| |
| MOST 1 Modern Wits such monstrous Fools have shown, | |
| They seem not of heav’ns making, but their own. | |
| Those Nauseous Harlequins in Farce may pass; | |
| But there goes more to a substantial Ass! | |
| Something of man must be expos’d to View, | 5 |
| That, Gallants, they may more resemble you. | |
| Sir Fopling is a Fool so nicely writ, | |
| The Ladies wou’d mistake him for a Wit; | |
| And, when he sings, talks lowd, and cocks, wou’d cry, | |
| I vow methinks he’s pretty Company! | 10 |
| So brisk, so gay, so travail’d, so refin’d! | |
| As he took pains to graff upon his kind. | |
| True Fops help Natures work, and go to school, | |
| To file and finish god-A’mighty’s fool. | |
| Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call; | 15 |
| He’s Knight o’ th’ Shire, and represents ye all. | |
| From each he meets he culls whate’re he can, | |
| Legion’s his name, a people in a Man. | |
| His bulky folly gathers as it goes, | |
| And, rolling o’re you, like a Snow-ball growes. | 20 |
| His various Modes from various Fathers follow; | |
| One taught the Toss, and one the new French Wallow; | |
| His Sword-knot this, his Crevat this design’d; | |
| And this the yard long Snake he twirls behind. | |
| From one the sacred Perriwig he gain’d, | 25 |
| Which Wind ne’er blew, nor touch of Hat prophan’d. | |
| Another’s diving Bow he did adore, | |
| Which with a shog casts all the hair before, | |
| Till he with full Decorum brings it back, | |
| And rises with a Water Spaniel shake. | 30 |
| As for his Songs (the Ladies dear Delight) | |
| Those sure he took from most of you who Write. | |
| Yet every man is safe from what he fear’d; | |
| For no one fool is hunted from the herd. | |
