Vast tracts of unknown land he gains,
Better than those the moon contains;
There deals in preaching and in prayer,
And starves on sixty pounds a year,
And culls his texts and tills his farm,
Does little good and little harm;
On Sunday, in his best array,
Deals forth the dulness of the day,

And while above he spends his breath

The yawning audience nod beneath.

1772.

FROM

PART III, OR THE ADVENTURES OF MISS HARRIET SIMPER

First from the dust our sex began,
But woman was refined from man;
Received again, with softer air,
The great Creator's forming care.
And shall it no attention claim
Their beauteous infant souls to frame?
Shall half your precepts tend the while

Fair nature's lovely work to spoil,

The native innocence deface,

The glowing blush, the modest grace;

On follies fix their young desire,

To trifles bid their souls aspire,

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IO

And high-crown'd caps hang out the sign,
And beaux as customers throng in;
Whence sense is banish'd in disgrace,
Where wisdom dares not show her face,
Where the light head and vacant brain
Spoil all ideas they contain,
As th' air-pump kills in half a minute
Each living thing you put within it?

It must be so: by ancient rule
The fair are nursed in folly's school,
And all their education done

Is none at all, or worse than none;
Whence still proceed in maid or wife
The follies and the ills of life.

Learning is call'd our mental diet,

That serves the hungry mind to quiet
That gives the genius fresh supplies,
Till souls grow up to common size;
But here, despising sense refined,
Gay trifles feed the youthful mind:
Chameleons thus, whose colours airy
As often as coquettes can vary,
Despise all dishes rich and rare,
And diet wholly on the air;
Think fogs blest eating, nothing finer,

And can on whirlwinds make a dinner;
And thronging all to feast together,
Fare daintily in blust'ring weather.
Here to the fair alone remain

Long years of action spent in vain.
Perhaps she learns (what can she less?)
The arts of dancing and of dress;
But dress and dancing are to women
Their education's mint and cummin:
These lighter graces should be taught,
And weightier matters not forgot;
For there where only these are shown
The soul will fix on these alone.

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Then most the fineries of dress

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Her thoughts, her wish, and time possess:
She values only to be gay,

And works to rig herself for play;
Weaves scores of caps with diff'rent spires,
And all varieties of wires;

Gay ruffles varying just as flow'd
The tides and ebbings of the mode;
Bright flow'rs and topknots waving high,
That float like streamers in the sky;
Work'd catgut handkerchiefs, whose flaws
Display the neck as well as gauze;
Or network aprons somewhat thinnish,
That cost but six weeks time to finish,
And yet so neat as you must own
You could not buy for half a crown.
Perhaps in youth (for country fashion

Each man equipp'd on Sunday morn
With psalm-book, shot, and powder-horn,
And look'd in form, as all must grant,
Like th' ancient true church militant;
Or fierce, like modern deep divines,
Who fight with quills like porcupines.
Or let us turn the style and see
Our belles assembled o'er their tea,
Where folly sweetens ev'ry theme,
And scandal serves for sugar'd cream.

"And did you hear the news?" they cry;

"The court wear caps full three feet high,
Built gay with wire, and at the end on 't
Red tassels streaming like a pendant:
Well, sure, it must be vastly pretty;
'T is all the fashion in the city.
And were you at the ball last night?
Well, Chloe look'd like any fright;
Her day is over for a toast-
She'd now do best to act a ghost.
You saw our Fanny; envy must own
She figures since she came from Boston:
Good company improves one's air-
I think the troops were station'd there.

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Poor Cœlia ventured to the place:

The small-pox quite has spoil'd her face;
A sad affair, we all confest,

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But providence knows what is best.

Poor Dolly, too, that writ the letter
Of love to Dick, but Dick knew better;
A secret that you 'll not disclose it-
There's not a person living knows it.
Sylvia shone out, no peacock finer;
I wonder what the fops see in her:
Perhaps 't is true what Harry maintains-
She mends on intimate acquaintance."

And now the conversation sporting
From scandal turns to trying fortune;
Their future luck the fair foresee
In dreams, in cards, but most in tea.
Each finds of love some future trophy

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When Yankies, skill'd in martial rule,
First put the British troops to school,
Instructed them in warlike trade

And new manoeuvres of parade,

The true war-dance of Yankee reels,

And manual exercise of heels,

Made them give up, like saints complete,
The arm of flesh and trust the feet,
And work, like Christians undissembling.
Salvation out by fear and trembling,
Taught Percy fashionable races,
And modern modes of Chevy-Chases;
From Boston, in his best array,
Great 'Squire M'FINGAL took his way,
And, graced with ensigns of renown,
Steer'd homeward to his native town.

The Town, our hero's scene of action,
Had long been torn by feuds of faction;
And as each party's strength prevails,
It turn'd up different, heads or tails;
With constant rattling, in a trice
Show'd various sides as oft as dice.
As that famed weaver, wife t' Ulysses.
By night her day's-work pick'd in pieces,
And though she stoutly did bestir her
Its finishing was ne'er the nearer,

So did this town with ardent zeal
Weave cobwebs for the public weal,