Classic Poem

( ON OUR RIDICULOUS IMITATION OF THE FRENCH ).

Who would not rather get him gone
Beyond the' intolerablest zone,
Or steer his passage through those seas
That burn in flames, or those that freeze,
Than see one nation go to school,
And learn of another, like a fool?
To study all its tricks and fashions
With epidemic affectations,
And dare to wear no mode or dress,
But what they in their wisdom please;
As monkies are, by being taught
To put on gloves and stockings, caught;
Submit to all that they devise,
As if it wore their liveries;
Make ready' and dress the' imagination,
Not with the clothes, but with the fashion;
And change it (to fulfil the curse
Of Adam's fall) for new, though worse;
To make their breeches fall and rise
From middle legs to middle thighs,
The tropics between which the hose
Move always as the fashion goes:
Sometimes wear hats like pyramids,
And sometimes flat, like pipkins' lids;
With broad brims, sometimes, like umbrellas,
And sometimes narrow' as Punchinellos:
In coldest weather go unbrac'd,
And close in hot, as if th' were lac'd;
Sometimes with sleeves and bodies wide,
And sometimes straiter than a hide:
Wear perukes, and with false grey hairs
Disguise the true ones, and their years;
That, when they're modish, with the young
The old may seem so in the throng;
And as some pupils have been known,
In time to put their tutors down,
So ours are often found to 'ave got
More tricks than ever they were taught:
With sly intrigues and artifices
Usurp their poxes and their vices;
With garnitures upon their shoes,
Make good their claim to gouty toes;
By sudden starts, and shrugs, and groans,
Pretend to aches in their bones,
To scabs and botches, and lay trains
To prove their running of the reins;
And, lest they should seem destitute
Of any mange that 's in repute,
And be behind hand with the mode
Will swear to crystalline and node;
And, that they may not lose their right,
Make it appear how they came by't:
Disdain the country where th' were born,
As bastards their own mothers scorn;
And that which brought them forth contemn,
As it deserves for bearing them;
Admire whate'er they find abroad,
But nothing here, though e'er so good:
Be natives wheresoe'er they come,
And only foreigners at home;
To which th' appear so far estrang'd,
As if they 'ad been i' the' cradle chang'd,
Or from beyond the seas convey'd
By witches — not born here, but laid;
Or by outlandish fathers were
Begotten on their mothers here,
And therefore justly slight that nation
Where they 've so mongrel a relation;
And seek out other climates, where
They may degenerate less than here;
As woodcocks, when their plumes are grown,
Borne on the wind's wings and their own,
Forsake the countries where they 're hatch'd,
And seek out others to be catch'd:
So they more naturally may please
And humour their own geniuses,
Apply to all things which they see
With their own fancies best agree;
No matter how ridiculous,
'Tis all one, if it be in use;
For nothing can be bad or good,
But as 'tis in or out of mode;
And as the nations are that use it,
All ought to practise or refuse it;
T' observe their postures, move and stand,
As they give out the word o' command;
To learn the dullest of their whims,
And how to wear their very limbs;
To turn and manage every part,
Like puppets, by their rules of art;
To shrug discreetly, act, and tread,
And politicly shake the head,
Until the ignorant (that guess
At all things by the' appearances)
To see how Art and Nature strive,
Believe them really alive,
And that they 're very men, not things
That move by puppet work and springs;
When truly all their fates have been
As well perform'd by motion-men,
And the worst drolls of Punchinellos
Were much the' ingeniouser fellows;
For when they 're perfect in their lesson,
Th' hypothesis grows out of season,
And, all their labour lost, they 're fain
To learn new, and begin again;
To talk eternally and loud,
And altogether in a crowd,
No matter what; for in the noise
No man minds what another says:
To' assume a confidence beyond
Mankind, for solid and profound,
And still the less and less they know,
The greater dose of that allow:
Decry all things; for to be wise
Is not to know, but to despise;
And deep judicious confidence
Has still the odds of wit and sense,
And can pretend a title to
Far greater things than they can do:
To' adorn their English with French scraps,
And give their very language claps;
To jernie rightly, and renounce
I' the' pure and most approv'd-of tones,
And, while they idly think to' enrich,
Adulterate their native speech:
For though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetoric
Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
To smatter French is meritorious;
And to forget their mother tongue,
Or purposely to speak it wrong,
A hopeful sign of parts and wit,
And that they' improve and benefit;
As those that have been taught amiss
In liberal arts and sciences,
Must all they 'ad learnt before in vain
Forget quite, and begin again.