BRITONS! for shame, give all these Follies o’er,
The ancient British Nobleness restore:
Learn to be Manly, learn to be sincere,
And let the World a BRITON’s Name revere.
Let not my Countrymen become the Sport
And Ridicule of ev’ry foreign Court;
But let them well of Men and Things discern,
Their Virtues follow, not their Vices learn.But ah, alas!
Lost is the Noble Race of British Youth,
Whose Ornaments were, Wisdom, Learning, Truth;
Who, e’er they travell’d, laid a good Foundation
Of Liberal Arts, and manly Education;
Nor went, as some go now, a Scandal to their Nation. [p. 4]
Who travel only to corrupt the Mind;
Import what’s Bad, and leave the Good behind.To Learning and to Manly Arts estrang’d,
(As if with Women Sexes they’d exchang’d)
They look like Female, dress’d in Boys Attire,
Or Waxwork Babies, actuated by Wire:
And if a Brace of powder’d Coxcombs meet,
They kiss and slabber in the open Street;
Curse on this damn’d, Italian, Pathic Mode,
To Sodom and to Hell the ready Road:
May they, when next they kiss, together grow,
And never after Seperation know.Our Petits Maitres now are so polite,
They think ’tis barbarous to Read or Write:
Learning with them is a most heinous Sin,
Their only study is to Dress, to Grin, [p. 5]
To Visit, to drink Tea, gallant a Fan,
And ev’ry Foolery below a Man. [p. 6]
SOURCE: Faustina: or The Roman Songstress, A Satyr, on the Luxury and Effeminacy of the Age, London: Printed for J. Roberts, at the Oxford Farms, in Warwick Lane, n.d. [1726]. [Attributed to Henry Carey]
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following citation:
Rictor Norton (Ed.), "Faustina, 1726",
Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 7 March 2003
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