Ah! wild wit, now at last Thy vagrancies are o'er; The ear and gazing eye That you enthrall'd before.
No longer hear or see; Whilst those you now would woo, The time-worn truant slight, Nor dream of love with you.
Dublin is a great city. Dublin, as the late Lord L----th used to say, is "one of the tay-drinkenest, say-bathinest, car-drivinest places in the world; it flogs for _divarsion._"
There is a point at which the inconvenience of superfluities so far exceeds their utility, that luxury becomes converted into a perfect bore. What, for instance, but an annoyance, would be the most splendid feast, to a man whose stomach is already overladen with food? Human ingenuity may effect much; and the Romans, by means of emetics, met this emergency with considerable skill; but on a more enlarged experience of general history, it must be conceded, that it is quite impossible to add one more superfluous meal to those already established by general usage. So also in matters of dress, ladies' hats must not be larger than the actual doorways of the country will admit--not at least until time is allowed for a corresponding increase in our architectural proportions. With respect to personal ornaments also, ear-rings must not be so weighty as to tear the lobes of the ears; nor should a bracelet prevent, by its size, the motions of the arm. "Barbaric pomp and gold" is a fine thing; but a medallion, as heavy and as cumbrous as a shield, appended to a lady's bosom, would be any thing but a luxury. So, in the other extreme, a watch should not be so small as to render the dial-plate illegible; nor should a shoe be so tight as to lame its wearer for life. Beauty, it has been said, should learn to suffer; and there are, I am aware, resources in vanity, that will reconcile man, and woman too, to martyrdom; but these resources should not be exhausted wantonly; and in pleasure, as in economy, there is no benefit in lighting the candle at both ends. The true philosopher extracts the greatest good out of every thing; and fools only, as Horace has it, run into one vice in trying to avoid another. Let not the reader, from these remarks, suppose that their author is a morose censurer of the times; or that the least sneer is intended against that idol of all orthodoxy "things as they are." As a general proposition, nothing can be more true, than that whatever is established, even in the world of fashion, is, for the time being, wisest, discreetest, best; and, woe betide the man that flies too directly in its face.