Or hail at once the patron and the pile Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle! [98] Where yon proud palace, Fashion's hallow'd fane, 640 Spreads wide her portals for the motley train, Behold the new Petronius [99] of the day, [xlviii] Our arbiter of pleasure and of play! There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir, The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre, The song from Italy, the step from France, The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance, The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine, For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and Lords combine: Each to his humour--Comus all allows; 650 Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse. Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade! Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, Nor think of Poverty, except "en masque," [100] When for the night some lately titled ass Appears the beggar which his grandsire was, The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta o'er, The audience take their turn upon the floor: Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, 660 Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap; The first in lengthened line majestic swim, The last display the free unfettered limb! Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair With art the charms which Nature could not spare; These after husbands wing their eager flight, Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night. Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease, Where, all forgotten but the power to please, Each maid may give a loose to genial thought, 670 Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught: There the blithe youngster, just returned from Spain, Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main; The jovial Caster's set, and seven's the Nick, Or--done!--a thousand on the coming trick! If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire, And all your hope or wish is to expire, Here's POWELL'S [101] pistol ready for your life, And, kinder still, two PAGETS for your wife: [xlix] Fit consummation of an earthly race 680 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, While none but menials o'er the bed of death, Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath; Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, To live like CLODIUS, [102] and like FALKLAND fall.[103]