On his son's head, he aimed with so much care,
He'd hit an apple, and not touch one hair:
So I, with such-like skill, but much less pain,
Will strike your hats off, and not touch your brain:
To curse our head-dress! an't you pretty fellows!
Pray who can see through your broad-brimmed umbrellas?
That pent-house worn by slim Sir Dainty Dandle
Seems to extinguish a poor farthing candle-
We look his body through-But what fair she
Through the broad cloud that's round his head can see?
Time was, when Britons to the boxes came

Quite spruce, and chapeau bas! addressed each dame.
Now in flapt hats and dirty boots they come,
Look knowing thus-to every female dumb;

But roar out-Hey, Jack! So, Will! You there, Tom?
Both sides have errors, that there's no concealing;

We'd lower our heads, had but men's hearts some feeling.
Valence, my spark, played off his modish airs,
But nature gave us wit to cope with theirs;

Our sex have some small faults won't bear defending,
And though near perfect, want a little mending;
Let Love step forth, and claim from both allegiance,
And bring back caps and hats to due obedience.

PREFACE TO THE

MISCELLANIES AND POEMS

OF

HENRY FIELDING, Esq.

PREFACE

THE volumes I now present the public consist, as their title indicates, of various matter; treating of subjects which bear not the least relation to each other, and perhaps, what Martial says of his epigrams, may be applicable to these several productions:

"Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala PLURA."

At least, if the bona be denied me, I shall, I apprehend, be allowed the other two.

The poetical pieces which compose the first part of the first volume were most of them written when I was very young, and are indeed productions of the heart rather than of the head. If the good-natured reader thinks them tolerable, it will answer my warmest hopes. This branch of writing is what I very little pretend to, and will appear to have been very little my pursuit, since I think (one or two poems excepted) I have here presented my reader with all I could remember, or procure copies of.

My modernisation of part of the sixth satire of Juvenal will, I hope, give no offence to that half of our species for whom I have the greatest respect and tenderness. It was originally sketched out before I was twenty, and was all the revenge taken by an injured lover. For my part, I am much more inclined to panegyric on that amiable sex, which I have always thought treated with a very unjust severity by ours, who censure them for faults (if they are truly such) into which we allure and betray them, and of which we ourselves, with an unblamed licence, enjoy the most delicious fruits.

As to the Essay on Conversation, however it may be executed, my design in it will be at least allowed good;