TO LADY HEATHCOTE,
ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS.
“Tunnebridge est à la même distance de Londres, que Fontainebleau l'est de Paris. Ce qu'il y a de beau et de galant dans l'un et dans l'autre sexe s'y rassemble au tems des eaux. La compagnie,” &c. &c.
See Mémoires de Grammont, Second Part. chap. iii.
Tunbridge Wells.
When Grammont grac'd these happy springs,
And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles,
The merriest wight of all the kings
That ever rul'd these gay, gallant isles;
Like us, by day, they rode, they walk'd,
At eve, they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talk'd,
And lovely Stewart smil'd like you.
The only different trait is this,
That woman then, if man beset her,
Was rather given to saying “yes,”
Because,—as yet, she knew no better.
Each night they held a coterie,
Where, every fear to slumber charm'd,
Lovers were all they ought to be,
And husbands not the least alarm'd.
Then call'd they up their schoolday pranks,
Nor thought it much their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quips, and cranks,
And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth.
As—“Why are husbands like the mint?”
Because, forsooth, a husband's duty
Is but to set the name and print
That give a currency to beauty.
“Why is a rose in nettles hid
“Like a young widow, fresh and fair?”
Because 'tis sighing to be rid
Of weeds, that “have no business there!”
And thus they miss'd and thus they hit,
And now they struck and now they parried;
And some lay in of full grown wit,
While others of a pun miscarried.
'Twas one of those facetious nights
That Grammont gave this forfeit ring
For breaking grave conundrum-rites,
Or punning ill, or—some such thing:—
From whence it can be fairly trac'd,
Through many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it grac'd
The snowy hand that wears it now.
All this I'll prove, and then, to you
Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by Heathcote's eye of blue
To dedicate th' important chronicle.
Long may your ancient inmates give
Their mantles to your modern lodgers,
And Charles's loves in Heathcote live,
And Charles's bards revive in Rogers.
Let no pedantic fools be there;
For ever be those fops abolish'd,
With heads as wooden as thy ware,
And, heaven knows! not half so polish'd.
But still receive the young, the gay,
The few who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
And acting Grammont every night.
