Trouble is brewing close at hand.

Like nature itself -- highest quality

Fox and dog

publish worthless writings

Mettlesome

See through the vanity of life

Rich merchants

groups of heavily powdered singsong girls

Lose one's soul

Kindly in appearance but unfathomable at heart

Red and purple

babes and sucklings

Remain impenitent

Of good comprehension

Bribery is practised in public.

old and young

Return to the throne

prate about(talk big)

the drunken singing and the usual dancing

florid outside appearance, unkempt interior (idiom)