The reigning vice

März 5, 2009 von mgr | Keine Kommentare

Guardians of good! to Britain’s youth impart
Some new academy to teach the heart!
See Education, in these book-read times,
Parent of Selfishness, dark fount of crimes!
Man, plainly, of the monkey tribe appears,
More copying what he sees than what he hears.
Then think not tasks will educate thy son,
His education was from birth begun.
Thy wines, thy dogs, thy guests, thy oaths, have taught
The ready, infant ere the dawn of thought.
As country boards rub awkward actors down,
Till in bright brass they grin before the town,
The world’s epitome, a public school,
Shall prompt thy darling to rehearse the fool;
The joys of drinking with Anacreon show,
With Ovid’s Art of Love the practice too.
Next Alma Mater tells him how to bet,
To run a horse, or (nobler !) run in debt;
While Euclid’s pages are in vain unfurl’d
Beside the gayer volume of the world.
To Europe’s treasures see him now advance,
Seize with quick soul gastronomy in France;
From Dutch Bœotia bear a pipe and pot,
From Florence fiddles,, or the Lord knows what.
Return’d, a very galaxy he shines,
Ripen’d by travel, like his own choice wines.
Full on the town he bursts, with finish’d look,
Whoremonger, jockey, drunkard, fiddler, cook !
At Worship Street he bears away the bell,
Lord of the cockpit, hero of the hell;
Eats lobsters with a doxy on each knee,
And in the oyster-cellar drinks a sea.
At length he grows respectable, and cool,
Gambles by system, fornicates by rule,
Looks pale, wears whiskers, plays with Celia’s fan
In Almack’s halls;, and is a perfect man !
From one, learn all! This miracle must strike,
Scanning our moderns, that they ‘re all alike!
True character is merged, for every soul
Runs the same gauntlet, gains the self-same goal.
In the world’s jostle is the die worn out,
As from the coins we carry long about.
They ‘re all the same without, the same within,
Alike in dulness, and alike in sin;
All in one way they sit, ride, walk, or stand,
Speak with one voice, nay, learn to write one hand.
Drest to the mode, our very nurseries show
The baby lady and the infant beau;
In rival lustre maid and mistress meet,
And walking rainbows blaze through every street.
As much like Nature are the crowds we see,
As yon clipp’d, dusty pole is like a tree,
Green, waving, glorious, beautiful, and free!
Take an automaton by Stultz array’d,
Well-coated, neck-cloth’d, pantaloon’d, and stay’d;
Let it appear to listen, smile, and bow,
And, in the proper place, say, “Yes,” or “No,”,
The world would deem it perfectly well-bred,
Nor ask the needless furniture of head.
Of every dulness, with which man is curst,
Profligate dulness surely is the worst.
Oh the flat dregs of wit, the vapid joke,
The laugh at nothing, or a jest unspoke !
No fancy gilds the brain of Pleasure’s fool,
Which stinks, and stagnates like the fetid pool.
All now wear beards, or buy the beards they wear,
The human face divine is lost in hair.
While thus the mind so well the body suits,
How wise to steal the lirery of brutes !
You think a warrior shoves you from the wall,
Tis but a meek apprentice from Guildhall.
The Church is militant; with bristling lips,
A gown’d hussar into the pulpit skips.
But who binds Fashion’s Proteus ? As in spite,
The very manners alter as I write.