Mundus Foppensis opens by framing itself as a rebuttal: the preface addresses “Ladies” directly, accusing the author of Mundus Muliebris of “ill Manners” for “unlock[ing] your Dressing-Rooms without your Leave.” The poem then pivots to satirize men—specifically the “Fop”—by cataloguing his affectations in a style that mirrors the very inventory it claims to defend women against. The work’s structure, alternating between verse and a “Supplement to the Fop-Dictionary,” invites readers to treat the text as both a poetic argument and a glossary of contemporary slang.

A Rebuttal Disguised as a Dictionary

The preface establishes a defensive posture: the earlier pamphlet is dismissed as a “Rhapsody of Rhime Doggeril” that “looks much more like an Inventory than a Poem.” Yet Mundus Foppensis itself relies heavily on lists—of Frenchified terms, of beau behaviors, of canting slang. The “Short Supplement to the Fop-Dictionary” defines words like Chedreux (“A Perriwig”) and Arroy (“A Suit of Cloaths”), while the verse mocks men who prefer “le Grass” over “Trimming” and “Orangers” over “Gloves.” This mirroring suggests that the author’s critique of male vanity is as catalog-driven as the original attack on female luxury.

Geographies of Vice: Alsatia and the Mint

The poem maps London’s criminal and fashionable districts with precision. “Alsatia” (the Whitefriars sanctuary) is described as “A Place that loves no Dei Gratia,” where “Undoers” and “Undone” mingle. The Mint—a debtors’ haven—appears as the fop’s final refuge: “The Mint becomes his Sanctuary.” These settings anchor the satire in real urban spaces, implying that the fop’s linguistic and sartorial excess is inseparable from financial ruin. The verse’s rapid shift from canting slang (“Prig, Prigster, Bubble, Caravan”) to moralizing closure (“Bewailing Poverty, and Folly”) reinforces this link.

French Modes and Native Custom

A central accusation is that fops abandon English identity for French affectation. The poem claims “half a year / Makes ’em forget all Native Custome” and lists behaviors conducted “In French”: quarrels, fears, joys, and even “Mon coeur” cries to a “paltry Wench.” The glossary reinforces this by naturalizing French terms like Beau and Deshabille. Yet the satire undercuts itself: the speaker’s own vocabulary is laced with Gallicisms, and the defense of ladies’ dressing-rooms concedes that “such a Pride has nothing ill.” The boundary between critique and complicity remains deliberately blurred.

The Fop as Cynic and Satirist

The poem’s final lines turn on the satirist himself. The author of Mundus Muliebris is imagined as a ruined gamester who “Cynic turns, in Kings-Bench Tub, / And vents the Froth of Brewers Bub.” This portrait—aged, impotent, and hypocritical—suggests that moral condemnation of fashion is itself a product of envy and failure. The reader is left to question whether the fop-displayer is any better than the fop displayed. The supplement’s final entries, such as Adieu donce me Cheres, underscore the performative nature of the entire enterprise.

Readers approaching Mundus Foppensis for the first time should attend to its double voice: it defends women while satirizing men, yet borrows the same inventory style it condemns. The glossary is not an appendix but a key to the poem’s linguistic play. Noting how the verse shifts between direct address, canting lists, and moral fable will clarify the work’s layered argument about Restoration gender and consumption.