooming daughters of the virgin Nine! Not like the wither’d witches in Macbeth, Who fill the murd’rous cauldron ‘pale as death;’ 200 But with enchanting smiles, and harmless glee, Dissect the laurel wreath, and sip their tea; Who compliment in prose, and court in rhymes, The purest censors of the purest times! The fair distributers of taste and fame, 205 Who kindly flatter, – where they dare not blame! Let me not close the tributary line, Nor hold from beauty all her claims divine! Fashion can form perfections where she will; For Fashion is a nymph of wond’rous skill! 210 ’Twas fashion made Du T—¹² a Gallic toast; That hail’d tall R—d¹³ Britain’s proudest boast; Gave widow’d St—p—n—n¹⁴ a birth-day robe, And spread the fame of F—st—r¹⁵ o’er the globe! Fashion sent Blanchard¹⁶ in a huge balloon, 215 To view the vast volcanos of the moon; Fashion, with partial eye, can fondly gloat On learned pigs, or T—p—m’s¹⁷ scanty coat! Fashion, in dancing dogs and bears delights, On fiddling Viscounts, titled parasites! 220 Or might adopt, by her all-pow’rful laws, Th’ Arabian Savage , or the monstrous Craws! Who knows, since fashion can dispense the bays, What deathless honours may adorn these lays? Or if, like Pindar,¹⁸ I would spin my strains, 225 Perchance a pension might reward my pains: Facetious Pindar! son of whim and wit, The pride of Poetry, the scourge of Pitt! A foe to prejudice, a friend to kings; For Pindar sometimes plays with sacred things; 230 Can make a fly immortal by his lays, Or crown the lighter head of W—t¹⁹ with bays, And paint, to prove that nothings have a name, A L—’s²⁰ virtues and a B—s—ll’s²¹ fame. Fashion! thou busy, empty, restless thing, 235 For ever pleas’d, yet ever on the wing; Prepost’rous arbitress! whose laws despise The vapid precepts of the good and wise; 202Who scorns the fairest daughter of the earth, Divine Simplicity! of humble birth; 240 Who carols with the lark her matin song, The woodlands wild, and desart caves among; Who never knows the fearful guilty night, But greets, without a blush, returning light. Simplicity, who quaffs the mountain breeze, 245 Nor knows the ills of luxury and ease; The rending pangs that riot in the breast, With all Golconda’s starry mischiefs²² drest, With burning rubies, blushing to be borne On caitiff bosoms, which their rays adorn: 250 So poisons lurk beneath the flow’ry brake; So shining beauties decorate the Snake. Fashion, who turns from Nature’s simple throng, And pines for pantomime, and sighs for song; Who smiles when Shakspeare’s sacred shade recedes, 255 For giants, tournaments, and milk-white steeds: Whose finer taste, and nicer eye delights In gilded banners, borne by gilded knights: Who gives five shillings with reluctant air, To save a child of Genius from despair; 260 Yet sees with joy the splendid night advance, When Millard claims five guineas for a dance, Or Hilligsberg,²³ the airy queen of capers, The peerless paragon of public papers, Who pays for puffs and paragraphs, to prove 265 How much she’s honour’d with the people’s love! How sure his grace of Q—,²⁴ every night, Attends fop’s alley like an errant knight! How on a sea of bliss his soul is tost, Or burns impetuous, ’midst an age of frost! 270 Or from the gall’ry, built so wond’rous high, See’s every killing charm – with half an eye! Who, when the scene of extacy is o’er, Rolls down to Richmond in a chaise and four, To sup with Gallic belles of every station, 275 The rabble refuse of a ruin’d nation! O, Fashion! delegate of taste and wit, Oft do I see thee triumph in the pit; When Hobart’s²⁵ critic fan attention draws, The airy signal of ill-judged applause! 280 When pale-faced misses sigh from side-box rows, And painted matrons nod to painted beaux: Where the lank lord, incircled in the throng, Shews his white teeth, and hums a fav’rite song; 203Who, spite of season, crowds it to the play, 285 Wrapp’d in six waistcoats – in the month of May; Who, just at noon, has strength to rise from bed, With empty pocket – and more empty head; Who, scarce recover’d from the courtly dance, Sees with disgust the vulgar day advance: 290 Anticipates the wax-illumin’d night, Cassino’s charms, and Faro’s proud delight! Who hates the broad intolerable sun, That points his door to every gaping dun; Who saunters all the morn, and reads the news, 295 ’Midst clouds of odours and Olympian dews; Till three o’clock proclaims the time to meet On the throng’d pavement of St. James’s street; Where various shops on various follies thrive, ‘Beaux, banish beaux – and coaches, coaches drive:’²⁶ 300 While to Hyde Park this titled tribe are flocking, To walk in boots – or ride in silken stocking. At Kensington arrived, the motley race Stride the long alleys with gigantic pace! The tender Miss, who scarce could bear to tread 305 A narrow dressing-room, with carpets spread, Now, with Herculean strength, more boldly tries To walk four miles – for gentle exercise! The cheek, that met the morn with blushing grace, Enflam’d and scarlet, as an housemaid’s face: 310 Those eyes, that twinkled at the taper’s ray, Now meet unhurt the burning glance of day! Those locks, of late so decently confin’d, Now fly, the sport of every wanton wind! While poor mama is forced behind to lag, 315 Puffing and panting like a hunted stag: While **²⁷ fam’d for every thing that’s odd, Shoulders his parasol, and moves a god! He who controul’d the giddy throng long since, Where those who doat on trifles – dubb’d him ***.²⁸ 320 Where’er you turn, seducing fashion rules, Beyond the pedantry of Reason’s schools! Ah! who wou’d study Greek, or toil to store The fashion’d mind with learning’s pond’rous lore? From such a load the prudent fancy springs, 325 For modern heads are – very weighty things! Shall Fashion Homer’s ancient themes explore, And leave the tragedies of H—a M—e?²⁹ Shall Fashion’s pupils stoop to common sense, Or the dull strain of Shakspeare’s eloquence? 330 204When youthful Peers, laboriously polite, Play, for ‘their own amusement,’³⁰ every night! When ladies fence, and parry carte and tierce; And Rovidino³¹ chaunts Italian verse! When Banks³² delights in Butterflies and Fleas, 335 And Damer³³ forms the Parian Hercules! When pity views, expiring on the rack, Nine virgins murder’d! – for a butt of sack! And when their solemn dirge of death is singing; Hears cannon firing while the bells are ringing! 340 When languid duchesses due homage pay, With feather’d heads – as fair, as light as they: When city dames, whose titles live – a year, The last of ladies simper in the rear: When eastern pride with virtue aims to vie, 345 While glitt’ring H—gs³⁴ dazzles every eye: When Ar—r³⁵ blooms, in various tints array’d, And blushing V—³⁶ smiles, a matchless maid! When many a countess flutters down the room, With Dovey’s di’monds,³⁷ and with Bailey’s bloom:³⁸ 350 When many a beau, with loyal feeling smote, Gives half his income for – a birth-day coat: When every son of ignorance appears, A dull parhelion in the courtly spheres: When many a patriot dame who wields the pen, 355 Wrongs her poor spouse, to prove the rights of men: When dainty ladies strut in male attire, And printer’s devils emulate the lyre: When peers and boxers group, a jovial band, And blushing beauties scamper – four in hand;³⁹ 360 Or with indignant rage and sorrow choking, Lose their last stake – and swear ’tis curs’d provoking. Nay some, more dashing, in the list we view, To shew they’re sans souci, prove sans six sous. Now gentle satirist, arrest thy wing, 365 And give the lesser songsters time to sing: When nightingales are mute, and midnight reigns, The owl sails forth the minstrel of the plains: When Phoebus sinks majestic in the west, Pale Dian rises in her borrow’d vest: 370 Then, stop the progress of the Muse’s steed, And give the sons of fashion – time to read.