While all their hours were pass'd between Insulting repartee or spleen. Thus, as her faults each day were known, He thinks her features coarser grown: He fancies every vice she shows, Or thins her lip or points her nose; 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, Now, to perplex the ravel'd noose, While sullen or loquacious strife Promis'd to hold them on for life- Lo! the small-pox-whose horrid glare The glass, grown hateful to her sight, Reflected now a-perfect fright. Each former art she vainly tries Poor madam, now condemn'd to hack The rest of life with anxious Jack, Perceiving others fairly flown, Jack soon was dazzled to behold Her present face surpass the old. With modesty her cheeks are dy'd; For tawdry finery is seen No more presuming on her sway, She learns good-nature every day: A NEW SIMILE IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT.1 LONG had I sought in vain to find A likeness for the scribbling kind The modern scribbling kind, who write A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon, Printed in the Essays, 1765. I have adopted the improved text which appears in the second edition of the Essays, 1766. The verses, in both editions, have the mysterious signature *J. B.-Line 6. Tooke The Rev. Andrew Tooke, F.R.S. and master of Charter-house school. His Pantheon, a revised translation from the Latin of Father Pomey, became the favorite synopsis of mythology. He died in 1731. = |