They've beaux to conquer, bells to rival;
To make them serious were uncivil.

For, like the preacher, they each Sunday
Must do their whole week's work in one day.
As though they meant to take by blows
Th' opposing galleries of beaux,*
To church the female squadron move,
All arm'd with weapons used in love.
Like colour'd ensigns gay and fair,
High caps rise floating in the air;
Bright silk its varied radiance flings,
And streamers wave in kissing-strings;
Each bears th' artill'ry of her charms,
Like training bands at viewing arms.

So once, in fear of Indian beating,
Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting,
Each man equipp'd on Sunday morn,
With psalm-book, shot and powder-horn;
And look'd in form, as all must grant,
Like th' ancient, true church militant ;

* Young people of different sexes used then to sit in the opposite galleries.

Or fierce, like modern deep divines,
Who fight with quills, like porcupines.

Or let us turn the style and see

Our belles assembled o'er their tea;
Where folly sweetens ev'ry theme,
And scandal serves for sugar'd cream.
"And did you hear the news? (they cry)
The court wear caps full three feet high,
Built gay with wire, and at the end on't,
Red tassels streaming like a pendant.
Well sure, it must be vastly pretty ;
'Tis all the fashion in the city.
And were you at the ball last night?
Well, Chloe look'd like any fright;
Her day is over for a toast;

She'd now do best to act a ghost.
You saw our Fanny; envy must own
She figures, since she came from Boston.
Good company improves one's air—

I think the troops were station'd there.
Poor Coelia ventured to the place;
The small-pox quite has spoil'd her face,
A sad affair, we all confest :

But providence knows what is best.

Poor Dolly too, that writ the letter
Of love to Dick; but Dick knew better;
A secret that; you'll not disclose it;
There's not a person living knows it.
Sylvia shone out, no peacock finer;
I wonder what the fops see in her.
Perhaps 'tis true what Harry maintains,
She mends on intimate acquaintance."

Hail British lands! to whom belongs
Unbounded privilege of tongues,
Blest gift of freedom, prized as rare
By all, but dearest to the fair;
From grandmothers of loud renown,
Thro' long succession handed down,
Thence with affection kind and hearty,
Bequeath'd unlessen'd to poster'ty!
And all ye powers of slander, hail,
Who teach to censure and to rail!
By you, kind aids to prying eyes,
Minutest faults the fair one spies,
And specks in rival toasts can mind,
Which no one else could ever find;
By shrewdest hints and doubtful guesses,
Tears reputations all in pieces;

Points out what smiles to sin advance,
Finds assignations in a glance ;

And shews how rival toasts (you'll think)
Break all commandments with a wink.
So priests* drive poets to the lurch

By fulminations of the church,
Mark in our title-page our crimes,
Find heresies in double rhymes,
Charge tropes with damnable opinion,
And prove a metaphor, Arminian,
Peep for our doctrines, as at windows,
And pick out creeds of inuendoes.

And now the conversation sporting
From scandal turns to trying fortune.
Their future luck the fair foresee
In dreams, in cards, but most in tea.
Each finds of love some future trophy
In settlings left of tea, or coffee ;

* On the appearance of the first part of this poem, some of the clergy, who supposed themselves the objects of the satire, raised a clamor against the author, as the calumniator of the sacred order, and undertook, from certain passages in it, to prove that he was an infidel, or what they viewed as equally heretical, an Arminian.

There fate displays its book, she believes,
And lovers swim in form of tea-leaves;
Where oblong stalks she takes for beaux,
And squares of leaves for billet-doux ;
Gay balls in parboil'd fragments rise,
And specks for kisses greet her eyes.
So Roman augurs wont to pry
In victim's hearts for prophecy,
Sought from the future world advices,
By lights and lungs of sacrifices,

And read with eyes more sharp than wizards'
The book of fate in pigeon's gizzards;

Could tell what chief would be survivor,

From aspects of an ox's liver,

And cast what luck would fall in fights,

By trine and quartile of its lights.

Yet that we fairly may proceed, We own that ladies sometimes read, And grieve, that reading is confin'd To books that poison all the mind; Novels and plays, (where shines display'd A world that nature never made,) Which swell their hopes with airy fancies, And amorous follies of romances;