ON A TRIPOD TO THE MEMORY OF

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, ESQ. P. L.

IN THE PLEASURE GROUND OF EARL HARCOURT,
NEWNAM, OXFORDSHIRE.

HARCOURT and Friendship this memorial raised
Near to the oak where Whitehead oft reclined;
Where all that Nature, robed by Art, displays
With charms congenial sooth'd his polish'd

mind,

Let Fashion's votaries, let the sons of Fire'
The genius of that modest bard despise,
Who bad Discretion regulate his lyre,

Studious to please, yet scorning to surprise. Enough for him if those, who shared his love Through life, who virtue more than verse revere, Here pensive pause,when circling round the grove, And drop the heart-paid tribute of a tear.

UNDER A PICTURE

OF THE

EDITOR OF SHAKSPEARE'S MANUSCRIPTS.

1796.

PARODY.

FOUR forgers, born in one prolific age,
Much critical acumen did engage.

'Alluding to an expression of his in his Charge to the Poets, which excited the rancour of Churchill, Lloyd, &c.

The first was soon by doughty Douglas scared, Though Johnson would have screen'd him, had he dared';

The next had all the cunning of a Scot;
The third3 invention, genius-nay, what not?
Fraud, now exhausted, only could dispense
To her fourth son their threefold impudence.

When Lauder first produced his forgery respecting Milton, Dr. Johnson ushered it into the world by a preface, and afterwards writ Lauder's recantation. Some of his numerous biographers have endeavoured to prove the Doctor no party concerned; however this be, the virulence he afterwards showed to Milton in the Life which be writ of him for the booksellers leads fairly to support my assertion, that he would have defended Lauder had he been in any sort defensible.

2 The translator of Fingal, Temora, &c.

3 The discoverer and transcriber of Rowley's Poems.

MISCELLANIES.

THE BIRTH OF FASHION.

An Epistolary Tale.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746, AND SENT TO A LADY WITH HOLLAR'S HABITS OF ENGLISH WOMEN, PUBLISHED IN THE FORMER CENTURY, 1650.

I WISH this verse may chance to come
Just as you dress for rout or drum;
If so, while Betty at your back

Or pins your gown', or folds your sacque,
Dear Madam, let me beg you place
These prints between yourself and glass,
To see the change in female dress
Made in a hundred years, or less.
'Sure, Sir, our grandames all were mad!
What vulgar airs the creatures had!

The phrase at the time was pinning a lady's tail; but the young author was then too delicate to use it: and happy it was he did not; for the present nicer age would have thought him as indelicate as Lord Monboddo. However, an excellent anecdote related of Mrs. Russel, bedchamber-woman to the late Princess Amelia, which is by many remembered (though not here related) will vindicate the authenticity of what was then the usual phrase to express the adjustment of a most material part of a lady's dress.

The awkward things-not half a waist;
And that all frightfully unlaced-

O, monstrous! what a shocking taste??'
Just so indeed I did surmise

You would not fail to criticise;
Yet still I cannot help conceiving,
If one of these good dames was living
And saw that five-yard hoop around ye,
Her shrewd reflections might confound ye:
But whatsoe'er her thoughts might be,
They'd have but little weight with me;
For I opine, 'tis clear as light,
Whatever is in dress is right;
The present is the test of taste,
And awkward every thing that's pass'd:
Thus we dislike, observe the proof,
Both Anna's flounce and Bess's ruff;
Yet there's a time the Muse pronounces,
When hoops shall be like ruffs and flounces3.

2 What a strange objection is here put into the lady's mouth! she finds fault with the women in Charles the First's time for having only half a waist; when every body knows, that to have no waist at all is the true criterion of female elegance. As to lacing, who now could imitate the Venus de Medicis, or any other fine antique, that admitted so gothic a ligament?

3 Part of the prophecy seems to have been fulfilled, so far at least as starched ruffs go, though the male (I rather call them so than the masculine) followers of Fashion have found a mode of adding to the size of their own necks not quite so pioturesque; and the ladies have, occasionally in their morning dishabilles, condescended to imitate them. As to flounces, they have extended their dominion even to bed curtains and hangings of rooms: this, I suppose out of charity to e insect tribe, for whom they afford a general and most convenient nidus.

For in a uniform progression
Each mode a moment takes possession
Of Beauty's throne, and fills the place,
Attended by each charm and

grace;
Yet, when deposed by some new fashion,
The charms and graces keep their station,
And on the next throned whimsey wait
With all the selfsame form and state.
So, at Culloden's furious fray

Had Charley's broad swords won the day,
Which, Heaven be thank'd, was not the case,
Some statesmen still had kept their place,
And many wights, I name no names,
Who swore to George, had sworn to James'.
This granted, it no longer strange is,
That Fashions in their various changes,
Though e'er so odd and out of the way,
Should reign with universal sway.
For why-whatever mode takes place,
"Tis just the same in point of grace.
A tale like Prior or Fontaine
Will make the thing extremely plain.

Cyprus was once, the learn'd agree,
The Vauxhall of antiquity:

Her myrtle groves and laurel shades
Echo'd with constant serenades,

And Grecian belles, that look'd as pretty,
And moved as graceful as Auretti3,
With Grecian beaux the livelong day,
Or led the dance, or tuned the lay.

This bold assertion, I take for granted, was made merely on hearsay evidence. Readers at the present time will be best able to judge whether that evidence was founded on truth. 5 A celebrated opera dancer then in vogue.