The Masqueraders

The Masqueraders
1789
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 money
    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 bribing
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 See
Their rigs prove to judge that their phiz is erroneous. 4 methods
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 walk away
So nobles and gents, lug your counterfeits out,
I’ll take brums or cut ones, and thank you to boot.
                  Tol de rol, etc.





Taken from Musa Pedestris, Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.

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Nearby

Overview
Forewords
. . .
The Vain Dreamer
When My Dimber Dell I Courted
The Oath Of The Canting Crew
Come All You Buffers Gay
The Potato Man
A Slang Pastoral
Ye Scamps, Ye Pads, Ye Divers
The Sandman’s Wedding
The Happy Pair
The Bunter’s Christening
The Masqueraders
The Flash Man of St. Giles
A Leary Mot
The Night Before Larry was Stretched
The Song of the Young Prig
The Milling Match
Ya-Hip, My Hearties!
Sonnets For The Fancy: After The Manner Of Petrarch
The True Bottom’d Boxer
Bobby And His Mary
Flashey Joe
. . .
Appendix