The Masqueraders: Or, The World as It Wags [Notes]
[By GEORGE PARKER in Life’s Painter of Variegated Characters].
I
Ye flats, sharps, and rum ones, who make up this pother;
Who gape and stare, just like stuck pigs at each other,
As mirrors, wherein, at full length do appear,
Your follies reflected so apish and queer
Tol de rol, etc.
II
Attend while I sings, how, in ev’ry station,
Masquerading is practised throughout ev’ry nation:
Some mask for mere pleasure, but many we know,
To lick in the rhino, false faces will show. [1]
Tol de rol, etc.
III
Twig counsellors jabb’ring ’bout justice and law,
Cease greasing their fist and they’ll soon cease their jaw; [2]
And patriots, ’bout freedom will kick up a riot,
Till their ends are all gain’d, and their jaws then are quiet.
Tol de rol, etc.
IV
Twig methodist phizzes, with mask sanctimonious, [3]
Their rigs prove to judge that their phiz is erroneous. [4]
Twig lank-jaws, the miser, that skin-flint old elf,
From his long meagre phiz, who’d think he’d the pelf.
Tol de rol, etc.
V
Twig levées, they’re made up of time-sarving faces,
With fawning and flatt’ring for int’rest and places;
And ladies appear too at court and elsewhere,
In borrow’d complexions, false shapes, and false hair.
Tol de rol, etc.
VI
Twig clergyman—but as there needs no more proof
My chaunt I concludes, and shall now pad the hoof; [5]
So nobles and gents, lug your counterfeits out,
I’ll take brums or cut ones, and thank you to boot.
Tol de rol, etc.
[1money] [2bribing] [3See] [4methods] [5walk away]