THE DANDIES.

BLESS me—what two nondescripts together!
The SHE…a pile of ribband, straw, and feather,
Her back, a pillion—all above, and on it,
A church bell? cradle? tower?—no, faith, a bonnet;
Aye, and an actual woman in it, able,
Rouse but her tongue, to make that tower a Babel.

Now for the He, the fellow nondescript ,
Whence has that mockery of man been ship’t ?
Have Ross or Parry brought him to console
The Quidnuncs for the passage to the Pole ?
While on her iceberg howls some Greenland squaw,
Robb’d of her pretty monster, till next thaw ?

No, Paris has the honour, ” ah que oui. ”
” Voila,” , the air, grace, shrug, smell of Paris!
France gave his step trip, his tongue its phrase,
His head his peruke, and his waist its stays!

The thing is contraband , let’s crush the trade ;
Ladies insist on’t , all is best home-made!
All British , from your shoe-tie or your fan,
Down to that necessary brute, call’d , man !

Now for the compound creature, first the wig,
With every frizzle straggling to look big !
On the rough cheek the fresh-dyed whisker spread,
The thousandth way of dressing a calf’s head !

The neckcloth neat, where starch and whalebone vie,
To make the slave a walking pillory !
The bolster’d bosom, ah, ye envying fair,
How little dream ye of the stuff that’s there !
What straps, ropes, steel, the aching ribs compress,
To make the Dandy beautifully less.

Thus fools, their final stake of folly cast,
By instinct, to straight waistcoats come at last !
Misjudging Shakspeare , this escap’d thine eye,
For though the brains are out, the thing won’t die !

Source: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. February 28th, 1824