Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour. We have run Through every change that fancy, at the loom Exhausted, has had genius to supply, And, studious of mutation still, discard A real elegance, a little used, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.
We sacrifice to dress, till household joys And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires, And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, Where peace and hospitality might reign.
What man that lives, and that knows how to live, Would fail to exhibit at the public shows A form as splendid as the proudest there, Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?
A man o' the town dines late, but soon enough, With reasonable forecast and despatch, To ensure a side-box station at half-price.
You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, His daily fare as delicate. Alas!
He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet.
The rout is folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wise;There form connections, and acquire no friend;Solicit pleasure hopeless of success;Waste youth in occupations only fit For second childhood, and devote old age To sports which only childhood could excuse.
There they are happiest who dissemble best Their weariness; and they the most polite, Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming. They (what can they less?)
Make just reprisals, and, with cringe and shrug And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, To her who, frugal only that her thrift May feed excesses she can ill afford, Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; who, in haste Alighting, turns the key in her own door, And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.
Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, On Fortune's velvet altar offering up Their last poor pittance--Fortune, most severe Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far Than all that held their routs in Juno's heaven.--So fare we in this prison-house the world.
And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, Then shake them in despair, and dance again.
Now basket up the family of plagues That waste our vitals. Peculation, sale Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds By forgery, by subterfuge of law, By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keen As the necessities their authors feel;Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat At the right door. Profusion is its sire.
Profusion unrestrained, with all that's base In character, has littered all the land, And bred within the memory of no few A priesthood such as Baal's was of old, A people such as never was till now.
It is a hungry vice:--it eats up all That gives society its beauty, strength, Convenience, and security, and use;Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapped And gibbeted, as fast as catchpole claws Can seize the slippery prey; unties the knot Of union, and converts the sacred band That holds mankind together to a scourge.
Profusion, deluging a state with lusts Of grossest nature and of worst effects, Prepares it for its ruin; hardens, blinds, And warps the consciences of public men Till they can laugh at virtue; mock the fools That trust them; and, in the end, disclose a face That would have shocked credulity herself, Unmasked, vouchsafing this their sole excuse;--Since all alike are selfish, why not they?
This does Profusion, and the accursed cause Of such deep mischief has itself a cause.
In colleges and halls, in ancient days, When learning, virtue, piety, and truth Were precious, and inculcated with care, There dwelt a sage called Discipline. His head, Not yet by time completely silvered o'er, Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpaired.
His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love.
The occupation dearest to his heart Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke The head of modest and ingenuous worth, That blushed at its own praise, and press the youth Close to his side that pleased him. Learning grew Beneath his care, a thriving, vigorous plant;The mind was well informed, the passions held Subordinate, and diligence was choice.
If e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must, That one among so many overleaped The limits of control, his gentle eye Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke;His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe As left him not, till penitence had won Lost favour back again, and closed the breach.
But Discipline, a faithful servant long, Declined at length into the vale of years;A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eye Was quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrung Grew tremulous, and moved derision more Than reverence in perverse, rebellious youth.
So colleges and halls neglected much Their good old friend, and Discipline at length, O'erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died.
Then study languished, emulation slept, And virtue fled. The schools became a scene Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, His cap well lined with logic not his own, With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part, Proceeding soon a graduated dunce.
Then compromise had place, and scrutiny Became stone-blind, precedence went in truck, And he was competent whose purse was so.
