THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION
A TALE
Secluded from domestic strife,
Jack Book-Worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass, and crack’d his joke,
And freshmen wonder’d as he spoke.
Such pleasures, unalloy’d with care,
Could any accident impair?
Could Cupid’s shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arriv’d at thirty-six?
Oh! had the Archer ne’er come down
To ravage in a country town;
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet Street shop!
Oh! had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
Oh!—but let exclamation cease;
Her presence banish’d all his peace!
So, with decorum all things carried,
Miss frown’d, and blush’d, and then was—married.
The honey-moon like lightning flew;
The second brought its transports, too;
A third, a fourth, were not amiss;
The fifth was friendship mix’d with bliss:
But when a twelvemonth pass’d away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay—
Found half the charms that deck’d her face
Arose from powder, shreds, or lace;
But still the worst remain’d behind—
That very face had robb’d her mind.
Skill’d in no other arts was she,
But dressing, patching, repartee;
And, just as humour rose or fell,
By turns a slattern or a belle.
’Tis true she dress’d with modern grace—
Half naked at a ball or race;
But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy night-caps wrapp’d her head.
Could so much beauty condescend
To be a dull domestic friend?
Could any curtain-lectures bring
To decency so fine thing?
In short—by night, ’twas fits or fretting;
By day, ’twas gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powder’d coxcombs at her levee;
The ’squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations.
Jack suck’d his pipe, and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;
While all their hours were pass’d between
Insulting repartee or spleen.
Thus, as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown:
He fancies every vice she shows
Or thins her lip, or points her nose;
Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz—
And, though her fops are wondrous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravell’d noose,
As each a different way pursues—
While sullen or loquacious strife
Promis’d to hold them on for life—
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty’s transient flower,
Lo! the small-pox, whose horrid glare
Levell’d its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.
The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a—perfect fright.
Each former art she vainly tries,
To bring back lustre to her eyes;
In vain she tries her pastes and creams,
To smooth her skin, or hide its seams:
Her country beaux and city cousins,
Lovers no more, flew off by dozens;
The ’squire himself was seen to yield,
And even the captain quit the field.