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1721–1771

ANTISTROPHE.

Tobias George Smollett

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread, Where varnish'd Vice and Vanity, combined To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread, And forge vile shackles for the freeborn mind;

While Insolence his wrinkled front uprears, And all the flowers of spurious Fancy blow; And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears, Full often wreath'd around the miscreant's brow;

Where ever-dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain, Presents her cup of stale Profession's froth; And pale Disease, with all his bloated train, Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.

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