Master Gillray, Artist of Satires

Based upon James Gillray’s 18th century caricatures

You ladies of fashion now,

How stand you so haughty and proud?

Miss Farren, who cares not a whit

For her lover, or Grecian ideals,

Or philosophy or even art.

She lives only for his purse,

In sums handsome if his face is not.

Beware, sir, beware!

Madame S suckles her kittens,

As her babes wail in the corner

And her husband wonders if

A tom has made him a cuckold.

She hangs a tapestry of Messalina,

Empress of decadence and

The bane of her King, poor Claudius!

Mary Anne, lover of the Duke of York

A worse Pandora than the first,

Who was just an unknowing girl.

But Mary is a cruel Medusa,

With a den of snakes to poison

Parliament with her ill-bred deceit.

And old wizened Vestal, for shame – 

The eternal fire lies at your feet,

Extinguished by your poor protection.

Venus cannot aid you now

Or cleanse you of the turning of years.

No more lovers wait for you,

So return to your wretched duty!

And I say again:

You ladies of fashion now,

How stand you so haughty and proud?