Nor does this passion suffer any material abatement by the progress of time. Many veterans visit, to the last, the haunts of polite dissipation; they lend their countenance to those dramas of vanity in which they can no longer act a part; and show their incurable attachment to the pleasures of this world, by their unwillingness to decline them. The infirmities which attend upon the close of life are certainly designed to produce other habits; and it should seem, that when every thing announces an approaching dissolution, the amusements of the drawing-room might give place to the employments of the closet. Persons, however, of this description are of another mind; and as every difficulty on the score of teeth, hoariness, and wrinkles, can be removed by the happy expedients of ivory, hair-caps, and cosmetics, there is certainly no _physical_ objection to their continuing among their Fashionable acquaintance, till they are wanted in another world. I cannot illustrate this part of my subject better than by presenting my readers with the following Ode on the Spring, supposed to have been written by a man of Fashion; it expresses, with so much exactness, the sentiments and taste of that extraordinary people, that it will stand in the place of a thousand observations upon their character. ODE ON THE SPRING. SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY A MAN OF FASHION. I. LO! where the party-giving dames, Fair Fashion’s train, appear; Disclose the long-expected games, And wake the modish year: The opera-warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the actor’s note, The dear-bought harmony of Spring; While, beaming pleasure as they fly, Bright flambeaus through the murky sky Their welcome fragrance fling. II. Where’er the rout’s full myriads close The staircase and the door, Where’er thick files of belles and beaus Perspire through ev’ry pore: Beside some faro-table’s brink, With me the Muse shall _stand_ and think, (Hemm’d sweetly in by squeeze of state,) How vast the comfort of the crowd, How condescending are the proud, How happy are the great! III. Still is the toiling hand of Care, The drays and hacks repose; But, hark, how through the vacant air The rattling clamour glows! The wanton Miss and rakish Blade, Eager to join the masquerade, Through streets and squares pursue their fun: Home in the dusk some bashful skim; Some, ling’ring late, their motley trim Exhibit to the sun. IV.