Of two armies on the point of engaging.
Yon' armies are the cards which both must play;
At least come off a saver, if you may:
Throw boldly at the sum the gods have set;
These on your side will all their fortunes bet[1].
All perfectly agreeable to the present customs and best fashions of our metropolis.
But the principal branch of the alamode, is the Prurient; a style greatly advanced and honoured of late by the practice of persons of the first quality; and, by the encouragement of the ladies, not unsuccessfully introduced even into the drawing-room. Indeed its incredible progress and conquests may be compared to those of the great Sesostris, and are every where known by the same marks, the images of the genital parts of men or women. It consists wholly of metaphors drawn from two most fruitful sources or springs, the very bathos of the human body, that is to say * * * and * * * * * hiatus magnus lachrymabilis * * * * And selling of bargains, and double entendre, and Κιββέρισμος and Ὀλδφείλδισμος, all derived from the said sources.
4. The Finical Style,
which consists of the most curious, affected, mincing metaphors, and partakers of the alamode: as the following:
Of a brook dried by the sun.
| Won by the summer's importuning ray, | |
| Th' eloping stream did from her channel stray, | |
| And with enticing sun-beams stole away[2]. |
