University of Virginia Library

MAY FAIR.

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.

CANTO II. THE DINNER.

DEDICATED TO LADY J---Y.

Preserve me! from the shapes that stalk
In memory round a village walk;
The Doctor, with his last year's news,
Tithes, turnpikes, politics, and pews;
Death's deputy, the Æsculapius,
Telling who last has got his capias,
The solemn Chairman of the Sessions,
Doling out knaves' and fools' confessions;
And, bitterest pill of all the three,
That bore of bores, the ex-M.P.
A Cato in his climacteric,
Making my very soul hysteric;
Your genuine Reminiscent, full
Of all that dullest makes the dull;
The stuff that time in pity stifles,—
The trifles—nay, the shade of trifles;
The stalest of the stalest stories,
Of long forgotten Whigs and Tories;
Embalming in his sexton-prose
The colour of their wigs and clothes;
The tedious twaddle of a brain,
Flat as his own homebrew'd champagne.
Oh! woman!—but “of this too much,”
May I be doom'd to hear High Dutch—
Or sit beside a Portuguese,
When summer sets her at her ease;
Or dine in presence of a wit,
In tortures till he makes a hit;
Or meet the T*mpl*s, sons or brothers—
Or see my flirt look soft on others—
Or listen to a H*me oration—
Or travel Sec de la legation.
Le Diplomat, ecstatic fate
Of the fifth cousins of the great:
Blest with a pound a-day for life,
To lacquey Monsieur L'Envoy's wife—
Teach French and figures to the daughters,
See that they swallow their Spa-waters;
Prepared to answer every question
Touching your “sweet eleve's” digestion;
Take passport-pictures of the mob,
Who ramble to be robb'd, or rob;
The length of chin, the tint of nose,
The holes in breeches, and in hose.
Scribble the rout and dinner packs,
Lock up the royal pounce and wax;
Echo his Excellency's jest,
Mend your own stockings like the rest;
Dine how and where il plait aux cieux,
Battle his mongrel household crew;
Cook up his cotelette at a spirt,
Air mi Lor's newspaper and shirt,
Feel laugh'd at by the luckier fribbles,
Till life between your fingers dribbles;
Condemn'd, till its last sands are roll'd,
To fold and frank, and frank and fold;
And envying every wretch in fetters,
Die as you've lived—a man of letters.
May I be doom'd to all: or worse,
Meet Gr*sv*nor without length of purse;
Without a peerage cross thy way,
Patrician of patricians—Gr*y.
Or take on winter days thy hand,
Grim king of kelp, coals, salt, and sand.
Or hear stern G*nv*lle from his chair,
Lash the low time-servers that were;
The slaves, that when their master's bank
Was cashless, with him feebly sank.
Unlike the generous friend of Pitt,
Who scorn'd his ancient Bench to quit,
Through patriot, pure distrust of Fox;
Still grasp'd the nation's money-box,
Stared vulgar scoffers in the face,
And kept his principles—and place.
May I be shot! nay sent to singe a
Conscience and cuticle in India;
Dispute Sir James's dinner dictum,
To die of Scotch and snuff the victim;
Turn from Mt. Ch*rl*s's rosiest oscolo;
Sit out a mortal hour of F*sc*lo,
(With all the prosing post and ante
That prosers ever prosed of Dante)
Nay, be thy rival, Signor Torri—
Ere make a woman sad or sorry!
What! she, whom all my summer days
I've worshipp'd with all sorts of lays;
She, on whose smiles my boyhood hung!
Whose glance alone now tunes my tongue;
Sting her! I could not if I dared,
The thought would all unbard the Bard.
The poison on her soul distil!
My hand at once would lose its skill;
My Cupid moult his purple wing,
My lute instinctive break the string;
And giving to the winds its moan,
Lament its noblest spirit gone.
No!—Let the tribe who daily dabble
In all the stuff call'd—fashionable.
Knowing as much about the matter
As their own shoemaker and hatter;
To raise the laugh of tradesmen's wives,
Discuss, Heaven help us! noble lives—
No! trust my page, a woman's tear
Shall never drop in anguish here:
Rather for life I'd burn my pen,
Than be the man, the shame of men;
The assassin scribbler of a line,
That made the cheek of beauty pine.
'Tis dinner! silence all, and state,
Long footmen, peeresses, and plate,
A sprinkling of the Guards—some lovers,—
My memory fails me in the covers—
I leave them to those—gentlemen,—
Who wield the “fashionable” pen;
Historiographers of pies,
Who lay the carte before your eyes.
Adepts in all the tribes of jelly,
The very toughest names they'll spell ye,
Through all the páté-climax soar,
From poisson up to perigord;
Or stretching still a higher strain,
Touch the rognons a la champagne.
Then, as their loftier genius shines,
Amaze your feelings with the wines!
The St. Peray, La fitte—Lunelle,
You'd think the bouquet meets your smell!
La Rose, Leoville, Latour, Preignac,
You'd swear you had them at your back!
The Sillery, cool, delicious, still,
You feel your whole machinery thrill!
The pink champagne, rich, creamy, sparkling,
You see the room around you darkling!
The king of cups, the grande Bourgogne,
You feel your whole seven senses gone!
Though says the R*g*rs, at his age
He'd like a little Hermitage.
But others, the superior works,
Give you exact the spoons and forks,
So that if spoon or fork be miss'd,
The butler buys them for a list.
Nay others, abler than them both,
Square-inch the table and the cloth;
(Of Algebra the fine appliance,
The modern, mighty march of science!)
Tell you how many off them dined;
How many valets stood behind,
How many buttons on their coats,
How many sauce-and-butter boats;
How many fair ones fill'd their glasses,
Who bumpers it! who sips, who passes!—
Long live!—ye wonder working works,
Where something for all palates lurks,—
For sixpence, where the hungry sinner,
Miss what he may, will find a dinner.
And all, from footmen up to cooks,
Own you the very books of books!
The Chaplain sends his whisper round:
Then follows much more sense than sound;
For who, above an Esquimaux,
Would speak till the Entree's withdraw?
What mortal that pretends to taste,
Would see such moments run to waste?
Till, with the lighter entremets
The business lessens by degrees.
Then whispers wake!—a dropping fire,
That seems to near you, then expire;
A kind of conversation-ague,
That comes at intervals to plague you;
Instalments of a debt of tongue,
You wish the caller for it hung:
A tardy, intermittent talk,
Like watchmen on their midnight walk,
Just venturing from their wooden den,
To growl, and be ensconced again.
Then, as the wine its circuit goes,
We start upon the native prose;
The atmospheric Conversation
Dear to our weather-beaten nation.
“Fine morning,—stormy—sunshine—cloudy—
So cold, scarce gave her grace a how-d'ye;—
The park hot—damp—dry—rainy—fine—
Calm—windy—honor to take wine;
Sharp breeze; Lord Duke—Tokay?”—“With pleasure.”
Till of his neighbour each takes measure;
No doubt we thus escape High Treason,—
In England all things have a reason.
Before he opens—thus the hound
Maps with his cautious nose the ground.
Thus, your established man of jest,
Dreading to lose his very best,
His way by inuendo tries
Before he makes the grand surprize.
Thus, thieves their optics round them dart,
Ere from their holes they make the start.
Thus, N*rm*nby his novel writes,
To set “the matter” in all lights;
Deeming, in rebus yet intactis,
His theory should precede his practice.
Thus soldiers ere they bivouac,
Probe all the corners of attack.
Thus B******** play'd the ultra-tory,
Before he plunged in papist glory.
Thus felons scorn to rest their toes
Upon the rungs by which they rose;
Heroic from the ladder spring,
And take their independent swing.
Thus the spruce scribes of high-life novels
First study fashion in their hovels;
Then licensed of the servant's hall,
Biographize us one and all.
Thus H---, a Greek among the Greeks,
First for his jobbing thousands seeks;
Then to the Greek appends the Jew,
And squeezes out, pounds fifty-two.
Thus D*****, much renown'd for brain,
Talks stuff,—then rises to explain.
Thus B*****, lord of vat and vapour,
Experiments his speech on paper;
Till on the all-important night,
He scrubs the Ethiopian white!
The R*g*rs says, that no man hops,
More pleasantly from psalms to slops;
No Saint that treads this wicked sphere
Thinks more devoutly of his beer.
Thus G****** shows the Irish gag,
Ere G*ulb*rn o'er the coals he drag.
Thus, like a Methodist in pain,
W*rd plays the pious in Tremaine;
Finds out the swallow of the Town,
Then crams the politician down.
Thus patriots are to Newgate sent,
Academy for P*rl---;
The R*g*rs says, “for party war
There's no such training as the bar’
Thus lovers try the Lady's temper,
Before they make her eadem semper.
Thus, when you ballast a balloon,
With its two madmen for the moon,
The pilot-bladder mounts in token,
Which way their necks may best be broken.
Thus, ere he wields the nation's fates,
Lord John shows off on turnpike gates.
Thus one fair S---h, uxorious W---,
Prepares your ring for all the cluster.
Thus Ti*rn*y cautious in his wrath
First tosses Br---m in C*nn*g's path.
Thus Irish rebels flog their cattle,
True patriots, foremost into battle;
And by the sacrifice of pigs,
Save for the world the breed of Whigs.
Thus all your new Administrations
Launch out inaugural orations;
“Grand era—Empire—noble scope—
Wealth—Habeas Corpus—saving hope!”
They never on essentials touch,
Until they have you in their clutch;
Then comes the Budget cent. per cent.,
Perhaps 'twill tell you what they meant.
The ladies gone, those dear removes,
Compote of sugar plums and doves!
The marquis on the throne vacated;
Our anguish partially abated:
For though, I own, the sex's presence
Is of life's essences the essence;
And though the last that leaves the room,
Dips every chandelier in gloom;
Yet, with our souls all cloth'd in sable,
We're bound to rally round the table;
In the most desperate condition,
Renew our claret ammunition;
Mourning our decimated ranks,
Feel up like soldiers, from the flanks;
And try the battle to sustain,
By new discharges of Champagne.
Now comes the hour of English talk,
When no man will his subject balk.
“Return'd from Greece?”—The Capitani
Laughed at them, zany after zany;
In vain our patriots raved and rambled,
In dunghills sank—through thistles scrambled!
Ate cats,—in classic sludge bivouack'd,
Drank ditches,—baretailed rode bareback'd.
At sight or shadow of a Turk,
Felt as if swallowing his dirk!
Were flea-bit, dexter and sinister,
Till the whole patriot was a blister;
Were stript, and whipt, and sconced, and starved;
Too happy to escape uncarved!”
“Still, spite of all their English-Greek,
The Capitani “chewed their leek!”
In vain our very best haranguers,
Still by their hams reposed their hangers:
The blunderbuss still graced the hooks,
Malgrè the Constitution cooks.
Though Bentham sent the sense of ages
Boil'd down into his half-score pages;
The weightiest matter ever shipp'd
Since law first lodged in manuscript;
Though the fierce Colonel on them flung
Conviction in his mother-tongue.”
“When from him roll'd the rights of nations,
Tropes, metaphors, hopes, adjurations;
The true-born Demosthenic thunders,
That do in Palace Yard such wonders!
And with resistless vengeance fall
Upon thy grocer Kings, Leaden Hall:
Still heads and tails alike of clans
Stuck closely to their coffee-cans.
At Monarchs when he gave his wipes,
The Capitani filled their pipes;
And, made of philosophic stuff,
Returned him gravely puff for puff!
Then asked the Embassador of Bentham
What sum in cash his Sovereign sent them?
For, though not very rapid scholars,
They have a genuine sense of dollars;
Then up the whisker'd council broke,
Ending, as it began, in smoke!”
—“A palace?”—“Yes, magnificent!
“Where every sewer bestows its scent!”
“Solid?”—“Foundation in a bog!”
“Wholesome?” “An atmosphere of fog.”
“Landscape?”—“A marshy, miry flat.”
“Canal?”—“A grave of dog and cat.”
“Pure air?” “Where every passing puff
Is Westminster.”—“Enough, enough.”
—“The race—odd business; Daphne shy!
My Lord some thousand pounds too sly;
The partners pocketed the notes—
I'll swear three scoundrels wore their coats.
The Club examined—did their best,
And found it—honest as the rest.”
Yet, spite of all their Worships' ears,
Newmarket, thou'rt the place for Peers.
No Epsom, throng'd with city feeders—
No Doncaster, all brutes and breeders.
There Taste on all things sets her seal;
With elegance the hostlers steal;
The man that pillages your fob
But hoaxes—none would call it, rob;
The Jockey, in his speech and look,
Seems the first cousin to the Duke;
The rogue who tricks you to your face
Looks more than brother to his Grace;
And many a claimant of a cord
Passes for Baronet and Lord.
There, 'tis the etiquette, the winners
Ask the bedevilled to their dinners.
Oh! nights and banquets of the Gods!
What odd discussions of the odds;
What light opinions upon weights—
What cool conceptions upon heats;
What solid talk on drench and mash,
Deep things on which the wisest clash;
What lofty thoughts on hoof and heel,
Round with the brains and bottles wheel!
Claret, true Lethe of all sorrows!
Marchande of sunshines and to-morrows;
Gay doctor of all human evils—
Soft exorciser of blue devils;
Light porter of Life's heaviest loads;
Nurse of a hundred thousand odes;
Fiddle, that makes even dandies dance—
First, best embassador of France;
With more than diplomatic art,
Fixing her interests in the heart;
Lamp, that at midnight brightest glows—
Cosmetic, that tints all with rose;
Mistress, that never jilts our flame—
Beauty, for fifty years the same,
Cheerful without, as with a carriage—
Nay, even bewitching after marriage;
Brush, that Life's spatters out do'st rub—
Long live Queen Regent of the Club.
There Wh*cl*ffe counts no more his bets,
J--- his mortgages forgets;
Sl*g* with “both his hands in mortar,”
Scarce feels himself a shilling shorter;
The C*h*e*l,—S*ft*n,—V*r*l---,
No more take measure of a psalm;
R---d no more, with hair on end,
Hears all the world refuse to lend;
Nay, even the Lord of Donna Clara
Takes comfort with “Che sarà sarà,”
And wishes only hang'd the pack,
From whom no penny will come back.
How oft we've sat 'twixt sun and sun,
Nor felt the hour, my Cl*r*nd*n.
True Tories, telling every hit
That men of Fox e'er got from Pitt;
But keeping under triple locks,
What men of Pitt got back from Fox.
The B*nt*ncks, F*tzr*ys, C*v*nd*shes,
All look like—men that had their wishes;
And all is blood, bone, jest, and song,
Till morning whips the night along.

CANTO III. THE AFTER-DINNER.

DEDICATION. L*RD P*T*RSH*M.

“Both Houses up. A brilliant night.”—
“Debate, dull, dreamy, wiredrawn, trite.”—
“The Premier made the happiest hits.”—
“The Treasury always has the wits.”—
“The Whigs were never higher mettled.”—
“Trust me, the matter's far from settled;
There's mutiny among the crew.”—
“Sir, pardon me, the wine's with you.
The Whigs will have a bed of roses;”—
“True, if they count the world by noses.”—
“The staunchest votes in desperate cases;”—
“Ay, just as many as get places.”—
“The Earl will doubtless have the garter;”—
“His boroughs are a first-rate barter.”—
“All genuine merit—your rappee.”—
“Sir, many a string round many a knee
Had been much better round the neck.”—
“Rely on't, we'll not quit the deck.”—
“No doubt, alone you'll fight the guns,
When ev'ry rascal from you runs.”—
“The crew will perish with the ship.”—
“Rats never love their tails to dip:
The very first that smells a leak
Gives to the rest a signal-squeak;
No sooner does the light shine through,
Than ev'ry snout cries ‘Sauve qui peut,’
Resolved in their cheese-paring souls
To die in terra firma holes!
No man of sense will ever swop
His conscience till he knows his shop:
The balls may shine, the cash be ready,
He'll wait to see the partners steady,
Not wishing to receive a shock
By sudden deficit of stock,
No matter whether lace or lawn
For which he put his soul in pawn.
Yet, 'tis the deuce for politicians
Wishing to better their conditions;
Accomplished men prepared to sing
Heaven save the rabble, or the King!
To live in awkward times that pose
A genius 'twixt the ayes and noes;
To keep their patriotic sense,
When England wants it! in suspense,
And see their traffic at a stop,
Until they know which is the shop!
If fierce on one side or on t'other,
A moment may your fortunes smother;
And yet the feeble partizan,
Whoever wins, is under ban.
'Tis pleasant to see dext'rous fools
Thus slipping 'twixt the party stools!
For me, whose multitude of sins
Is always friendly to the ins;
Whose eloquence by instinct spouts
Against those criminals the outs—
A patriot, Burdett to the bone,
Resolved to call my soul my own;
A loftier specimen of Brutus,
I hate to live in medio tutus,
Long with a pension to be tried,
And trample on the falling side.
And though (for years in Opposition)
We scorn the language of contrition;
And fifty times would rather beg,
Than to the Premier make a leg;
Yet if he makes the first advances,
Men should not throw away their chances:
And though we'd rather die than sink
To ask the thing in pen and ink;
Yet if he thrusts one into place,
To serve one's country's no disgrace.
'Tis true we now and then abused him,
But those were trifles that amused him;
'Tis understood that ayes and noes
May differ, without being foes.
Perhaps, in some obscure debate,
Some evening when the house sat late,
We dropt, in party's usual way,
Something we quite forgot next day;
Some local jest, some random hit,
Some nonsense that then pass'd for wit.
But hurry, heat of argument;
Not that one likes the word,—repent,
Yet, even in party's fiercest fever,
We always thought him monstrous clever;
Though H---e might growl, and T---rn*y sneer,
The truth was neither here nor there.
Through N*wp---t's squeak, and B*xt*n's prate,
We felt the leader of the State.
The idle world might call it satire,—
The world knew nothing of the matter.
But things in such a way presented
By greatness never are resented;
Mere drops between the cup and lip:
Your wisest men will sometimes trip:
In short, 'tis known, your first-rate minds
Give all offences to the winds.
We own that some would make a noise,—
Boys aping men—men aping boys:
But all true patriots like Jack R---ll.
Though now and then they join'd the bustle;
Yet in their hearts abhorr'd the thing,
And loved, like him, the Church and King!
'Tis true, they bellow'd for Reform,
Yet, seeming hot, were scarcely warm.
Nay, all that knew their feelings best,
Knew that it made their standing jest.
Admit, they sometimes swell'd the crowd,
Their curses were not deep, though loud.
There's Gwennapp ready to make oath,
For office he was never loath;
Nay, since his tumble in the stocks,
He scorn'd the very name of Fox.
There's our great orator who wishes,
May all his bones go feed the fishes!
But, since the faction first harangued,
He wonders they escaped unhang'd.
Their muddled, mongrel, special pleadings,
Their nameless ------ House proceedings,
The nonsense that by dint of votes
They strove to cram down people's throats,
Their Constitutional infractions,
The head and tail of their transactions;
He gives them to the D---l that moved them:
They lie, that say he liked or loved them.
In secret he adored the throne;
He cares not where the secret's known.
“So your Petitioner will pray.”
He farther saith, 'twas clear as day,
Six yards of ministerial silk,
At any time had changed his milk;
A black emollient for his skin,
Grown rusty with the bombasin;
But stuff eternal in and out,
The purest loyalty might rout;
Not that a treasury could buy him—
He wishes that they'd dare to try him,
Although at certain times a title
Might seem to some a fit requital,—
Not that he meant to eat his words,
To be a lord,—or fifty lords.
“The vessel gone?”—“High hopes of P---y,”
“Sure as my grandam to miscarry;”
“He takes five hundred pecks of coals!”
“No doubt he'll liquify the poles;”
“He's ballasted with flying sledges,”
“The saints preserve the Arctic hedges!
“Some gallons of Sir Humphrey's acid,”
“Just half a pint makes ocean placid;”
“A liquid, with a Bramah stopper,
For raising”—“Brushwood upon copper.”
“A set of patent music-boxes
To lure the buffaloes and foxes;
French watches for the Polar frows,
The new steam-acting Perkins' ploughs;
The seeds of all the favourite spices,
The last machines for making ices.—
The cargo quite a thing of tact.”
—“Sir! listen, if you like a fact:
After three months' ice-parading,
After three months' masquerading,
After three months' knocks and bumps
That bring his lugger to her stumps;
After loss of pipes and spoons,
Deficit of pantaloons;
Hairbreadth scapes of white bear paws,
Sentimental loves of squaws;
Just as he espied the channel,
Brought to his last yard of flannel;
All his best cigars burnt out,
Winds all whistling “right about;”
Quarter-day you'll have him back,
With his volume in his pack.
Out the wonder comes at last
Wondering how it came so fast—
All the world, including M*rr*y,
In a philosophic flurry;
All the botanizing belles,
All whom B*n*de provides with smells,
Priest of all the chemic loves,
Lovely in his kidskin gloves;
All the twaddlers of the Alfred,
All the quarter and the half-read;
All the paper-headed members
Shivering over learning's embers;
All Parnassus' wither'd shrubs,
All the sages of the Clubs;
All the doldrum F. R. S.'s,
Deep in duckweed, straws, and cresses;
Worthy measurers of dust—
Worthy of Sir Joseph's bust,
Worthy to complete the ranks
Of the mighty name of B*nk*s,
Deep in nondescript descriptions,
Puzzling as their own Egyptians;
All the wiseacres on filberts,
All the world of D---s G*lb*rts;
All the guilty candle-burners,
F*tt*ns, S*b*nes, D*ws*n T---s;
Lecturers on a gnat's proboscis,
Oracles in mire and mosses;
Hunters up of Autographs—
At whose labours mankind laughs;
Delving through the hideous scribbles
Of forgotten knaves and fribbles.
All thy tribe, L---d Ab*rd*n,
Sense and nonsense stuck between;
Wise in all things dead and rotten,
Useful as a herring shotten;
Solemn beggars, in whose bags
All the gathering is rags.
Learning's resurrection-men,
Wielders of the church-yard pen,
Worthy of the plundered lead—
Worms, that feed but on the dead:
Sweeps, that never lift their eyes
Where the flames of Learning rise;
But beside its altar's foot
Fill their pouches with the soot.
All the crazing, and the crazed,
Hurry all—to be amazed!
Page by page unrolls before ye
Britain's Argonautic glory;
How the grand Discovery Fleet,
Several months sail'd several feet.—
“Sunday, hanging o'er the stove,
Thought the vessel meant to move.
Monday, rather felt the frost;
Tuesday, thump'd, and crost, and tost;
Wednesday, kick'd from post to pillar,
Knock'd the nozzle off the tiller;
Thursday, white bears in the distance,
Kill'd, long shots, severe resistance;
Ate a sailor once or twice—
White bears seldom over nice.
Friday, Mercury at zero,
Every soul on board a hero.
Saturday, all cased in rime,
Scarcely thaw'd at pudding-time;
Every nose of land or able,
Living ices at the table;
Crystallizing in a row,
Fine as Jarrin's Christmas show.
But the keenest was to come:
Muse of History be dumb!
Though the passage lay in sight,
Somewhere to the left or right;
Or behind them, or before them,
Home the scoundrel breezes bore them.
But next summer 'twill be found,
Who will bet ten thousand pound?
But there's something for the blues,
Grieving for their two pound twos.
Not a squaw but has a story,
Not a flea but skips before ye.
You've a list of every needle,
That could soul or body wheedle.
Tare and tret of every quid,
That for dog or duckling bid:
How much brandy in her water,
Warm'd old Sealskin's oily daughter.
Every bill on Monmouth-street,
Paid for leagues of genuine sleet:
Every Admiralty name,
Yet to fill the trump of fame:
All the mighty officemen,
Perch'd on stock, and rock, and fen;
Puzzling all the blubber hordes,
With Lords—alas! no longer Lords.
There (every dog will have his day,)
Bold C*b*n towers through fog and spray;
H*pe boasts a marsh, and gallant M*re
Is monarch of a mile of shore:
Ill-omen'd M*lv*lle has his isle,
Grim as his own paternal pile;
Where the great scion of D*nd*s
May graze his goose, and ride his ass:
Nay, not a messenger or clerk,
But in some mire has made his mark,
And stamp'd by friendship's broadest arrow,
Looms through eternal mists Cape B*rr*w.
“B--- caught at last?”—“Yes, limed for life,
Condemn'd to virtue and a wife.”
“Too happy dog! he now relaxes
His purse-strings but to pay his taxes:
A gentle hermit in his cell,
He pokes the fire, and pulls the bell;
Upon his knee his babies dandles,
Concocts the tea, and snuffs the candles;
Scarce in the mirror gives a glance,
Lets even his ringlets take their chance;
Cares not a farthing if the Craven
Was lost by jockeyship or spavin;
If, at the paying of the stakes,
The doer or the done was R---;
In fact, has turn'd a new H--- B*ll,
A rustic pattern to us all.”
“Sweet M*rc*nd*tti, if such ladies
Could often be invoiced from Cadiz,—
Such raven locks, such sparkling eyes,
Were voted in the home supplies;
Such fairy feet, such taper fingers—
They'd make the fortune of the bringers:
Even I, who dread the name of wife,
Might order—per the good ship, F---.
'Tis pleasant, in this world of fools,
To look on Nature's finer tools,
To see the light of jetty eyes
Take Bond-street heroes by surprise;
Till the white-heat of beauty's fire
Melts down the dandy to the squire.
'Tis pleasant, when, like mother Eve's,
Spring makes her petticoat of leaves,
To see him run the homely round
Of husbands fairly in the pound.
How lightly in thy ear-drums B*ll
The names of R*s and L*n*x fall!
Not caring for the world a button,
You brew your beer, and kill your mutton;
At morn, costumed in fustian breeches,
You watch your architects of ditches;
Receive returns of hens and cocks,
Put corn and duck eggs under locks;
Look sharply to those rogues the grooms,
Embezzlers of your mops and brooms,
Prove that your talent's not mistaken
In matters relative to bacon;
Trim up the pheasant-stealing sinner,
And come exact at five to dinner.
Then take your evening wine and sitting,
Inspector of Senora's knitting;
Or order out your country cab,
Give whip and rein to your Queen Mab;
(And scarcely in a poet's dream,
A prettier hand e'er touch'd her team;)
And take the wisdom of the village
On last year's frost, and next year's tillage.
Hear men, Heaven knows who made their coats!
Discuss the latest price of oats;
And drop your summons with the vicar,
To give his verdict on your liquor.
Until the sunshine's rosy dip,
Faint rival of your lady's lip;
And the breeze across the hill,
Warns you that you're standing still,
And a glance towards your oaks
Shows your curling household smokes,
Shows you that your lamps are lighted,
Shows, if you stop, you'll be benighted.
Too happy fellow, in those glances
You're safe from Fortune's tricksy chances:
Though O*tl*nds to the hammer fall,
You have two diamonds worth it all;
Nay, should your final shilling vanish,
The R---rs vows “you'll have the Spanish.”
Oh clouds! ye wandering wayward things,
Substantial nothings, waveless wings;
Ye thrones of hyacinth and rose,
Where spirits in their flight repose;
Ye pearl and purple vales of bliss,
Ye islands of the blue abyss,
Ye steeds,—whom every laurell'd bard,
Has since the deluge rode so hard;
Making, of your manes and tails,
Similes for maids and males.
Every soul has had a time
When he thought himself sublime,
When he dream'd his hour was come,
When he must no more be dumb;
Mounted in Apollo's boots,
Well supplied with moonlight lutes;
Piled with Venice-hat and feathers,
When he should defy all weathers;
With his music of the spheres,
Taking mankind by the ears.
Dan Apollo! fool-enslaver,
When I had your worship's fever,
(But a sort of schoolboy tertian,
Cured by Newmarket immersion,)
I have stood at set of sun,
Cloud-collecting, one by one;
Wild with all their twistings, turnings,
Softenings, sweetenings, fadings, burnings;
Building in each ruddy stain,
Glorious “Chateaux en Espagne;”
Watching the delicious twilight
Peeping from her Eastern skylight;
Like an Andalusian maid
Listening to a serenade:
Like a vestal freshly sainted,
With her cheek half pale, half painted;
Like a Turkish beauty showing
Through her veil the roses glowing;
Till, 'twas but a softer morn,
Silvery rose the Lunar horn.
Or around her high abode,
Tempest, like an ocean, flowd;
Till the lightning's sulphur-gleam
Flamed on mountain, vale, and stream;
And the vaporous upper world
Roll'd, like armies downward hurl'd,
Titans, by the thunder driven
From the sapphire gates of Heaven;
While the swellings of the gale
Seem'd their trumpet's broken wail.
Then along the mighty blue
Rose like flowerets pale and few,
Over which a storm had gone,
Star and starlet, one by one;
Like the lamps in some high fane,
Struggling through the tempest-stain;
As it vanish'd, richer mustering,
Orb on orb in glory clustering;
Till the temple of the night
Blazed with the immortal light.
Trifles—fancy's long past gleams,—
Boyish, more than boyish dreams;
Things of many a year ago—
Yet what have our years to show,
With their thousand secret stings,
Better than those boyish things?
From our cradles to our shrouds,
What are hopes, joys, loves,—but clouds?

CANTO IV. THE MIDNIGHT DRIVE.

DEDICATION. TO ------

'Tis evening, June in all its might,
Broad day,—at ten o'clock at night.
Tired of my lord's tenth, tenth told story,
Forgetting that the day's before ye:—
Expecting to find earth in gloom,
You sally from the heated room,
And find, no matter where you drive,
The world with vulgars all alive.
Ye well-bred charms of southern skies,
Where daylight by appointment dies;
Where, just as your Siesta's done,
Dead to a second drops the sun:
As dead as ever melo-drame,
Engender'd 'twixt K*n*r*d and L*m*b;
As dead as Antipope professions
Of Mister B*nk*s's final sessions.
'Tis sweet Italian Night; you rise,
The rabble vanish from your eyes:
Ten thousand figures round you flit,
They're seen as much as H*rt*n's wit.
You hear a whisper, smell cigars,
Catch the low twanging of guitars;
And, but where Punch sets up his camp,
Or where “Our Lady” lights her lamp,
While some sweet face beneath it twinkles,
Fresh from its holy water sprinkles;
Or lights and chanting in some chapel,
Remind you that you're still “en Naples;”
You'd think the locomotive hosts
Were very easy manner'd ghosts.
While here, the night will never drop,
Go where you will, you meet the shop.
Whirl to the West, you find the park
But turn'd a fuller Noah's ark;—
Whirl to the North, the favourite spot
For us to breakfast and be shot;
The feed and fight alike are o'er,
Chalk Farm is now Chalk Farm no more.
There, Nash, thy plaster town aspires,—
Retreat of Moorfields and Black Friars.
The stucco fine, the gravel finer;
The lamps divine, the lake diviner.—
The whole affair superbly pretty!
The whole,—the trader and his city.
There pant, uneasy for their life,
Fat pair, the aldērman and wife;
There groans the Genius of some ward,
For twelve revolving months, my Lord!
The bulky owner of Molasses
Envies his happier brother asses:
The worthy, rich from porcine slaughter,
Curses the day he saw its water;
All round the wretch so ultra fine—
He dreads to stir, sit, sleep, or dine.
Yet there, if men their eyes will ope,
They'll find en costume à la Hope,
Temptation fresh from London Wall,
The beauty of the Easter ball;
From three months finishing in France
Return'd, with Death in every glance;
A half De Stael, half Eloise,
To trample the piano's keys—
To blot black beetles upon paper—
To light the “Muse's midnight taper;”
To sigh for “dear Count Strogonoff,”
(A valet that nigh whisk'd her off;)
To dream of “Marquis Romanzini,
(You'd buy the scoundrel for a guinea;)
To heave the breast, and roll the eye,
And lisp, “Di tanti palpiti!”
Yet, in those cit-infested valleys,
Before for polar frost he sallies,
To drive in Tartar skulls the sense
Of “Honi soit qui mal y pense;”
As no man's fitter for this barter,
Than he who once has “caught a Tartar;”
Gay H*tf*d rears his Tuscan dome,
For lordly fashion's lordliest home.
Land of the North, enchanting clime,
Where Summer sits enthron'd in slime!
Where Winter, quick as winds can blow,
O'erlays the aforesaid slime with snow;
And fog, and frost, and mire together,
No doubt make very pleasant weather;
Ten years are gone (my tears flow fast!)
Since on your charms I gazed my last—
Since in all jargons under heaven
My vows were to your charmers given;
To swampy Holland's maids of mud—
To Denmark's, fish in face and blood;
To greasy Teutchland's thick-legged vrows—
To Sweden's, kindred to their cows;
To all diversities of skin,
Through Peter's realms of oil and gin;
Where lovers overhead in love
Make speeches bottom'd on a stove;
And maidens touch'd with mutual flame,
Return them,—bottom'd on the same.
H-tf-d, beware of tender passions,
Until you know the Calmuck fashions;
The man caught serenading there,
Will soon betray a loss of ear.
Or, if unsnipt the stanza flows,
The zephyr mulcts you in a nose;
There Cupid has no time to linger,
Each moment costs a toe or finger;
You're lucky if you quit the place
The half-possessor of your face.
The maiden that is over nice
Will see her love preserved in ice.
Transcendent soil of fen and fog,
Where man is but a larger frog!
The Haymarket's a burst of light;
The Opera—mighty Pasta's night!
Bold, splendid, tragic, first the song
Bursts like a cataract along;
Then, like a mountain stream subsiding,
Between its banks of roses gliding,
The harmony, sweet, solemn, clear,
In new enchantment bathes the ear.
Yet noble as her noblest strain,
The actress o'er us throws the chain;
The queenly step, the depth of eye,
The strife of passion wild and high,
The art, true nature's matchless art,
Its strength, its burning source, the heart;
The searching agony of tone,
Make all the struggling soul her own.
The spell dissolved,—I take my rounds;
A licensed sportsman on those grounds:
The rich preserve, that few approach,
Without a title and a coach;
But I, who “know the price of stocks,”
Cry “Sesame!” to every box;
They know I scorn the charming ties,
So take my folly as it flies.
We settle “who escapes to Paris,”—
“Whose in the Austrian box the star is;
“What wonder in the red and yellow
“Has fix'd thy lorgnette, Count P*lm*lla;
“What whisker'd monster, Mynheer Falck!
“Holds in such very solemn talk;
“Whose cheeks and chin are too much tinted,
“Whose marriage has been more than hinted;
“Whom all-resistless P*l*gn*c
“Has kept this fortnight on the rack;
“Whom L-v-n thinks the Belle to-night,
“(The Prince is always in the right);
“For whom is built the Viscount's villa,—
“But hark,—'tis magic, or Brambilla.”
Then drops the eye upon the pit,
Where dandies stand, and dowdies sit;
The irksome prison of he-brutes.
That to their beds would take their boots;
Where St*nh*pe in the foremost tier,
Performs an extra chandelier,
Reflecting on his polish'd forehead
The light from every stage-lamp borrow'd.
Or, where the Foreign Office nest
Shews fifty in a box comprest;
The diplomatic exquisites!
Copies of statesmen, beaux, and wits.
Thus men, ordain'd the world to master
Give their fac-similes in plaster;
And Chathams, Wellingtons, and Naps,
Are sold by Savoyards for raps.
“The Colonel? yes, he never misses,
Since F-fe deserted the coulisses.
Why sits he from the crowd aloof,
Gazing so fiercely on the roof?”
“'Tis whisper'd that he comes to town
Express, to have the house knock'd down.”
Yet I like thee, pleasant Tr---;
Though the sages of the Bench
Would not give a single stiver
For thy bridge along the river:
Though the dames of Billingsgate
Swore to duck thee soon or late;
Though the guardians of the mud
Would have swamp'd thee, ebb or flood;
Though the grisly men of coals
Rose in black fan-hatted shoals;
Though the sapient aldermen
Fought thee with ill-spelling pen;
Though the doubly sapient Mayor
Thunder'd nonsense from the chair;
Though against thee spouted Cam,
(Wolf that crush'd the bleat of L*mb;)
Sings the R*g*rs—“Classic streams,
Long may the Cam defend the Thames!”
Though Whig—Tory—Neuter Jack
Threw his burden on thy back;
Though the man of the Bazaar
On thee turn'd his stable war,
Libel, paragraph, and plate,
Showering round thy patriot pate;
Pealing vengeance in thy ear
The whole grande nation boutiquière.
I own, I like this easy talking,
A kind of Opera sleep-walking;
Just made for lazy brains like mine!
Let wits and sages strive to shine.
My loveliest of all lovely things
Is woman, angel without wings;
Yet if there's horror beyond human,
To me 'tis philosophic woman.
Although you ate your primal steaks
Among the honest Oxford Greeks,
Or suck'd your dose of British port
Where Euclid holds by Cam his Court;
Or in Ierne's “Silent Sister”
Spunged on the vintner and the pistor.
Ierne! theme of many a line,
That never trickled from the Nine;
Ierne, land of bulls and cows,
Of many an English widow's spouse,
Of proud and patriot absentees,
Of rich reversionary fees,
Of old rebellion's glowing embers!
Of just one hundred virtuous Members,
As sapient as the dames that bore them,
As modest as their sires before them;
All dumb—of which I'm no regretter,
(The less that's sometimes said the better.)
Yet, when a good thing's in the wind,
No man will think them deaf or blind;
Not but I know they hate a job,
Though such might fill a patriot's fob;
Not but I know, in all their garrets
They'd scorn to act the treasury parrots;
Or crowd upon a special night,
To stand the drill “eyes left or right,”
Or make the rather thicker calls,
In Whitehall when a peerage falls:
Yet no twelve men on earth would find
Those patriots either deaf or blind!
Ierne, true Romance's spot,
Alike by Heaven and Earth forgot!
Thy people gayest of the gay,
Where every ribbon breeds a fray!
Thy soil the richest of the rich,
Where famine huts in every ditch!
Holy dominion of the Pope!
Ruled by the musket and the rope!
Pure gem of the Atlantic flood,
With every field, a field of blood!
Yet, seated by an Edinbro' dame
Away at once goes all your fame:
In vain you've woo'd the classic muse,
You're nothing in the land of trews;
In vain before your Oxford quorum
You've worked the Typ: Barytonorum,
Or all your cerebellum puzzled
To find in logic reason muzzled,
While Davison the disputations
Made all your syllogisms fugacious;
In vain Darii and Bocardo,
Unless you've thumb'd our friend Ricardo;
Your Wisdom's in a genuine stew,
Unless you've read the last Review.
What know you of the safety-valve?
How schistus splits, or camels calve?
How modern population thickens?
How stoves increase the breed of chickens?
How nature in her human sluices
Makes gastric and th'et cetera juices?
How every blue-bell has its spouse,
True to its vegetable vows?
How hornstein, trap, and selenite,
Were made before earth saw the light?
How true philosophy exposes
The terrible mistakes of Moses?—
How cows communicate their thoughts?
How all the lights of Earth are Scots?
But hush?—the Déesse of the ballet,
The woe and wonder of Fop's-alley,
Where T---re in ecstasies
Forgets the fire of Spanish eyes.
She comes!—Soft, sparkling, like a star,
Floats on her sylphid wing, Brocard:
Beside the beauty, gay Fleurot
Floats, witchery from top to toe.
I glance a moment, feel my heart
Not meant to act a Roman part;
Make my best bow to all the fair,
And whirl full gallop to the square.
Along the streets the chamber-light,
Shows toilets busy for the night.
Oh! for a touch of friend Asmodeus,
A station on some roof commodious;
To watch, without a compound fracture,
The sweet, man-killing manufacture!—
There beauty in her mirror grows,
Let rivals hate the shape it shows.
Now wreathe the brow the raven tresses,
A smile the dear effect confesses:
Now round the neck the diamonds glitter,
No cynic could at this look bitter.
On goes the jewel-bound panache;
Her eyes return it flash for flash.
The tissued silk, the Brussels lace,
What wonder if she like that face?—
'Tis but plain justice to admire
That shape, that step, that eye of fire.
Last, o'er her shoulders drops the shawl,
To hide, in mercy to us all,
What,—if I dar'd to speak my mind,
Might make, but never meet, me blind.
There stands a figure for thee, Lawrence,
Worth all the belles of Rome or Florence:
Thou, whose immortalizing touch,
Defies old Time's hard-handed clutch;—
Gives light to eyes, and bloom to lips,
That scorn a century's eclipse,
That even when L*c*s*t*r's self is past,
Her charms shall round our grandsons cast.—
On H*pe's fair brow bid beauty sit,
Flash life from J*rs*y's eye of wit;
And show how majesty can fling
Its mantle o'er a patriot King.
Young ladies all, pray take example
From this, (by no means single sample,)
Of how much pleasanter 'tis dressing,
To constitute a ball-room's blessing;
Taking from every curl the papers,
In sight of half a dozen tapers;
Giving your beauty between whiles
Those sweet anticipation smiles,
By which the bosoms of five hundred,
Ere morn, shall of their hearts be plunder'd,—
Than sitting up without a light,
'Twixt twelve and one o'clock at night;
Your way around your chamber stealing,
O'er drawers and trunks, and toilets reeling;
All trembling, fearing, freezing, hoping,
In preparations for eloping!
I've known the thing gone through by dozens;
It happened to my four first cousins.
Determined ere her passions cool
To play the' irrevocable fool;
Just as the old ones turn their backs,
The fair her prettiest jupons packs;
Was never midnight sent so slow—
At length the lover stands below.
The letter on the toilet lies,
To wipe the household's morning eyes.
“Hope—anguish—duty—heart too tender—
She's sure her mother would commend her—
Chance—fate—forgive her—or forget her,”
All know the true elopement letter.
She listens at the chamber-door,
But not a soul will deign to snore;
She trembles at the window's height,
The very moon seems up in spite.
Till safe on terra firma landed,
By Cupid and the lover handed;
Through man-traps, spring-guns, briers, and brambles,
The pair begin their marriage rambles.
Snug in the by-way stands the chaise,
Off go the spanking set of bays;
To Scotland turning all their noses,
That road being always strew'd with roses.
Till fagg'd, and frighted, starved, pursued—
By bar-maids envied, grooms halloo'd—
All dust, and heat, and smoke, and smother,
Already crop-sick of each other—
Yet for true penitents decreed,
They reach that Styx of Love—the Tweed.
For England's vulgar groves and lawns,
Now Scotia's landscape on them dawns;
Beside them steals the muddy rill—
Above them towers the naked hill;
Around them vegetates the hovel,
Where brutes, both two and four-legg'd, grovel;
And lassies gay, with scarlet locks,
All innocent of shoes and smocks.
Till shown in pity to their sighs,
The Smithy's sacred smokes arise;
Where shines the drunken son of Etna,
The high-priest of thy temple, Gretna.
Before him stand the culprits pale,
Dim, dusty, draggled head and tail:
The lady like a drooping lily,
'Twixt tear and smile, 'twixt sad and silly;
The man, a man, no matter what,
Love thinks too rapidly for thought.
Down goes the fee, on goes the ring,
The little Loves all clap the wing;
The fatal word's by Vulcan spoken,
For which they'll wish his neck were broken.
I reach the Rout, find every stair
A package of the fainting fair;
Find every inch of every room
Cover'd with petticoat and plume;
A group of the Fitz--- chins,
Rabbies might envy them their skins;
The H---gh, resistless figure,
The glass of fashion, à la rigueur.
No art of life can make a dance—
In vain my lord and lady prance;
The weary shufflers stand stock still,
Till dies the death, the choked quadrille.
Then turning off my cab to B**dl*'s,
I glance upon the high-born noodles,
That, silent as a ring of Quakers,
Melt their right honourable acres;
See the fat Viscount's heavy fist
Sweep thousands at two-handed whist;
While Verjuice, genius of the place,
Hunts, like a hound, his wither'd Grace;
And Owlface, ghost of other years,
Babbles the feats, of long-past peers,
When ancient Queensberry shook the box,
And all men join'd to pigeon Fox.
Dear Gaming, if my easy rhyme
Shall ever reach the true sublime;
If ever from the Muse's rill
A drop within my plume distil,
That drop be sacred to thy praise,
Thou “Love” of noble nights and days!
Gaming! to thine, ecstatic witch,
Aladdin's wand was but a switch.
Let Katterfelto Hohenlohe
Work miracles on tooth or toe;
Rescue from purgatory's fires
A nun's four bones, much more a friar's;
Give flesh and blood to wooden legs,
Teach Irish hens to lay fresh eggs:
Or cool the blood, or thin the skulls
Of patriots of the land of bulls;
Or bid old Nick make ropes of sand,—
You'll beat his Highness out of hand.
Delightful work, to see the stroke
That shaves a province of its oak;
That, where the mighty mansion stood
A sort of heirloom of the flood,
That scorn'd the Dane's and Norman's spoil,
A thing imbedded in the soil;
Let but thy sceptre give a twist,
The walls are melted into mist;
The wooded hill, the teeming plain,
Are empty as their master's brain;
While go the lords of hills and valleys
To snuff the fishy gales of Calais;
Or reinforce thy sands, Boulogne,
With ragged leaders of the ton.
Or let it give another tweak,
The common, bleakest of the bleak,
Where not even gipsies make their den,
A sallow waste of weed and fen,
Some sullen solitude of sand,
Some second Bagshot of the land,
Where, but a highwayman, or Duke,
No man would give a second look;
Wave but thy cue, a palace rises,
A wood the native eye surprises;
A river through the meadows gushes,
You count the vine and peach by bushes;
Along the causeway's narrow'd border
A portal, Nash's native order:
Sublime whitewasher, great rough caster,
The Michael Angelo of plaster;
That, give him but his fling in brick,
Defies the Roman and the Greek;
Invites the passing stage-coach noses
To drink the otto of its roses.
While, deep its sacred bowers within
Shrined from the world's oppressive din,
Cool in the broad verandah's shade,
The hero of the scene is laid:
Around him shine the works of Buhl,
The living bronze, the gold pendule;
The Grecian group, the Tuscan vase,
The case of humming birds from Mawe's;
The Titian glowing from Madrid,
(A Monarch's self was there outbid;)
The Venus starting from her nest,
Not Lansdowne has her lighter drest.
Ye endless vineyards, for whose table
Wear ye all hues from white to sable?
Ye mighty orangeries, for whom,
Like ladies, lay ye on your bloom?
Ye groves of peach and plum, ye pineries,
For whom are worn your birth-day fineries?
Whose hand Patrician dares to cull ye?
Answer, ye perfumed breezes—Gulley!
Gaming! what charm of lip or eye
Can with thy thousand beauties vie?
From woman's glance, what living flash
Rivals the radiance of the cash?
Though woman's tongue in silver flows,
Yet gold's the music of rouleaux.
Thou, that giv'st all the virtues scope,
The Hope, that to the last will hope;
The more than soldier's boasted Courage,
That goes to ruin without demurrage;
The Love, that makes our neighbour's pelf
As dear to all, as to himself;
The Loyalty that, live or die,
Still keeps the Sovereign in its eye.

L'ENVOY.