Classic Poem

" Come hither, Harriet , pretty Miss,
Come hither; give your aunt a kiss.
What, blushing? fye, hold up your head.
Full six years old, and yet afraid!
With such a form, an air, a grace,
You're not asham'd to shew your face!
Look like a Lady — bold — my Child —
Why, Ma'am, your Harriet will be spoil'd.
What pity 'tis, a girl so sprightly
Should hang her head so unpolitely?
And sure there's nothing worth a rush in
That odd, unnatural trick of blushing;
It marks one ungenteelly bred,
And shows she's mischief in her head.
I've heard Dick Hairbrain prove from Paul ,
Eve never blush'd before the fall.
'Tis said indeed, in later days,
It gain'd our grandmothers some praise;
Perhaps it suited well enough
With hoop and fardingale and ruff;
But this politer generation
Hold ruffs and blushes out of fashion.
And what can mean that gown so odd?
You ought to dress her in the mode,
To teach her how to make a figure;
Or she'll be awkward when she's bigger,
And look as queer as Joan of Nokes ,
And never rig like other folks;
Her cloaths will trail, all fashion lost,
As if she hung them on a post,
And sit as awkwardly as Eve 's
First peagreen petticoat of leaves.
And what can mean your simple whim here
To keep her poring on her primmer?
'Tis quite enough for girls to know,
If she can read a billet-doux,
Or write a line you'd understand
Without an alphabet o'th' hand.
Why needs she learn to write, or spell?
A pothook-scrawl is just as well;
It ranks her with the better sort,
For 'tis the reigning mode at court.
And why should girls be learn'd or wise?
Books only serve to spoil their eyes.
The studious eye but faintly twinkles,
And reading paves the way to wrinkles.
In vain may learning fill the head full:
'Tis Beauty that's the one thing needful;
Beauty, our sex's sole pretence,
The best receipt for female sense,
The charm, that turns all words to witty,
And makes the silliest speeches pretty.
Ev'n folly borrows killing graces
From ruby lips and roseate faces.
Give airs and beauty to your daughter,
And sense and wit will follow after. "

Thus round the infant Miss in state
The council of the Ladies meet,
And gay in modern style and fashion
Prescribe their rules of education.
The Mother, once herself a toast,
Prays for her child the self-same post;
The Father hates the toil and pother,
And leaves his daughters to their mother;
A proper hand their youth to guide,
And o'er their studies to preside;
From whom her faults, that never vary,
May come by right hereditary,
Follies be multiplied with quickness,
And whims keep up the family likeness.
Ye Parents, shall those forms so fair,
The Graces might be proud to wear,
The charms those speaking eyes display,
Where passion sits in ev'ry ray,
Th' expressive glance, the air refin'd,
That sweet vivacity of mind,
Be doom'd for life to folly's sway,
By trifles lur'd, to fops a prey,
Blank all the pow'rs that nature gave,
To dress and tinsel-show the slave!
Say, can ye think that charms so bright,
Were giv'n alone to please the sight,
Or like the moon, that forms so fine
Were made for nothing but to shine?
With lips of rose and cheeks of cherry,
Out go the works of statuary?
And gain the prize of show, as victors
O'er busts and effigies and pictures?
Can female Sense no trophies raise?
Are dress and beauty all their praise?
And does no lover hope to find
An angel in his charmer's mind?
First from the dust our sex began:
But woman was refin'd from man;
Receiv'd again, with softer air,
The great Creator's forming care.
And shall it no attention claim
Their beauteous infant souls to frame?
Shall half your precepts tend the while
Fair nature's lovely work to spoil,
The native innocence deface,
The glowing blush, the modest grace,
On follies fix their young desire,
To trifles bid their souls aspire,
Fill their gay heads with whims of fashion,
And slight all other cultivation,
Let ev'ry useless barren weed
Of foolish fancy run to seed,
And make their minds the receptacle
Of ev'ry thing that's false and fickle,
Where gay Caprice with wanton air,
And Vanity keep constant fair,
Where ribbands, laces, patches, puffs,
Caps, jewels, ruffles, tippets, muffs,
With gaudy whims of vain parade,
Croud each apartment of the head,
Where stands display'd with costly pains
The toyshop of Coquettish brains,
And high-crown'd caps hang out the sign,
And beaus, as customers throng in;
Whence Sense is banish'd in disgrace,
Where Wisdom dares not shew her face,
Where calm Reflection cannot live,
Nor thought sublime an hour survive;
Where the light head and vacant brain
Spoil all ideas they contain,
As th' airpump kills in half a minute
Each living thing you put within it.
It must be so; by antient rule
The Fair are nurst in Folly's school,
And all their education done
Is none at all, or worse than none;
Whence still proceed in maid or wife,
The follies and the ills of life.
Learning is call'd our mental diet,
That serves the hungry mind to quiet,
That gives the genius fresh supplies,
Till souls grow up to common size:
But here, despising sense refin'd,
Gay trifles feed the youthful mind.
Chamaeleons thus, whose colours airy
As often as Coquettes can vary,
Despise all dishes rich and rare,
And diet wholly on the air;
Think fogs blest eating nothing finer,
And can on whirlwinds make a dinner;
And thronging all to feast together,
Fare daintily in blustring weather.
Here to the Fair alone remain
Long years of action spent in vain;
In numbers little skill it shows
To cast the sum of all she knows.
Perhaps she learns (what can she less?)
The arts of dancing and of dress.
But dress and dancing are to women,
Their education's mint and cummin;
These lighter graces should be taught,
And weightier matters not forgot.
For there, where only these are shown,
The soul will fix on these alone.
Then most the fineries of dress
Her thoughts, her wish and time possess;
She values only to be gay,
And works to rig herself for play;
Weaves scores of caps with diff'rent spires,
And all varieties of wires;
Gay ruffles varying just as flow'd
The tides and ebbings of the mode;
Bright flow'rs, and topknots waving high,
That float, like streamers in the sky;
Work'd catgut handkerchiefs, whose flaws
Display the neck, as well as gauze;
Or network aprons somewhat thinnish,
That cost but six weeks time to finish,
And yet so neat, as you must own
You could not buy for half a crown —
Perhaps in youth (for country-fashions
Prescrib'd that mode of educations)
She wastes long months in still more tawdry,
And useless labours of embroid'ry;
With toil weaves up for chairs together,
Six bottoms quite as good as leather;
A set of curtains tap'stry work,
The figures frowning like the Turk;
A tentstitch picture, work of folly,
With portraits wrought of Dick and Polly ;
A coat of arms, that mark'd her house,
Three owls rampant, the crest a goose:
Or shews in waxwork Goodman Adam ,
And Serpent gay, gallanting Madam,
A woeful mimickry of Eden ,
With fruit, that needs not be forbidden:
All useless works, that fill for Beauties
Of time and sense their vast vacuities;
Of sense, which reading might bestow,
And time, whose worth they never know.
Now to some pop'lous city sent,
She comes back prouder than she went;
Few months in vain parade she spares,
Nor learns, but apes, politer airs;
So formal acts, with such a set air,
That country-manners far were better.
This springs from want of just discerning,
As pedantry from want of learning;
And proves this maxim true to sight,
The half-genteel are least polite.
Yet still that active spark, the mind
Employment constantly will find,
And when on trifles most 'tis bent,
Is always found most diligent;
For, weighty works men shew most sloth in,
But labour hard at Doing Nothing ,
A trade, that needs no deep concern,
Or long apprenticeship to learn,
To which mankind at first apply
As naturally as to cry,
Till at the last their latest groan
Proclaims their idleness is done.
Good sense, like fruits, is rais'd by toil;
But follies sprout in ev'ry soil,
And where no tillage finds a place,
They grow, like tares, the more apace,
Nor culture, pains, nor planting need,
As moss and mushrooms have no seed.
Thus Harriet , rising on the stage,
Learns all the arts, that please the age,
And studies well, as fits her station,
The trade and politics of fashion:
A judge of modes, in silks and sattens,
From tassels down to clogs and pattens;
A genius, that can calculate
When modes of dress are out of date,
Cast the nativity with ease
Of gowns, and sacks and negligees,
And tell, exact to half a minute,
What's out of fashion and what's in it;
And scanning all with curious eye
Minutest faults in dresses spy;
(So in nice points of sight, a flea
Sees atoms better far than we,)
A Patriot too, she greatly labours,
To spread her arts among her neighbours,
Holds correspondencies to learn
What facts the female world concern,
To gain authentic state-reports
Of varied modes in distant courts,
The present state and swift decays
Of tuckers, handkerchiefs and stays,
The colour'd silk that Beauties wraps,
And all the rise and fall of caps,
Then shines, a pattern to the fair,
Of mein, address and modish air,
Of ev'ry new, affected grace,
That plays the eye, or decks the face,
The artful smile, that beauty warms,
And all th' hypocrisy of charms.
On sunday see the haughty Maid
In all the glare of dress aray'd,
Deck'd in her most fantastic gown,
Because a stranger's come to town.
Heedless at church she spends the day
For homelier folks may serve to pray,
And for devotion those may go,
Who can have nothing else to do.
Beauties at church must spend their care in
Far other work, than pious hearing;
They've Beaus to conquer, Belles to rival;
To make them serious were uncivil.
For, like the preacher, they each sunday
Must do their whole week's work in one day.
As tho' they meant to take by blows
Th' opposing galleries of Beaus,
To church the female Squadron move,
All arm'd with weapons used in love.
Like colour'd ensigns gay and fair,
High caps rise floating in the air;
Bright silk its varied radiance flings,
And streamers wave in kissing-strings;
Their darts and arrows are not seen,
But lovers tell us what they mean;
Each bears th' artill'ry of her charms,
Like training bands at viewing arms.
So once, in fear of Indian beating,
Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting,
Each man equipp'd on sunday morn,
With psalm-book, shot and powder-horn;
And look'd in form, as all must grant,
Like th' antient, true church militant;
Or fierce, like modern deep Divines,
Who fight with quills, like porcupines.
Or let us turn the style and see
Our Belles assembled o'er their tea;
Where folly sweetens ev'ry theme,
And scandal serves for sugar'd cream.
" And did you hear the news? (they cry)
The court wear caps full three feet high,
Built gay with wire, and at the end on't,
Red tassels streaming like a pendant:
Well sure, it must be vastly pretty;
'Tis all the fashion in the city.
And were you at the ball last night?
Well Chloc look'd like any fright;
Her day is over for a toast;
She'd now do best to act a ghost.
You saw our Fanny ; envy must own
She figures, since she came from Boston ,
Good company improves one's air —
I think the troops were station'd there.
Poor Caelia ventur'd to the place;
The small-pox quite has spoil'd her face.
A sad affair, we all confest:
But providence knows what is best.
Poor Dolly too, that writ the letter
Of love to Dick ; but Dick knew better;
A secret that; you'll not disclose it:
There's not a person living knows it.
Sylvia shone out, no peacock finer;
I wonder what the fops see in her.
Perhaps 'tis true, what Harry maintains,
She mends on intimate acquaintance . "
Hail British Lands! to whom belongs
Untroubled privilege of tongues,
Blest gift of freedom, priz'd as rare
By all, but dearest to the fair;
From grandmothers of loud renown,
Thro' long succession handed down,
Thence with affection kind and hearty,
Bequeath'd unlessen'd to poster'ty!
And all ye Pow'rs of slander, hail,
Who teach to censure and to rail!
By you, kind aids to prying eyes,
Minutest faults the fair one spies,
And specks in rival toasts can mind,
Which no one else could ever find;
By shrewdest hints and doubtful guesses,
Tears reputations all in pieces;
Points out what smiles to sin advance,
Finds assignations in a glance;
And shews how rival toasts (you'll think)
Break all commandments with a wink.
So Priests drive poets to the lurch
By fulminations of the church,
Mark in our titlepage our crimes,
Find heresies in double rhymes,
Charge tropes with damnable opinion,
And prove a metaphor Arminian ,
Peep for our doctrines, as at windows,
And pick out creeds of innuendoes.
And now the conversation sporting
From scandal turns to trying fortune.
Their future luck the fair foresee
In dreams, in cards, but most in tea.
Each finds of love some future trophy
In settlings left of tea, or coffee:
There fate displays its book, she believes,
And Lovers swim in form of tea-leaves;
Where oblong stalks she takes for Beaus,
And squares of leaves for billet-doux,
Gay balls in parboil'd fragments rise,
And specks for kisses greet her eyes.
So Roman Augurs wont to pry
In victims hearts for prophecy,
Sought from the future world advices,
By lights and lungs of sacrifices,
And read with eyes more sharp than wizards,
The book of fate in pigeon's gizzards;
Could tell what chief would be survivor,
From aspects of an oxes liver,
And cast what luck would fall in fights,
By trine and quartile of its lights.
Yet that we fairly may proceed,
We own that Ladies sometimes read,
And grieve that reading is confin'd
To books that poison all the mind;
The bluster of romance, that fills
The head brimfull of purling rills,
Inspires with dreams the witless maiden
On flow'ry vales, and fields Arcadian,
And swells the mind with haughty fancies,
And am'rous follies of romances,
With whims that in no place exist,
But author's heads and woman's breast.
For while she reads romance, the Fair one
Fails not to think herself the Heroine;
For ev'ry glance, or smile, or grace,
She finds resemblance in her face,
Thinks while the fancied beauties strike,
Two peas were never more alike,
Expects the world to fall before her,
And ev'ry fop she meets adore her.
Thus Harriet reads, and reading really
Believes herself a young Pamela ,
The high-wrought whim, the tender strain
Elate her mind and turn her brain:
Before her glass, with smiling grace,
She views the wonders of her face;
There stands in admiration moveless,
And hopes a Grandison , or Lovelace .
Then shines She forth, and round her hovers
The powder'd swarm of bowing Lovers;
By flames of love attracted thither,
Fops, scholars, dunces, cits, together.
No lamp expos'd in nightly skies
E'er gather'd such a swarm of flies;
Or flame in tube electric draws
Such thronging multitudes of straws.
(For I shall still take similes
From fire electric when I please.)
With vast confusion swells the sound,
When all the Coxcombs flutter round.
What undulation wide of bows!
What gentle oaths and am'rous vows!
What doubl' entendres all so smart!
What sighs hot-piping from the heart!
What jealous leers! what angry brawls
To gain the Lady's hand at balls!
What billet-doux, brimful of flame!
Acrostics lined with Harriet 's name!
What compliments o'erstrain'd with telling
Sad lies of Venus and of Hellen !
What wits half-crack'd with common places
On angels, goddesses and graces!
On fires of love what witty puns!
What similes of stars and suns!
What cringing, dancing, ogling, sighing,
What languishing for love, and dying!
For Lovers of all things that breathe
Are most expos'd to sudden death,
And many a swain much fam'd in rhymes
Hath died some hundred thousand times:
Yet tho' love oft their breath may stifle,
'Tis sung it hurts them but a trifle.
The swain revives by equal wonder,
As snakes will join when cut asunder,
And often murther'd still survives;
No cat hath half so many lives.