The Chronology of Fashion

When Eve and Adam first were wed, On dress they threw no thought away, No fashions, like our great folks, led, Nor silks nor satins bought away; Of petticoat, coat, hat, or wig, They never saw a particle, They wore a leaf, nor car'd a fig For any other article.

But fashion soon beat up recruits, New modes in haste came stalking in, For Nimrod wore a pair of boots, Though not like ours for walking in: When Charles the second bore the sway, They were a set of merry grigs, 'Twas then the ton to dash away, In square toed punips and periwigs.

Queen Bess no tippet wore, nor muff, So sond of plaits and quillery, With pasteboard-looking threefold ruff, 'Twas vastly like a pillory; The ladies too of ancient same, With waist so taper, long and small, Not like our modern tasly dames, For now they wear no waist at all.

Yet fashion guides the hand of art, Gives commerce circulation too, To poverty can wealth impart, And spue to emulation too: But may our high-born beauteous fair, In whate'er mode they dress them all, Columbia's produce ever wear, And then the poor shall bless them all.