University of Virginia Library

CANTO I. THE MORNING VISIT.

DEDICATION. TO LORD H---LL---D.

Reader, hear my mystery,—
No dabbler with the Muses I;—
No rambler o er their hackney'd hill,
With all my rent-roll in my quill:
No brain-besieging monthly bore,
No working member of the corps,
I lounge along an easy life,
Untroubled with a muse or wife;
To all the wits I lightly yield
The glories of the paper field;
Not one among the diners out—
I neither mimic, sing, nor spout.
Without a sigh I leave old F**re,
To tell his stories once a year.
See Bobus S**th eternal planning,
To charm us second-hand with C*****g.
No flutterer in the crowd of Blues,
I neither kiss their lips nor shoes.
In short, to set the thing at rest,
I live—wherever I live best:
I rise at two, am seen at four,
Once cab it round the ring, no more,
Merely to countenance the Park:
Just reach the Clarendon by dark.
Content three times a week to dine
Wherever I approve the wine;
Nor wish the giver in the Styx,
Although his vulgar hour were six;
Nor give him my especial hate,
Although he should not feed off plate;
Nor think the thing the more inhuman,
If chequered tastefully with women:
Not too much wife, and no relations—
Those people never know their stations.
Dear to my soul art thou, May Fair!
There Greatness breathes her native air;
There Fashion in her glory sits,
Sole spot still unprofaned by Cits.
There all the mushroom, trading tribe
In vain would bully or would bribe:
The Rothschilds, Couttses, Goldsmids, Barings,
In other spots must have their pairings;
We fix your bounds, ye rich and silly,
Along the road by Piccadilly;
Convenient spot for the approaches
Of Cousins who keep hackney-coaches;
And duly, (if the Sunday's fine,)
Come down to pudding and port wine;
Or drop, like pigeons from a cage,
Six insides from the shilling stage.
Hail! seat of her that earliest stole
Just half my heart and all my soul!
Thou realm of all my J---y's glories,
Sovereign alike of Whigs and Tories!
Hail now, for time the tenth, May Fair!
Though many a stable scents thy air—
Though many a butcher's glowing shambles
Startle the beauty's morning rambles—
Though to her horror many a Jew
Shows her past stockings “goot as new”—
Though, swung from many a dyer's pole,
Old blankets catch her eye's blue roll;
And petticoats, in league with breeches,
Increase the atmospheric riches;
A sort of upper story bower
To filter the eternal shower;
And dropping down their dingy dew,
Veneer her skin with black and blue.
Yet, land of ponch romaine and plate,
Of dinners fix'd at half-past eight;
Of morning lounge, of midnight rout,
Of debt and dun, of love and gout,
Of drowsy days, of brilliant nights,
Of dangerous eyes, of downright frights,
Of tables where old Sidney shines,
Of ladies famous for their wines;
Grim Countesses that make their way—
Resistless charmers!—by Tokay;
Of bold on dit and plain soupcon,
Known to all mankind but the one;
Of tedious M. P.'s, pursy peers,
Illustrious for their length of ears;
Of Dice and Doctors, Bowstreets, Bards,
Crowds, Concerts, Chat, Champaigne, and Cards;
Of all the S*m*rs, Br*d*lls,—Br*c*s,
The St*h*p*s, P*g*ts, G*w*rs, De*R*ses;
Of faction, flirting, and quadrille;—
With all thy faults, I love thee still!
And, while I have a love to spare,
Dear to my soul art thou, May Fair!
Take fifty of your modern bards—
(Your porter's sure to have their cards—
Alike to them the saint or sinner;
The true Amphitryon gives the dinner)—
I'll bet you fifty pounds a-piece
They plunge their pens at once in Greece;
No matter though the subject roam
Not half of fifty miles from home;
Some fact that lay before your eye:
Who last gave gallant B******the lie:
Who, to the mirth of all beholders,
Last laid the switch across his shoulders;
Who last rubb'd up thy fur, my H***,
In what Sir Francis calls “that room,”
And show'd the world its great debater
In every sense a calculator.
Not one of them could pen a line
With “sweet simplicity” like mine.
The point of points is to astonish;
Hyde Park and Hounslow turn Byronish;
If deuce a word you understand,
The Bard's the surer of the grand.
Out burst the Cerebellum's labours,—
A gush of pistols, poniards, sabres,
Mail, muskets, timbrels, Turkish tunes,
Drums, trumpets, full and half-full moons;
Mustachios, monks, pashas with three tails,—
You'll have them all, in all the details;
With notes on Helicons, Apollos,
And so forth;—all the rest that follows.
Then comes the Heroine, soul of feeling,
With passion, heavenly passion, reeling;
Her eye all flash, her cheek all glow,
Her soul on fire from top to toe;
Though lost, still loved, a glorious wreck,
Her thoughts as naked as her neck;
Faults, follies, frailties, crimes, combine,
They make her but the more divine.
She robs, stabs, poisons,—but her tear,
Delicious drop! makes all things clear.
And take your life, or take your purse,
My lady's not a hair the worse.
I pledge myself to keep the peace—
May Fair shall be my only Greece.
One twinkle of young P*g*t's eyes,
Worth all the stars in all her skies;
Ladies and Loves, your poet's pen
Shall charm you but with Christian men,
No goblins worse than Brooks' or White's.
I scorn to give you nightmare nights;
I starve you on no Alpine tract;
I plunge you down no cataract;
(Grim forests all the skylight dimming—
Below, for life, the lady swimming;)
No sudden lava round you flashes,
Leaving the world a beauty's ashes;
No Rhenish eddy sucks you under,
To rise some fishy Dutchman's wonder;
You fill no wolf's luxurious paunch;
You freeze beneath no avalanche;
You see no storms in terror stalk;
You hear no hills in high Dutch talk;
When, ‘by particular desire,’
Old Nick deserts his house of fire;
And, ‘that night only,’ plays his parts,
In his old Drury Lane, the Hartz;
While new-spread clouds on all the hills
Serve for the Roscius' posting-bills.
Then every necromantic burgess
Secures a seat for the Walpurgis;
With cloth of gold are lined the ditches,
Reserved for sixteen-quarter witches;
The lower on the sulphur roll,
With broad-cloth must their tails console.
Then every precipice's crupper
Sustains a regular-bred supper.
There's not the most ill-featured rock
But has its compliment of hock;
There's not an oak dares show a branch
Without a sirloin or a haunch;
The peach hangs out among the brambles—
In short, it shames our May Fair scrambles!
(How oft, amid the dear five hundred,
I've seen the struggling footman plundered—
Seen the orgeat by belles waylaid,
The war for life and limonade,
And not a sandwich left to tell
The fate that all its tribe befell.)
Then, while the moon above them halts,
Rings all the welkin with the waltz;
And every hill plays harp or horn
Till comes the hateful air of morn—
Its vulgar breath of pinks and roses
Offensive to their sulphur noses.
Each from her pocket plucks her salts
Each on her maneged broomstick vaults,
Settles her petticoats for flight,
And vows “a most delightful night!”
While, as he mounts his chaise of flame,
The master of the melodrame
Consigns it to the Earth below,
Aux soins de Goethe, G*w*r & Co.
At length comes out the virgin Spring,
Still under Winter's matron wing;
While storm and shower and sleet and dust,
Like Guardians, keep her still in trust.
Now all the Beau-monde wake together,
Like swallows at the change of weather;
The belles, blue, deep-blue, white and brown,
Make up their minds and cheeks for town:
The young, the old, the wed, the single,
Feel through their veins the annual tingle.
All Peers with hosts of second sons,
All Baronets sick of rustic duns;
All M.P's. with unsettled votes,
Determined to new-line their coats;
All dames who, tired of pigeon-cooing,
Long to know what the world is doing;
All widows weary of their sable—
All mothers of the marriageable,
That, keen as bees about their honey,
Hunt every bush for man and money;
Spite of the wind's and rain's embargo,
Each coming with her native cargo.
First shown to the discerning few,
Like pictures at a private view;
All vulgar bidders being ejected
Until the ‘gems’ have been selected:
But, if no high-born pencil mark it,
The sample then must play and park it;
And have its texture and its tints,
Like Urling's lace and Howell's chintz,
Displayed by the attendant matrons,
On Hymen's counter, the Spring patterns;
The blonde, the bronze—so much per set—
Each ticketed a coronet,
A jointure, pin-money; of course
A sum in case of a divorce—
(No age this of the flitch of bacon)—
Not five pounds under can be taken.
Sweet Spring! let bards of thorn and thistle
Tell the tired world how blackbirds whistle;
How rabbits at thy summons burrow—
How cackle hens, how ploughmen furrow;
How herd on herd of hunting squires
Play all the jackass, like their sires;
How maidens, at their suit made wives,
Repent it for their natural lives;
How, like a rogue fresh 'scaped from jail,
Limps Nature, ragged, squalid, pale,
Till her full feed of sun and air
Plumps up the thin, and clothes the bare.
Such topics fit the attic-lodgers—
I know no more of fields than R*g*rs.
Now Fashion's realm is all alive—
Ah, très heureux celui qu'y vive—
No more around the naked square
You send your desolated stare:
Lifeless, but where some half-pay sinner
Walks, when all Christians go to dinner;
No more along five miles of street
Rings the lone echo of your feet;
No more your half-reluctant knock
Sends round the square the sudden shock.
The startled porter in the hall,
Doubts whether 'tis a human call;
And from the window, on his guard,
Inspects you ere he takes your card.
The beadle stops to reconnoitre—
Thinks that he knows your easy loiter;
And marks you, as you tread the gravel,
An old offender come from travel.
The footman, from his area grate,
Swears that you have an eye to plate—
Deems your high air but more suspicious,
And hurries to lock-up his dishes.
Ecstatic change! the desert, den,
Is peopled; all May Fair again.
There, by the pendule half-past three,
Rolls out the well-known vis-a-vis.
None ever bore a lovelier freight
Than thee, my folly and my fate—
Thee, from whose eyes the slightest glance
Can make the very life-blood dance;
Whose smile can all the spirit seize,
Do all but set the heart at ease!
There mutual stanhopes—stanhopes meet;
There totter belles on Chinese feet;
There beauty half her glory veils
In cabs, those gondolas on wheels;
There shakes the pavement the barouche;
There rides my lord en Scaramouche;
There through the gay confusion dashes
The Lancer, man of spurs and sashes;
There footmen lounging by the score,
Stand, decorations of the door:
Your only dressers, costly beaux,
As well his Lordship's rental knows.
On sweeps your cab—you make your calls:
Sow cards, broad-cast, the seed of balls;
For, if through life you'd take your fling,
A pasteboard friendship's just the thing.
'Tis quick to make, 'tis cheap to keep,
Its loss will never break your sleep;
It gives your friend no right to borrow—
If ruined, you cut him dead to-morrow.
You hear the Duchess is done up—
You cast about where next to sup:
You hear the Viscount's dead, or worse—
Has run his mortgage length of purse;
My Lady from my Lord revolted,—
In short, the whole concern has bolted;
Yet you're no party in the quarrel,
In which you're sure to gain no laurel;
And though you grieve the house is dish'd,
Where twice a-week you soup'd and fish'd;
Yet, being neither aunt nor mother,
You drop your pasteboard with another.
Now to the Marchioness I drive:
I find her rising—just alive;
Exhausted by the last night's rout—
The spirits in her lamp burnt out;
Upon her visage I inspect
Three balls, two suppers “most select.”
The shaking of her hand of snow
Still seems to meditate the throw:
I read upon her dazzling forehead
The very last rouleau she borrow'd.
Ye weary washers of chemises;
Ye warm artificers of cheeses;
Ye ploughmen's ladies, who must wake,
Before the dawn, to brew and bake;
Ye milkmaids, who your charms display,
Piled overhead with curds and whey;
Ye who with cobwebs wage the war,
Kneel down and thank your lucky star!
For press, or wash, or milk, or sweep,
Still, spite of fortune, you can sleep.
No rabble roar, no strife of poles,
Disturbs your linsey-wolsey souls;
No Brussels drapery gone to wreck,
Gives to the world your knee or neck.
The midnight o'er your blanket flies;
The morn is up, you rub your eyes;
Then off to milk, sweep, wash, and press,
Without a wrinkle more or less.
Around the fainting beauty glows
The boudoir silk, couleur de rose;
For, ladies' faces freshly made
By instinct cultivate the shade.
All belles of ton, 'twixt you and I,
Of noonday suns are somewhat shy—
Perhaps in pity to mankind,
Lest too much radiance strike you blind;
Perhaps because two suns together
Might make it rather sultry weather;
Perhaps because their brighter face
Might show Apollo's in disgrace;
Perhaps because the last night's rouge
Has left its blessing in gambouge.
In pour the crowd, a lovely mob,
Gay plunderers, careless whom they rob;
There L*mb*t's eyes of liquid black
Make on the soul a fierce attack;
There the last fragment of your freedom
Is prize to thy twin sapphires, N---m;
There the last scruple of your heart
Yields to thy white arm, B*u D*s*r*t;
There roams the eloquent and crazy,
Who sets her cap at Est*rh*zy;
There she, whose conquering pair of blushes
Upset the Lord of all the Russias;
There she who, frigid below zero,
Yet leads in chains our modern Hero;
There she—La Grande de l'Embassade,
Soft as the pastures of Belgrade;
There she, who, two feet nigher heaven,
Gives heirs and happiness to L*v*n;
And she whose coy espiegle look
Wrought miracles—inspired the Duke;
When writing billet-doux with gas,
He “told his love” on window-glass.
Who the dear modesty can blame
That show'd his fondness by his flame,—
Kept all his blushes hid in night,
Yet gave his secret soul to light,
Till every mother thought her Emma
Had brought him to the true dilemma;
And, as the R*g*rs pours the strain,
All read their pleasure in his pane?
Let moralists say what they will,
They'll never make the world stand still.
If eyes are made the soul to pierce,
You'll have them at their carte and tierce:
If Nature whispers them, “Be killing,”
Manslaughter is but law-fulfilling.
Thus circled, by the deadliest belles,
I never try to break their spells.
By Cupid's shots eternal mangled,
Am thirty times a month entangled;
And though by mamma's under ban,
That blacksheep “not a marrying man,”
The first bright eye that says “Deliver!”
Has all the heart I have to give her.
Woe to the gay celibataire,
At whom are levelled Gr*v*lle's pair!
No more in single blessedness
He wines it at the Knightsbridge mess;
No more his tumbril stops the way
Where Fashion throngs to see Perlet;
He droops, neglects his tailor, dreams;
Talks pastoral, writes verse by reams;
Looks low in chintuft and moustache;
Thinks cards a bore, and hazard rash;
Cuts all his well-dressed friends, grows mulish—
In fact, plays to the life the foolish.
You'll see the hero on his rounds,
Although the dinner-bugle sounds;
Developing with double spine
The minnows of the Serpentine
And sullen, as if Earth forgot him,
Bespeaking lodgings at the bottom.
At length (for water spoils the figure)
He takes a fancy to the trigger,
Sits gravely down to make his will,
Feels, when 'tis done, he's living still;
Thinks marriage easier of digestion—
Dresses, drives out, and pops the question!
Round goes the chat,—the R*g*rs tells,
“No music like a ring of Belles;”
Deliciously the measure varies—
Who loves, who hates, who fights, who marries.
—“Heavens! how the Duchess lost at cards!
The money was of course her ward's.”
“How the dear Viscount will be miss'd!
But yesterday the hands were kiss'd;
Some horrid place, Fate knows how far off,
Is always sure to take our star off:
The man who dances à merveille
Is certain to be first to sail.”
—“Delightful opera, that La Gazza,
With Ayton playing the Ragazza,
Fine figure as she steals the spoons
To that most exquisite of tunes.”
—“But Toso—ah, superbe sensation!
That prima donna importation”—
“Too much at once—youth, voice, and beauty;
True Roman,—‘pupil of Velluti.’”
“What think you, Colonel, of her eye?”
“Oh, magnifique!—quite look and die.
I envy from my soul her sposo!
Ah ‘Idol del mio core,’ Toso!
“She'll be a first rate hit for Ebers.”
—“So, M---re has melodramed the Ghebers;
The scenery all of Amh---rst's sketching—
The various forms of fever-catching;
The British style of marsh-encamping;
The Indian style of army-swamping;—
In short, you have before you set,
Au vif, a whole Rangoon Gazette.”
“They say, the Bard, delicious treble,
You've heard, of course, his chansons rebelles,
Scorning to mix his pretty verses
(As odd as harlequins in hearses)
With that infinitude of prosing,
That sets our whole seven senses dozing,
In all the regicide reviews;
Has put new stockings on his muse!
Thinks that the sight of loaves and fishes
Would decorate a poet's dishes;
In sundry paragraphs and rhymes
Is feeling out his way by Times:
Nay, R*g*rs swears, has joined the Tories,
And sighs,—Oh tempora! Oh mores!
“So, W******** and his wife have parted,”
“Yes, both the lovers broken-hearted.”
“Fi donc, my Lord—affairs of state,”
“Ah, qu'oui, the labours of debate,
When love had given the reins to reason.”
“A mere arrangement for the season:
Her Father Jesuit, in a panic,
Thought the dear M*rq*s puritanic;
Felt certain controversial qualms,
Stirr'd by his style of singing psalms;
And, full of faith in salt and water,
Whisk'd over seas his failing daughter.”
“You've heard the crash;—last night's break-down?”
“Yes; that the Colonel's somewhat blown.”
“Blown up;—the minor Lord was bubbled.”
“Ten thousand?”—“Ay, twice that twice doubled.
“The Captain's done.—My Lord's attorney
Has hired one Scarlet and one Gurney.”
“The Dowager's?”—“The Sunday party,
A Waltz, a Concert, and Ecarté;
It takes—the whole live world are there:
I never get beyond the stair.”
“Traitre, you volunteer the station.”
“Why, 'tis convenient for flirtation:
There, like an angler on his weir,
One chooses from the ascending fair;
Or, like the sportsman, pulls the string
And nets the covey in its spring.
There, as the crowd sets strongly in,
Scarce thinking suicide a sin—
(The rooms your true Calcutta heat,
Thermometer at ninety-eight)—
When stript of silk, and ript of lace,
Crushes your ribs some battling Grace;
Or, hung upon your back, some nymph
Half melts into her native lymph;—
When, not to your expiring prayer
Your dearest friend would lend her chair.
Not wishing to depart this life,
I take some widow, maid, or wife,
And, perch'd among the staircase blooms,
Eschew the distant war of plumes;
Or, nestling in the boudoir window,
Watch coolly what the world within do.”
“And try on all the self-same glances?”
“Why, that's selon les circonstances.”
“If maid?”—“I look the sentimental!”
“First having ascertained her rental:”
“Show her the moonlight through the trees;
Let on her cheek the garden breeze;
Talk Petrarch, troubadours, guitars,
Crusaders, Shakspeare, streams, and stars.”
“If widow?”—“Satirize her set—
Her secret soul will pay the debt.”
“If wife.”—“Fill both her ears with scandal:
Her husband furnishing the handle!”
“The Duke not married!”—“Nor will ever;—
He thinks the ladies much too clever!”
“'Tis pity—handsome, showy, young,
And, 'pon my life, he has a tongue!
His Thursday evenings so select—
I'll live to see him yet henpeck'd.”
No Duke must drone it in our hive.”
“The girl's not born that he will wive.
Though hundreds, M---, L---, and H---,
Strive his philosophy to unlock;
Though all the speculating mothers,
Have put themselves in various pothers,
And, spite of his Spitzbergen looks,
Still set their hearts on little Dukes;
Cool as his favourite limonade,
He smiles on mother and on maid—
A frozen Anti-Benedict!”
“My word upon it, he'll be trick'd;—
Nay, if I thought it worth my while—”
“You'd make him any thing but smile.
Ay—torture, teaze, and tantalize;
I know the power of those bright eyes;
Round all his haughty spirit twine,
And make his chains—as charmed as mine!”
“Ah wretch! you know I hate this talk,
So very à la moonlight walk.”
“If thoughts as fond as ever vow'd,”—
“My Lord, pray recollect the crowd:
Truth is, those noble waifs and strays
Are open in a thousand ways:
Let but the one but smile her wishes,
All's over with the C---nd---sh's!”
“What! not one look—one last, kind word?”
“Oh, hang it! you grow quite absurd;
And that old monster's eye insidious,—
To-day particularly hideous!—
Seems hearing every word you say;
Begone! the duchess gives a play;—
La Porte, St. Ange, and all the rest:—
Those things are growing quite a pest!”
“There may I venture to encroach?”
“You'll do to hand us from our coach:”
“Till then, farewell! (there goes my Juliet)
Farewell! (I'll make you play the fool yet.)”
“The Colonel taken to the Quakers?”
“Yes,—housed in his paternal acres;
The club turned off—the hounds, the stud,
Et cetera—all the bits of blood!
The Plough unhorsed, the Star put out,
All Cheltenham to the right about!
No more delighting in fox-slaughter,
His Vin de Comète changed for water;
His field artillery, stock and rammer,
Knock'd up by Christie's knock-down hammer!
His table captains all dismist—
Grand clearance of his civil-list;
No word escapes his lips converted,
Without an oh! or ah! inserted;
Of G*rn*y, the enraptured scholar,
He strips his coat of cuff and collar;
Shaves off his grooms the worldly locks,
Unpleasing to his Saint, George Fox;
Clothes all their sinful souls in drab—
The household of Aminidab;
Cuts up his mutton with a sigh,
And lives by leave of Sister Fry.”
“A message!—Ay the old shake-hands,
The game of questions and commands;
A drive to take a morning whet,
Then déjeûner à la fourchette.”
“No, faith! a genuine thing—they fought:
I rode just now to see the spot.
The whole in form—Sir Bob, a surgeon;
Sir R*n*ld, and a—‘Major Sturgeon!’
Six rounds! six paces—action hot!”
“I'll eat whichever one was shot.”
“The battle early; quite a by-way;”
“Yes: noon, upon the Hounslow highway.”
“'Tis true—the thing was rather known.”
“Right! public men are not their own:
And, whether give or take their wounds,
Should war alone on public grounds.”
“Spring-Soup had caught”—Or, got a hint—
That patriot who but lives in print;—
That meteor of the Irish Whigs,—
That gentleman, who deals in figs;
Who, now that N*w*p*rt gets the quinsy,
With “Emerald Isle,” and so forth, dins ye;
Gives you at second-hand the tropes
Of her incarcerated hopes,
And looks the look, and groans the groan,
Of her much-injured, long-hang'd Tone!
“Spring-Soup, the best man at a rub,—”
“Established runner of the club,—”
“Flew off full speed to bring the bows;—”
“The rest the world of laughers knows.”
Long may he live, and they to tell it,
Unsliced by crab-stick, steel, or pellet!
Long may their heirs desire their shoes!
Long may they scribble their reviews!
Long may their brains and boxes rattle!
Long may they wage the bloodless battle!
Sooner may Hymen raise a furrow
Beneath thy ringlets, Ell*n—;
Or ------ scorn to bow the knee
To thee, illustrious lord in fee;
Or flesh disguise the charger's bones,
That stalks thee o'er the London stones.—
Sooner the little M*rch---n*ess
Be more adored, be talk'd of less;
Or watch her truant Lord's démarches,
Unaided by the Dean of Arches—
Or C---lock her Opera-box,
On hearing my Lord Marshal's knocks;
While, conscious that his reign is done,
Sulks through the evening P*lm*rst*n.—
Sooner old T*mpl* look the Duke,
Or bookworm Spencer read a book;
Clerk St*n*h*pe learn his shirt to button;
B*df*rd talk any thing but mutton.
Sooner may shave Northumbria's Grace,
Than living man twit R---'s face;
Sooner write poetry, St*w*t R*se,
Than living man pull Sweepum's nose.
“A marriage?”—Yes, the fact's undoubted.
What, if my Lady Duchess pouted?—
So lovely, young, an angel voice!
By Jove, I envy him his choice!
What care I for a high-born fright?
No right like Beauty's sovereign right!
His whole long line not fit to wait on
The half of half your charms, my P*t*n.
Give me the lovely heraldries
Of ruby lips and sunny eyes;
No nobler shield than Nature's charms—
No arms, than two such snowy arms.
What care I where the blushing rose,
That wraps my sense in sweetness, grows?
What care I where the dark eye's blaze
That lights my soul, first shot its rays?
What care I in what sullen mine
My diamond first began to shine?—
Once master of her noble heart,
Against the world I'd take her part;
And in a cot, or on a throne,
I'd own her—and be proud to own.