Where’er the rout’s full myriads close
The staircase and the door,
Where’er thick files of belles and beaus
Perspire through ev’ry pore:
Beside some faro-table’s brink,
With me the Muse shall stand and think,
(Hemm’d sweetly in by squeeze of state,)
How vast the comfort of the crowd,
How condescending are the proud,
How happy are the great!
III.
Still is the toiling hand of Care,
The drays and hacks repose;
But, hark, how through the vacant air
The rattling clamour glows!
The wanton Miss and rakish Blade,
Eager to join the masquerade,
Through streets and squares pursue their fun:
Home in the dusk some bashful skim;
Some, ling’ring late, their motley trim
Exhibit to the sun.
IV.
To Dissipation’s playful eye,
Such is the life for man;
And they that halt, and they that fly,
Should have no other plan:
Alike the busy and the gay
Should sport all night till break of day,
In Fashion’s varying colours drest;
Till seiz’d for debt through rude mischance,
Or chill’d by age, they leave the dance,
In gaol or dust—to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
Some sober quiz reply,
Poor child of Folly! what art thou?
A Bond-Street Butterfly!
Thy choice nor Health nor Nature greets,
No taste hast thou of vernal sweets,
Enslav’d by noise, and dress, and play:
Ere thou art to the country flown,
The sun will scorch, the Spring be gone,—
Then leave the town in May.
CHAP. VII.
HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE ESTIMATED.
I trust my reader is by this time sufficiently acquainted with the general outline of Fashionable life: it would only be accumulating observations unnecessarily to enter further into the subject: I shall therefore devote the present chapter to a brief investigation of the state of happiness among a people who, it must be observed, claim to be considered—the happiest of their species.