 | The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley |  |
479
THE MAN OF FASHION.
What is a modern man of fashion?
A man of taste and dissipation;
A busy man, without employment;
A happy man, without enjoyment;
Who squanders all his time and treasures
In empty joys, and tasteless pleasures;
Visits, attendance, and attention,
And courtly arts too low to mention.
In sleep, and dress, and sport, and play,
He throws his worthless life away;
Has no opinions of his own,
But takes from leading beaux the ton;
Born to be flatter'd, and to flatter,
The most important thing in nature,
Wrapp'd up in self-sufficient pride,
With his own virtues satisfied,
With a disdainful smile or frown
He on the riffraff crowd looks down;
The world polite, his friends and he,
And all the rest are—nobody.
A man of taste and dissipation;
A busy man, without employment;
A happy man, without enjoyment;
Who squanders all his time and treasures
In empty joys, and tasteless pleasures;
Visits, attendance, and attention,
And courtly arts too low to mention.
In sleep, and dress, and sport, and play,
He throws his worthless life away;
Has no opinions of his own,
But takes from leading beaux the ton;
Born to be flatter'd, and to flatter,
The most important thing in nature,
Wrapp'd up in self-sufficient pride,
With his own virtues satisfied,
With a disdainful smile or frown
He on the riffraff crowd looks down;
The world polite, his friends and he,
And all the rest are—nobody.
Taught by the great his smiles to sell,
And how to write, and how to spell,
The great his oracles he makes,
Copies their vices and mistakes,
Custom pursues, his only rule,
And lives an ape, and dies a fool!
And how to write, and how to spell,
The great his oracles he makes,
Copies their vices and mistakes,
Custom pursues, his only rule,
And lives an ape, and dies a fool!
“But say, thou criticising clown,
(If thou canst pull the ladies down,)
What is a woman nicely bred,
In every step by fashion led?”
The proverb makes us understand her,
What's sauce for goose is sauce for gander:
From which I rightly reason thus:
What's sauce for gander is for goose.—
But here I for my faults atone,
By letting the fair sex alone.
(If thou canst pull the ladies down,)
480
In every step by fashion led?”
The proverb makes us understand her,
What's sauce for goose is sauce for gander:
From which I rightly reason thus:
What's sauce for gander is for goose.—
But here I for my faults atone,
By letting the fair sex alone.
| The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley | |