On Modern Fashion

Some few years ago, when stays, corsets, and bodice Displayed the fine shapes of our fair British belles, Each female possess'd the bright form of a goddess, With roses and lilies, and dimples and dells: Then grandams were guided by prudence and reason, And wives were all modest, yet lovely and gay; Old maidens resembled the wane of the season, And miss in her teens a sweet blossom in May. Now such is the rapid transitions of fashion, That folly can govern the world at her will; And each wither'd prude, like a child in a passion, Thinks age may be ground into youth by a mill: For since the fine waist hath mov'd up to the shoulder, Our tabbies and grandmothers look so uncouth, One would think they'd transplanted, asham'd to grow older, Antiquity's head to the shoulders of youth. But dress tho our ladies now cut such a dash in, Pray could they the impulse of laughter controul, To view an old sheep garnish'd up in lamb fashion, Or the plumes of a peacock adorning an owl? Reflect then, ye fair, on the words of the poet, Whose classical talents we proudly may boast, That, "Beauty needs no foreign patches to show it, For unadorn'd beauty adorn'd is the most."