"This is the case of many a beau / Who gives up all for glare and show. / Outside and front all fine and burnish'd, / But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd."
— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)
Work Title
Date
1785
Metaphor
"This is the case of many a beau / Who gives up all for glare and show. / Outside and front all fine and burnish'd, / But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd."
Metaphor in Context
"Ingenium ingens inculto latet hoc sub corpore."
Philosophers of old dispute ye
Whether mere virtue without beauty,
Unhewn, unpolish'd, better is
Than vitium cum illecebris.
The man who, twenty years undusted,
In books and single life has rusted,
Contemns the world, commends his college,
And talks of solid sense and knowledge.
For through a medium form'd by reading,
Unrectified by sense or breeding,
Who views the world, but must despise?
Who is there will not trust his eyes?
And though ill-form'd, who will suspect
In his own judgment a defect?
A man brought hither from the moon
(For rhyme's sake) in an air balloon,
Would stare to see our people throw
Away their victuals when they sow;
But this good soul who saw corn sowing,
Yet had no notion of its growing,
Were he to laugh at us, I trust,
His censure would be thought unjust.
Who hears a story but half told,
Who knows no learning but the old,
Their judgments equally must fail
In censuring the times or tale:
The world must his contempt despise
Who looks at them with borrow'd eyes.
Now let us hear what says the beau--
"Politeness is a passe pour tout.
"Latin and Greek, old fogrum stuff,
"Don't signify a pinch of snuff."
Suppose a house built, if you please,
With cornice, architrave, and frieze,
Entablature of colonnade,
And knicknacks of the building trade;
Grand and complete, it draws the eye
Of passengers a-riding by;
The very connoisseurs allow
No palace makes a nobler show;
Yet you would think the man but silly
Who having built this sumptuous villa,
Had not a tolerable room
To show his friends in when they come
This is the case of many a beau
Who gives up all for glare and show.
Outside and front all fine and burnish'd,
But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd.
Suppose another's mind so grovelling
That a most execrable hovel in
He, strangely whimsey-struck, should like
To fix the pictures of Vandyke;
I say, if such a den he chose,
Each passer-by would turn his nose.
But should he chance to enter in,
'Twere then, indeed, another thing.
He'd talk of attitudes and contours,
Show his own taste and flatter yours;
And though a little odd your plan,
Call you a reasonable man;
But thousands that remain without
Think you a madman past all doubt.
This is the only difference on't,
To those who know you or who don't;
To seem a fool, the difference this
'Twixt pedant and 'twixt coxcomb is;
The man of real worth and merit,
The praise of either will inherit.
Philosophers of old dispute ye
Whether mere virtue without beauty,
Unhewn, unpolish'd, better is
Than vitium cum illecebris.
The man who, twenty years undusted,
In books and single life has rusted,
Contemns the world, commends his college,
And talks of solid sense and knowledge.
For through a medium form'd by reading,
Unrectified by sense or breeding,
Who views the world, but must despise?
Who is there will not trust his eyes?
And though ill-form'd, who will suspect
In his own judgment a defect?
A man brought hither from the moon
(For rhyme's sake) in an air balloon,
Would stare to see our people throw
Away their victuals when they sow;
But this good soul who saw corn sowing,
Yet had no notion of its growing,
Were he to laugh at us, I trust,
His censure would be thought unjust.
Who hears a story but half told,
Who knows no learning but the old,
Their judgments equally must fail
In censuring the times or tale:
The world must his contempt despise
Who looks at them with borrow'd eyes.
Now let us hear what says the beau--
"Politeness is a passe pour tout.
"Latin and Greek, old fogrum stuff,
"Don't signify a pinch of snuff."
Suppose a house built, if you please,
With cornice, architrave, and frieze,
Entablature of colonnade,
And knicknacks of the building trade;
Grand and complete, it draws the eye
Of passengers a-riding by;
The very connoisseurs allow
No palace makes a nobler show;
Yet you would think the man but silly
Who having built this sumptuous villa,
Had not a tolerable room
To show his friends in when they come
This is the case of many a beau
Who gives up all for glare and show.
Outside and front all fine and burnish'd,
But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd.
Suppose another's mind so grovelling
That a most execrable hovel in
He, strangely whimsey-struck, should like
To fix the pictures of Vandyke;
I say, if such a den he chose,
Each passer-by would turn his nose.
But should he chance to enter in,
'Twere then, indeed, another thing.
He'd talk of attitudes and contours,
Show his own taste and flatter yours;
And though a little odd your plan,
Call you a reasonable man;
But thousands that remain without
Think you a madman past all doubt.
This is the only difference on't,
To those who know you or who don't;
To seem a fool, the difference this
'Twixt pedant and 'twixt coxcomb is;
The man of real worth and merit,
The praise of either will inherit.
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Frere, John Hookham, Aristophanes, Theognis, Bartle Frere, and William Edward Frere. The Works: In Verse and Prose. Vol. I. London: Pickering, 1872.
Theme
Inner and Outer
Date of Entry
06/03/2005
Date of Review
12/21/2011
