Epilogue to The Man of Mode, Or Sir Fopling Flutter

• Posted by mgr on September 23rd, 2008 filed in HISTORISCHES, Zeitdokumente
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EPILOGUE TO THE MAN OF MODE, OR SIR FOPLING FLUTTER
[By Sir GEORGE ETHERIGE, 1676.]

MOST modern wits such monstrous fools have shown,
They seem not of heaven’s making, but their own.
Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass;
But there goes more to a substantial ass:
Something of man must be expos’d to view,
That, gallants, they may more resemble you.
Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ,
The ladies would mistake him for a wit;
And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks would cry,
I vow, methinks, he’s pretty comparly;
So brisk, so gay, so travel’d, so refin’d,
As he took pains to graff upon his kind.
True fops help nature’s work, and go to school,
To file and finish God Almighty’s fool.
Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call;
He’s knight o’ th’ shire, and represents you all.
From each he meets he culls whate’er he can;
Legion’s his n…me, a people in a man.
His bulky folly, gathers as it goes,
And, rolling o’er you, like a snow-ball grows.
His various modes from various fathers follow;
One taught the tofs, and one the new French wallow.
His sword-knot this, his cravat that design’d;
And this, the yard-long snake, he twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gain’d,
Which wind ne’er blew, nor touch of hat prophan’d.
Another’s diving bow he did adore,
Which with a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he with full decorum brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake.
As for his songs, the ladies dear delight,
These sure he took from most of you who write.
Yet every man is safe from what he fear’d;
For no one fool is hunted from the herd.

Quoted from: “Dryden’s Poems” In: Dr. Samuel Johnson: The works of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. III. Dublin: Pat. Wogan, 1804.

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