PLEBEIANS avaunt! I have alter’d my plan,
Metamorphos’d completely, behold A FINE MAN!
That is, throughout Town, I am grown quite the rage,
The meteor of Fashion, the Buck of the age.

Politeness, of course, having thrown on the shelf,
worship nor idol, nor God but myself:
I cringe to the Lord, pass, unnotic’d, the Mister,
Defraud my best friend, and intrigue with his sister;

No more in dull study my time I employ,
No bookworms molest me, no pedants annoy;
Each hour of my life passes happy and gay,
Turning day into night, and night into day.

In the season, I deign to awake about five,
Though with so many aches, I am scarcely alive:
If invited to dinner, of course, they must wait,
When six is their hour, I lounge in about eight

With my coat flying off, appear crabbed and surly,
And damn the low custom of dining so early.
At the opera or play to some box I repair
Of a grandee of rank, who is not to be there,

And extended at length, I survey the dull scene,
Without one idea what the acting can mean,
But because it’s the best place I know “to be seen.”

But at balls and assemblies my principal sway,
It is there I’m at home, and have all my own way;
What rout can be decent, what party can shine,
If absent the hopes of the Butterfly line ?

When a liveri’ed slave my arrival declares,
How the footmen re-echo my name up the stairs!
What crowding and jostling to get a side-view
Of my Petersham breeches, and “coat of sky-blue !

As I enter the room, what a whisp’ring is heard,
My rivals astonish’d scarce utter a word:
“How charming, (cry all,) how enchanting a fellow, ”
“How neat are those small clothes, how killingly yellow !”

Not for worlds would I honour these plebs with a smile,
Though bursting with pride and delight all the while;
So I turn to my cronies (a much honour’d few),
Crying, ” S, r, m, how goes it ? Ah ! Duchess, how do? ”

” ‘Pon my life, yonder’s B, uf-, t, and Br, ke, and A, g, le,
” S, lf, d, W, tm, l, d, L, n, and old codger C, rl, le.”
Now though from this style of address it appears,
That these folks I have known for at least fifty years,

The fact is, my friends, that I scarcely know one;
A mere “façon de parler” the way of the ton.
What though they dislike it, I answer my ends,
Country gentlemen stare, and suppose them my friends.

But my beautiful taste (as indeed you will guess)
Is manifest most in my toilet and dress ;
My neckcloth, of course, forms my principal care,
For by that we criterions of elegance swear,

And costs me, each morning, some hours of flurry,
To make it appear to be tied in a hurry:
My boot-tops, those unerring marks of a blade,
With champaigne are polish’d, and peach marmalade :

And a violet coat, closely copied from B, ng;
With a cluster of seals, and a large diamond ring;
And troisiêmes of buckskin, bewitchingly large,
Give the finishing strokes to the ” parfait ouvrage.”

With the women, I need not declare, I suppose,
That they call me the devil himself in men’s clothes.
“He has so much to say, (cries each simp’ring maid;) ”
“Lauk ! how witty he was about that lemonade , ”

“How he jokes about candlesticks! don’t he, papa? ”
“And his teeth, how delightful, how charming, ha! ha!”
In short, with soft speeches these creatures so cram me,
That nothing remains but to grin and cry, “damn me.”

As for love, I conceive it a mere empty bubble,
And the fruits of success never worth half the trouble;
Yet as Fashion decrees it, I bear the fatigue,
That the world may suppose me “ a man of intrigue.”

If I chance to succeed, which is rarely the case,
Why, of course, my good fortune is wrote in my face;
But if fate throws me foul of some troublesome beauty,
Who acts on a thing you Plebeians call duty,

Assur’d that the fair-one herself cannot tell,
A nod or a wink does my business as well:
I’m publicly rallied, wish’d joy of my fun;
The newspapers get it, and then the thing’s done!

Plebeians should pay for Patricians’ keep,
So I usu’ally manage to live pretty cheap ;
On some hundreds a year I make no little show,
And discharge all my debts, except those which I owe.

My virtues, are num’rous; I ne’er tread on toes,
Because I’m aware it might injure my nose;
As for courage, What is it ? A mere pinch of snuff,
can frighten the women, that’s surely enough.

I can brandish my knuckles, protest they are weighty,
And shew how I once drubb’d a watchman of eighty.
I can talk about scents, can descant on perfume,
I can lead down a dance, and bewitch a whole room;

And if no one of fashion or rank should be present,
Gad! I sometimes am vulgar enough to be pleasant.
Howe’er, then, Plebeians may rail or abuse,
This, this is the life that a hero should chuse;

It is us who do honour to Albion’s name,
Teach her senators sense, lead her armies to fame.
And hence, Britons ! the cause of that wond’rous success,
Which, of late years, your enemies even confess :

What is it that makes you so dreaded abroad ?
Makes your money so call’d for, your cash so implor’d ?
Increases your comforts, curtails your taxation,
Your property guards, and enriches your nation ?

What makes you esteem’d, too, in all foreign courts,
Makes them welcome your shipping and trade to their ports ?
What can cause, I repeat, all this good to your land,
But the manner your councils are govern’d and plann’d ?

And hence ’tis an axiom, an evident truth,
That the cause of the whole is this school for your youth.
Then may Fashion long thrive, may our striplings of rank,
Be encourag’d in folly, indulg’d in each prank ;

Till from playing at marbles, or trundling their hoops,
They are plac’d at the head of our vet’ran troops!
No alarms then will stop them, no cautions impede,
Though myriads may tumble, tho’ hecatombs bleed:

To heroes like these, what can signify lives ?
What are balls, but mere playthings for cricket and fives ?
It is vict’ory they seek, though their army they lose,
They obtain it and …. cannon re-echo the news!!

John Bull is delighted, that excellent man,
Who lives but for pleasure, and laughs whilst he can;
Of one fact well assur’d, that his troops gained the day,
That like tigers they fought, and that none ran away,
(So dispatches inform him, so newspapers say;)

This is all that he wishes to know of the case;
How the vet’rans that fell he can ever replace,
How the few that survive can be ever brought back?
Or how Prudence could justify such an attack ?

These are questions unthought of, unnotic’d by John,
We have cudgell’d the French, we have drubb’d three for one:
And we’ll drub them, cries he, wheresoever we meet,
So huzza ! and huzza! roar the boys in the street !

But, indulging so long in this whimsical flight,
I forget all the things, that are stirring to-night;
Let me see, what is first?, Madam Chalk’s masquerade;
Of her picking my pockets, I’m not much afraid

Then there’s Scarecrow at home full of fusses and cares,
And frighten’d to death for her new-painted stairs:
Squire Peppercorn too, holds this eve’ning his court,
Where the guns will be let off in praise of his port.

Then a souper at Nettlebed-house I declare,
Broomhead, Bigwig, and Bagtail are sure to be there;
O names ever dear! super-excellent trio!
I haste to embrace you ! Plebeians, A-Dio!

From: Goulbourn, Edward: The Pursuits of Fashion. London: Ebers, 1810.