Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

We will sing you a very perfect song, made by a perfect pate,
Of a fine Young English Lady fair, whose face is her estate,
Whose features are her fortunes all—Oh! how lucky 'twas that fate
Made this face to be well favoured, so that none could underrate
This fine Young English Lady fair, one of the present time.

What a fine Young English Lady is, perhaps you may not know,
Attend a little then whilst I attempt to tell and show,

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For a compound very strange it is, as you will all allow,
When I disclose the truth to you, and bid you make your bow
To this fine Young English Lady fair, one of the present time.

She's made of the vanities in vogue—veils, velvets, vinaigrettes,
Flounces, feathers, fans, flowers, furbelows, ribbons, reticules, rosettes,
Sarcenets, satins, poplins, palmyreens, gauzes, crapes, blonds, silks, and nets,
Lo! the table's strewn with billets doux, cards, knick-knacks, alumettes.
For this fine Young English Lady fair, &c.

Behold her when she first sweeps forth, crowned with all her conquering charms,
With perhaps a choice curl on her cheek, and a pet dog in her arms,

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With pretty sentences by scores, and with playful smiles by swarms;
If the nonsense which she talks disgusts, why the smile your wrath disarms,
Of this fine Young English Lady fair, &c.

She can ride like any Amazon, like Bohemian trampers walk—
She can draw in Seppia, crayons, ink, oils, water-colours, chalk,
In the talkee-talkee lingua versed—Oh! ye Gods! how she can talk;
Nay, all tongues from the Ethiop's lisping prate, to the grunt of the Mohawk!—
This fine Young English Lady fair, &c.

Sure our Forefathers did wisely act, ev'n those from whom we're sprung,
Since they had our stately Mothers taught but the ancient Mother tongue;

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But now the clappers of our Belles, they're so wonderously well strung,
Their tongues try every tongue on Earth—Oh! what deafening peals they've rung,
All these fine Young English Ladies fair, Belles of the present time!—

Such a chattering ne'er in Christendom, methinks, was heard before,
Magpies, monkeys, parrots, starlings, jays, long have given their glib trade o'er—
Long long have these been silenced all, for they could be heard no more,
May be, since they but one language know, while our damsels know a score.
These fine Young English Ladies fair, &c.

Italian, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Dutch, and Portuguese,
They speak with volubility, and fluency, and ease;

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How can they ever fail indeed, to captivate and please?—
Since their sweet nonsense, they can breathe in every one of these.
These fine Young English Ladies fair, &c.

To the Opera and French play so gay, our fair Young Lady goes,
And then to some late ball, where she may meet with those she knows;
With her one thousand friends, she there exchanges nods and bows,
While tires her sleepy chaperon quite, who sighs for some repose—
This fine Young English Lady fair, &c.

In her Opera box enshrined, but seldom turns she to the stage,
Though the Grisi and Persiani there, the warblers of the age,
Sing sweetly to that prisoned bird in her very narrow cage,
For a delicate flirtation 'tis doth daintily engage
The fine Young English Lady fair, &c.

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Her mornings are with Milliners and Mantua-Makers past,
And with interests so profound to fill, they doubtless speed on fast;—
Long undecided dwells she on some question deep of taste,
Of vast and dread importance, as the Life, hung on this cast
Of this Fine Young English Lady Fair, &c.

At Fancy Fairs she has her stall, where what cart-loads doth she sell,
Of trash and trumpery Frippery,—far, far more than I can tell,—
Behold! what weighty, deep affairs employ our modern Belle!
But her life's most arduous duty yet, must still be—to look well!—
This Fine Young English Lady Fair, &c.

At Fancy Balls—(for Charity as well as Fancy Fairs)—
The frippery and the trumpery trash herself she kindly wears—

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See the Shepherdess of the Upper Alps climbing th' Alps of crowded stairs!
Or the gentle Nun, there playing off all the gay coquettish airs
Of a Fine Young English Lady Fair, &c.

Then a Fine Young English Gentleman, who drives, hunts, fishes, skaites,
To our Fine Young English Lady Fair he with pleasing small-talk prates;
But he praises much her cousin's charms, and his approbation states
Of Miss Harriet's air, and mien, and face—and oh! how the avowal grates
On our Fine Young English Lady Fair, &c.

What a dolt and blockhead must he be who does not fully know
That his suit could never prosper thus—what a witless brainless Beau!

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Oh! there's nothing that they hate and loathe and abominate below,
Like other Fine Young Ladies fair with equal charms I trow,
These Fine Young English Ladies Fair, those of the present time!