WHAT various transformations we remark,
From east Whitechapel, to the west Hyde-park!
Men, women, children, houses, signs, and fashions,
State, stage, trade, taste, the humours, and the passions;
Th' Exchange, 'Change-alley, wheresoe'er you're ranging,
Court, city, country, all are changed or changing:
The streets, sometime ago, were paved with stones,
Which, aided by a hackney-coach, half broke your bones.
The purest lovers then indulged no bliss ;
They run great hazard, if they stole a kiss.
One chaste salute-the damsel cried-O fie!
As they approach'd-slap went the coach awry-
Poor Sylvia got a bump, and Damon a black eye.
But now weak nerves in hackney-coaches roam,
And the cramm'd glutton snores, unjolted, home:
Of former times, that polish'd thing, a beau,
Is metamorphosed now, from top to toe;
Then the full flaxen wig, spread o'er the shoulders,
Conceal'd the shallow head from the beholders!
But now the whole's reversed-each fop appears,
Cropp'd, and trimm'd up, exposing head and ears:
The buckle then its modest limits knew,
Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view,
Hath broke its bounds, and swallows up the shoe;