SPOKEN BY MR. KING
| What various transformations we remark, |
| From east Whitechapel to the west Hyde Park! |
| Men, women, children, houses, signs, and fashions, |
| State, stage, trade, taste, the humours and the passions; |
| The Exchange, ’Change Alley, wheresoe’er you’re ranging, |
| Court, city, country, all are changed or changing: |
| The streets, some time ago, were paved with stones, |
| Which, aided by a hackney- coach, half broke your bones. |
| The purest lovers then indulged in bliss; |
| They run great hazard if they stole a kiss. |
| One chaste salute!—the damsel cried—Oh, fie! |
| As they approach’d—slap went the coach awry— |
| Poor Sylvia got a bump, and Damon a black eye. |
| But now weak nerves in hackney-coaches roam, |
| And the cramm’d glutton snores, unjolted, home; |
| Of former times, that polish’d thing a beau, |
| Is metamorphosed now from top to toe; |
| Then the full flaxen wig, spread o’er the shoulders, |
| Conceal’d the shallow head from the beholders. |
| But now the whole’s reversed—each fop appears, |
| Cropp’d and trimm’d up, exposing head and ears: |
| The buckle then its modest limits knew, |
| Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view, |
| Hath broke its bounds, and swallowed up the shoe: |
| The wearer’s foot, like his once fine estate, |
| Is almost lost, the encumbrance is so great. |
| Ladies may smile—are they not in the plot? |
| The bounds of nature have not they forgot? |
| Were they design’d to be, when put together, |
| Made up, like shuttlecocks, of cork and feather? |
| Their pale-faced grandmammas appeared with grace |
| When dawning blushes rose upon the face; |
| No blushes now their once-loved station seek; |
| The foe is in possession of the cheek! |
| No heads of old, too high in feather’d state, |
| Hinder’d the fair to pass the lowest gate; |
| A church to enter now, they must be bent, |
| If ever they should try the experiment. |
| As change thus circulates throughout the nation, |
| Some plays may justly call for alteration; |
| At least to draw some slender covering o’er, |
| That graceless wit1 which was too bare before: |
| Those writers well and wisely use their pens, |
| Who turn our wantons into Magdalens; |
| And howsoever wicked wits revile ’em, |
| We hope to find in you their stage asylum. |