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Mrs. MATTOCKS.
With a sort of a cobweb-like half-tatter'd pride,That is gay but not good, like a lustring thrice dy'd;
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And a small mincing step that's nor walking or running,
All-confident Mattocks befeather'd descry,
Who, ere her tongue speaks, her front says—here am I!
In high life or low, in the palace or cot,
Her mind's leading feature is never forgot:
Be the part old or young, witty, flippant, or dull,
A rustic, a countess, a romp, or a fool;
The jig indecorous steps in to confound it,
And like dogs when distracted, runs rapidly round it—
Unappropriate grins, like a fool at confession,
Or the shrugs of a Gaul at the void of expression;
With impertinent titterings, make up that measure,
Which Wit meant an offering for rational Pleasure.—
She was once prais'd by Truth, happy, artless and gay,
But a wish to be more makes her efforts outrè;
Thus old belles patch their wrinkles when vanities mad 'em,
To regenerate charms they mis-us'd when they had 'em.
When she aped Lady Racket (as Phrenzy once tried her)
Her address near effected what Nature denied her;
The bold minx turn'd a thief, in the Muses' abode,
And stole all she could, from bright Abington's code;
She would hide the rich theft, when the credulous praise her,
But Truth draws the curtain, and, angry, betrays her;
Now 'tis seen thro' and thro' by a curious eye,
Like the transparent wing of a summer-dry'd fly;
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Or the old water-mark of a hacknied bank-note.
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