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OLD-WORLD IDYLLS

A DEAD LETTER

“À cœur blessé—l'ombre et le silence.” —H. de Balzac.

I

I drew it from its china tomb;—
It came out feebly scented
With some thin ghost of past perfume
That dust and days had lent it.

An old, old letter,—folded still!
To read with due composure,
I sought the sun-lit window-sill,
Above the gray enclosure,

That glimmering in the sultry haze,
Faint-flowered, dimly shaded,
Slumbered like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize,
Bedizened and brocaded.

A queer old place! You'd surely say
Some tea-board garden-maker
Had planned it in Dutch William's day
To please some florist Quaker,

So trim it was. The yew-trees still,
With pious care perverted,
Grew in the same grim shapes; and still
The lipless dolphin spurted;

Still in his wonted state abode
The broken-nosed Apollo;
And still the cypress-arbour showed
The same umbrageous hollow.

Only,—as fresh young Beauty gleams
From coffee-coloured laces,—
So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams
The fresher modern traces;

For idle mallet, hoop, and ball
Upon the lawn were lying;
A magazine, a tumbled shawl,
Round which the swifts were flying;

And, tossed beside the Guelder rose,
A heap of rainbow knitting,
Where, blinking in her pleased repose,
A Persian cat was sitting.

“A place to love in,—live,—for aye,
If we too, like Tithonus,
Could find some God to stretch the gray,
Scant life the Fates have thrown us;

‘But now by steam we run our race,
With buttoned heart and pocket;
Our Love's a gilded, surplus grace,—
Just like an empty locket!

“‘The time is out of joint.’ Who will
May strive to make it better;
For me, this warm old window-sill,
And this old dusty letter.”

II

“Dear John (the letter ran), it can't, can't be,
For Father's gone to Chorley Fair with Sam
And Mother's storing Apples,—Prue and Me
Up to our Elbows making Damson Jam:
But we shall meet before a Week is gone,—
‘'Tis a long Lane that has no turning,’ John!

“Only till Sunday next, and then you'll wait
Behind the White-Thorn, by the broken Stile—
We can go round and catch them at the Gate,
All to Ourselves, for nearly one long Mile;
Dear Prue won't look, and Father he'll go on,
And Sam's two Eyes are all for Cissy, John!

‘John, she's so smart,—with every Ribbon new,
Flame-coloured Sack, and Crimson Padesoy:
As proud as proud; and has the Vapours too,
Just like My Lady;—calls poor Sam a Boy,
And vows no Sweet-heart's worth the Thinking-on
Till he's past Thirty . . . I know better, John!

“My Dear, I don't think that I thought of much
Before we knew each other, I and you;
And now, why, John, your least, least Finger-touch
Gives me enough to think a Summer through.
See, for I send you Something! There, 'tis gone!
Look in this corner,—mind you find it,John!”

III

This was the matter of the note,—
A long-forgot deposit,
Dropped in an Indian dragon's throat,
Deep in a fragrant closet,

Piled with a dapper Dresden world,—
Beaux, beauties, prayers, and poses,—
Bonzes with squat legs undercurled,
And great jars filled with roses.

Ah, heart that wrote! Ah, lips that kissed!
You had no thought or presage
Into what keeping you dismissed
Your simple old-world message!

A reverent one. Though we to-day
Distrust beliefs and powers,
The artless, ageless things you say
Are fresh as May's own flowers,

Starring some pure primeval spring,
Ere Gold had grown despotic,—
Ere Life was yet a selfish thing,
Or Love a mere exotic!

I need not search too much to find
Whose lot it was to send it,
That feel upon me yet the kind,
Soft hand of her who penned it;

And see, through two score years of smoke,
In by-gone, quaint apparel,
Shine from yon time-black Norway oak
The face of Patience Caryl,—

The pale, smooth forehead, silver-tressed;
The gray gown, primly flowered;
The spotless, stately coif whose crest
Like Hector's horse-plume towered;

And still the sweet half-solemn look
Where some past thought was clinging,
As when one shuts a serious book
To hear the thrushes singing.

I kneel to you! Of those you were,
Whose kind old hearts grow mellow,—
Whose fair old faces grow more fair
As Point and Flanders yellow;

Whom some old store of garnered grief,
Their placid temples shading,
Crowns like a wreath of autumn leaf
With tender tints of fading.

Peace to your soul! You died unwed—
Despite this loving letter.
And what of John? The less that's said
Of John, I think, the better.

A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL

He lived in that past Georgian day,
When men were less inclined to say
That “Time is Gold,” and overlay
With toil their pleasure;
He held some land, and dwelt thereon,—
Where, I forget,—the house is gone;
His Christian name, I think, was John,—
His surname, Leisure.

Reynolds has painted him,—a face
Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace,
Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace
Of trouble shaded;
The eyes are blue, the hair is drest
In plainest way,—one hand is prest
Deep in a flapped canary vest,
With buds brocaded.

He wears a brown old Brunswick coat,
With silver buttons,—round his throat,
A soft cravat;—in all you note
An elder fashion,—

A strangeness, which, to us who shine
In shapely hats,—whose coats combine
All harmonies of hue and line,—
Inspires compassion.

He lived so long ago, you see!
Men were untravelled then, but we,
Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea
With careless parting;
He found it quite enough for him
To smoke his pipe in “garden trim,”
And watch, about the fish tank's brim,
The swallows darting.

He liked the well-wheel's creaking tongue,—
He liked the thrush that fed her young,—
He liked the drone of flies among
His netted peaches;
He liked to watch the sunlight fall
Athwart his ivied orchard wall;
Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call
Beyond the beeches.

His were the times of Paint and Patch,
And yet no Ranelagh could match
The sober doves that round his thatch
Spread tails and sidled;
He liked their ruffling, puffed content,—
For him their drowsy wheelings meant
More than a Mall of Beaux that bent,
Or Belles that bridled.

Not that, in truth, when life began,
He shunned the flutter of the fan;
He too had maybe “pinked his man”
In Beauty's quarrel;
But now his “fervent youth” had flown
Where lost things go; and he was grown
As staid and slow-paced as his own
Old hunter, Sorrel.

Yet still he loved the chase, and held
That no composer's score excelled
The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled
Its jovial riot;
But most his measured words of praise
Caressed the angler's easy ways,—
His idly meditative days,—
His rustic diet.

Not that his “meditating” rose
Beyond a sunny summer doze;
He never troubled his repose
With fruitless prying;
But held, as law for high and low,
What God withholds no man can know,

“Nescire velle quæ Magister optimus
Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est.”

—Scaliger.

And smiled away inquiry so,
Without replying.

We read—alas, how much we read!
The jumbled strifes of creed and creed
With endless controversies feed
Our groaning tables;

His books—and they sufficed him—were
Cotton's “Montaigne,” “The Grave” of Blair,
A “Walton”—much the worse for wear—
And “Æsop's Fables.”

One more,—“The Bible.” Not that he
Had searched its page as deep as we;
No sophistries could make him see
Its slender credit;
It may be that he could not count
The sires and sons to Jesse's fount,—
He liked the “Sermon on the Mount,”—
And more, he read it.

Once he had loved, but failed to wed,
A red-cheeked lass who long was dead;
His ways were far too slow, he said,
To quite forget her;
And still when time had turned him gray,
The earliest hawthorn buds in May
Would find his lingering feet astray,
Where first he met her.

“In Cœlo Quies” heads the stone
On Leisure's grave,—now little known,
A tangle of wild-rose has grown
So thick across it;
The “Benefactions” still declare
He left the clerk an elbow-chair,
And “12 Pence Yearly to Prepare
A Christmas Posset.”

Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you
With too serene a conscience drew
Your easy breath, and slumbered through
The gravest issue;
But we, to whom our age allows
Scarce space to wipe our weary brows,
Look down upon your narrow house,
Old friend, and miss you!

A GENTLEWOMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL

The Bachelor Samson Carrasco in Don Quixote had his doubt about Second Parts, and there is a like prejudice against Companion Pictures. A Gentlewoman of the Old School would probably have remained unwritten if an uninvited pendant to its forerunner (which originally came out in St. Paul's for July 1870) had not made its appearance in Chambers's Journal for July 8, 1871.

She lived in Georgian era too.
Most women then, if bards be true,
Succumbed to Routs and Cards, or grew
Devout and acid.
But hers was neither fate. She came
Of good west-country folk, whose fame
Has faded now. For us her name
Is “Madam Placid.”

Patience or Prudence,—what you will,
Some prefix faintly fragrant still
As those old musky scents that fill
Our grandams' pillows;
And for her youthful portrait take
Some long-waist child of Hudson's make,
Stiffly at ease beside a lake
With swans and willows.

I keep her later semblance placed
Beside my desk,—'tis lawned and laced,
In shadowy sanguine stipple traced
By Bartolozzi;

A placid face, in which surprise
Is seldom seen, but yet there lies
Some vestige of the laughing eyes
Of arch Piozzi.

For her e'en Time grew debonair.
He, finding cheeks unclaimed of care,
With late-delayed faint roses there,
And lingering dimples,
Had spared to touch the fair old face,
And only kissed with Vauxhall grace
The soft white hand that stroked her lace,
Or smoothed her wimples.

So left her beautiful. Her age
Was comely as her youth was sage,
And yet she once had been the rage;—
It hath been hinted,
Indeed, affirmed by one or two,
Some spark at Bath (as sparks will do)
Inscribed a song to “Lovely Prue,”
Which Urban printed.

I know she thought; I know she felt;
Perchance could sum, I doubt she spelt;
She knew as little of the Celt
As of the Saxon;
I know she played and sang, for yet
We keep the tumble-down spinet
To which she quavered ballads set
By Arne or Jackson.

Her tastes were not refined as ours;
She liked plain food and homely flowers,
Refused to paint, kept early hours,
Went clad demurely;
Her art was sampler-work design,
Fireworks for her were “vastly fine,”
Her luxury was elder-wine,—
She loved that “purely.”

She was renowned, traditions say,
For June conserves, for curds and whey,
For finest tea (she called it “tay”),
And ratafia;
She knew, for sprains, what bands to choose
Could tell the sovereign wash to use
For freckles, and was learned in brews
As erst Medea.

Yet studied little. She would read,
On Sundays, “Pearson on the Creed,”
Though, as I think, she could not heed
His text profoundly;
Seeing she chose for her retreat
The warm west-looking window-seat,
Where, if you chanced to raise your feet,
You slumbered soundly.

This, 'twixt ourselves. The dear old dame,
In truth, was not so much to blame;
The excellent divine I name
Is scarcely stirring;

Her plain-song piety preferred
Pure life to precept. If she erred,
She knew her faults. Her softest word
Was for the erring.

If she had loved, or if she kept
Some ancient memory green, or wept
Over the shoulder-knot that slept
Within her cuff-box,
I know not. Only this I know,
At sixty-five she'd still her beau,
A lean French exile, lame and slow,
With monstrous snuff-box.

Younger than she, well-born and bred.
She'd found him in St. Giles', half dead
Of teaching French for nightly bed
And daily dinners;
Starving, in fact, 'twixt want and pride;
And so, henceforth, you always spied
His rusty “pigeon-wings” beside
Her Mechlin pinners.

He worshipped her, you may suppose.
She gained him pupils, gave him clothes,
Delighted in his dry bons mots
And cackling laughter;
And when, at last, the long duet
Of conversation and picquet
Ceased with her death, of sheer regret
He died soon after.

Dear Madam Placid! Others knew
Your worth as well as he, and threw
Their flowers upon your coffin too,
I take for granted.
Their loves are lost; but still we see
Your kind and gracious memory
Bloom yearly with the almond tree
The Frenchman planted.

THE BALLAD OF “BEAU BROCADE”

There is no foundation in fact for this ballad. It has, however, been gravely asked how a story, some of the incidents of which take place in 1740, can possibly have been suggested by a book published in 1739. Those who are embarrassed by this delicate difficulty can—if they choose— mentally substitute Forty-Nine for Thirty-Nine in the final line.

“Hark! I hear the sound of coaches!” —Beggar's Opera.

[I]

Seventeen hundred and thirty-nine:—
That was the date of this tale of mine.

First great George was buried and gone;
George the Second was plodding on.

London then, as the “Guides” aver,
Shared its glories with Westminster;

Westminster is now “swallowed up in the general vortex of modern London” (Wheatley and Cunningham's London, 1891, iii. 460).

And people of rank, to correct their “tone,”
Went out of town to Marybone.

“Many persons arrived in town from their country-houses in Marybone.” (Daily Journal, October 15, 1728.)

Those were the days of the War with Spain,
Porto-Bello would soon be ta'en;

Whitefield preached to the colliers grim,

“Bristol. The Rev. Mr. Whitefield . . . has been wonderfully laborious and successful, especially among the poor Prisoners in Newgate and the rude Colliers of Kingswood. . . . On Saturday the 18th instant [March] he preached at Hannum Mount to 5 or 6000 Persons, amongst them many Colliers” (Gentleman's Magazine, March 1739, vol. ix. p. 162).

Bishops in lawn sleeves preached at him;

Walpole talked of “a man and his price”;

This has been contradicted by the more literal historians. But it is sufficiently true for poetical purposes.

Nobody's virtue was over-nice:—

Those, in fine, were the brave days when
Coaches were stopped by .. Highwaymen!

And of all the knights of the gentle trade
Nobody bolder than “Beau Brocade.”

This they knew on the whole way down;
Best,—maybe,—at the “Oak and Crown.”

(For timorous cits on their pilgrimage
Would “club” for a “Guard” to ride the stage

And the Guard that rode on more than one
Was the Host of this hostel's sister's son.)

Open we here on a March day fine,
Under the oak with the hanging sign.

There was Barber Dick with his basin by;

These two personages are borrowed from Plate II. of Hogarth's Election Series, 1757 (“Canvassing for Votes”).

Cobbler Joe with the patch on his eye;

Portly product of Beef and Beer,
John the host, he was standing near.

Straining and creaking, with wheels awry,
Lumbering came the “Plymouth Fly”;—

Lumbering up from Bagshot Heath,
Guard in the basket armed to the teeth;

The basket was a cumbrous wicker appendage for luggage (and frequently passengers) at the back of the coach. (See Hogarth's Country Inn Yard, 1747.) “Its [London's] fopperies come down to us . . . in the very basket”—says Mr. Hardcastle in Act i. Scene 1, of She Stoops to Conquer, 1773. In 1741 a highwayman was shot from the basket by a Captain Mawley (Gentleman's Magazine, ii. 498).

Passengers heavily armed inside;
Not the less surely the coach had been tried!

Tried!—but a couple of miles away,
By a well-dressed man!—in the open day!

Tried successfully, never a doubt,—
Pockets of passengers all turned out!

Cloak-bags rifled, and cushions ripped,—
Even an Ensign's wallet stripped!

Even a Methodist hosier's wife
Offered the choice of her Money or Life!

Highwayman's manners no less polite,

“On Friday in the Afternoon, between Three and Four o'clock, the Bath Stage-Coach was robbed by a single Highwayman about two Miles this Side of Maidenhead, who took from the Passengers between four and five Pounds, behaved very genteely, and made off” (Covent Garden Journal, 10th March, 1752).

Hoped that their coppers (returned) were right;—

Sorry to find the company poor,
Hoped next time they'd travel with more;—

Plucked them all at his ease, in short:—
Such was the “Plymouth Fly's” report.

Sympathy! horror! and wonderment!
“Catch the Villain!” (But Nobody went.)

Hosier's wife led into the Bar;
(That's where the best strong waters are!)

Strong waters—e.g. Barbadoes-water, citron-water, &c.— were restorative cordials, much affected by the fair sex. In Richardson's Familiar Letters, 1741, p. 163, a sailor sends his Peggy from Barbadoes six bottles of citron-water. “It is what, they say, Ladies drink, when they can get it.”

Followed the tale of the hundred-and-one
Things that Somebody ought to have done.

Ensign (of Bragg's) made a terrible clangour:

Despite its suspicious appropriateness in this case, “Bragg's” regiment of Foot-Guards really existed, and was ordered to Flanders in April 1742 (see Gentleman's Magazine, 1742, i. 217). In 1759 Wolfe was leading it at Quebec when he was mortally wounded.

But for the Ladies had drawn his hanger!

A hanger is “a broad, crooked, short sword” (Bailey). Tom Bowling (Roderick Random, ch. iii.) wears “an hanger with a brass handle;” and Commodore Trunnion, going to his marriage, is equipped with “a huge hanger, with a hilt like that of a backsword” (Peregrine Pickle, chap. viii.).

Robber, of course, was “Beau Brocade”;
Out-spoke Dolly the Chambermaid.

Devonshire Dolly, plump and red,
Spoke from the gallery overhead;—

Spoke it out boldly, staring hard:—
“Why didn't you shoot then, George the Guard?”

Spoke it out bolder, seeing him mute:—
“George the Guard, why didn't you shoot?”

Portly John grew pale and red,
(John was afraid of her, people said;)

Gasped that “Dolly was surely cracked,”
(John was afraid of her—that's a fact!)

George the Guard grew red and pale,
Slowly finished his quart of ale:—

“Shoot? Why—Rabbit him!—didn't he shoot?”
Muttered—“The Baggage was far too 'cute!”

“Shoot? Why he'd flashed the pan in his eye!”
Muttered—“She'd pay for it by and by!”
Further than this made no reply.

Nor could a further reply be made,
For George was in league with “Beau Brocade”!

“That these suspicions [of connivance] were not without foundation is proved by the dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that age, who appear to have received from the innkeepers services much resembling those which Farquhar's Boniface [in the Beaux' Stratagem] rendered to Gibbet” (Macaulay's History of England, ed. 1864, i. p. 181).

And John the Host, in his wakefullest state,
Was not—on the whole—immaculate.

But nobody's virtue was over-nice
When Walpole talked of “a man and his price”;

And wherever Purity found abode,
'Twas certainly not on a posting road.

II

“Forty” followed to “Thirty-nine.”
Glorious days of the Hanover line!

Princes were born, and drums were banged;
Now and then batches of Highwaymen hanged.

‘Glorious news!”—from the Spanish Main;
Porto-Bello at last was ta'en.

Porto-Bello was taken in November 1739, but Vice-Admiral Vernon's despatches did not reach England until the following March (see Gentleman's Magazine, 1740, i. 124 et seq.).

“Glorious news!”—for the liquor trade;
Nobody dreamed of “Beau Brocade.”

People were thinking of Spanish Crowns;
Money was coming from seaport towns!

Nobody dreamed of “Beau Brocade,”
(Only Dolly the Chambermaid!)

Blessings on Vernon! Fill up the cans;
Money was coming in “Flys” and “Vans.”

Possibly John the Host had heard;
Also, certainly, George the Guard.

And Dolly had possibly tidings, too,
That made her rise from her bed anew,

Plump as ever, but stern of eye,
With a fixed intention to warn the “Fly.”

Lingering only at John his door,
Just to make sure of a jerky snore;

Saddling the gray mare, Dumpling Star;
Fetching the pistol out of the bar;

(The old horse-pistol that, they say,
Came from the battle of Malplaquet;)

Loading with powder that maids would use,
Even in “Forty,” to clear the flues;

And a couple of silver buttons, the Squire
Gave her, away in Devonshire.

These she wadded—for want of better—
With the B---sh---p of L---nd---n's “Pastoral Letter”;

A Pastoral Letter was issued by the Bishop of London in August, 1739. It was at once answered by Whitefield.

Looked to the flint, and hung the whole,
Ready to use, at her pocket-hole.

Thus equipped and accoutred, Dolly
Clattered away to “Exciseman's Folly”;—

Such was the name of a ruined abode,
Just on the edge of the London road.

Thence she thought she might safely try,
As soon as she saw it, to warn the “Fly.”

But, as chance fell out, her rein she drew,
As the Beau came cantering into the view.

By the light of the moon she could see him drest
In his famous gold-sprigged tambour vest;

This embroidery was so-called from being worked on a drum-shaped frame. “Your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey” (Sheridan's Critic, 1779, Act i. Scene 1).

And under his silver-gray surtout,
The laced, historical coat of blue,

That he wore when he went to London-Spaw,

A tavern and pleasure garden at the corner of Rosoman Street and Exmouth Street, Clerkenwell, having a noted chalybeate spring on the premises.

“Sweethearts with their sweethearts go
To Islington or London-Spaw;
Some go but just to drink the water,
Some for the ale which they like better.”

(Poor Robin's Almanack, 1733.)

And robbed Sir Mungo Mucklethraw.

Out-spoke Dolly the Chambermaid,
(Trembling a little, but not afraid,)
“Stand and Deliver, O ‘Beau Brocade’!”

But the Beau rode nearer, and would not speak,
For he saw by the moonlight a rosy cheek;

And a spavined mare with a rusty hide;
And a girl with her hand at her pocket-side.

So never a word he spoke as yet,
For he thought 'twas a freak of Meg or Bet;—
A freak of the “Rose” or the “Rummer” set.

The “Rose” was a famous tavern at Covent Garden; the “Rummer” was at Charing Cross.

Out-spoke Dolly the Chambermaid,
(Tremulous now, and sore afraid,)
“Stand and Deliver, O ‘Beau Brocade’!”—

Firing then, out of sheer alarm,
Hit the Beau in the bridle-arm.

Button the first went none knows where,
But it carried away his solitaire;

A loose neck-tie of black silk, generally affixed to the bag of the wig (Fairholt).

Button the second a circuit made,
Glanced in under the shoulder-blade;—
Down from the saddle fell “Beau Brocade”!

Down from the saddle and never stirred!—
Dolly grew white as a Windsor curd.

Slipped not less from the mare, and bound
Strips of her kirtle about his wound.

Then, lest his Worship should rise and flee,
Fettered his ankles—tenderly.

Jumped on his chestnut, Bet the fleet
(Called after Bet of Portugal Street);

Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Came like the wind to the old Inn-door;—
Roused fat John from a three-fold snore;—

Vowed she'd 'peach if he misbehaved . . .
Briefly, the “Plymouth Fly” was saved!

Staines and Windsor were all on fire:—
Dolly was wed to a Yorkshire squire;
Went to Town at the K---g's desire!

But whether His M---j---sty saw her or not,
Hogarth jotted her down on the spot;

And something of Dolly one still may trace
In the fresh contours of his “Milkmaid's” face.

See the Enraged Musician, an engraving of which was published in November of the following year (1741).

George the Guard fled over the sea:
John had a fit—of perplexity;

Turned King's evidence, sad to state;—
But John was never immaculate.

As for the Beau, he was duly tried,
When his wound was healed, at Whitsuntide;

Served—for a day—as the last of “sights,”

Walpole (Letters, 1857, ii. 219) says that “half White's,” with Lord Mountford at their head, went to see James Maclean (the “gentleman highwayman”) in prison. Also that Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe had been to comfort and weep over him. Maclean was hanged on October 3, 1750, for robbing the Salisbury Coach, near Turnham Green.

To the world of St. James's-Street and “White's,”

“White's” was a famous coffee-house in St. James's Street.
“Aim-well. Pray, Sir, ha'n't I seen your Face at Will's Coffee-house?
“Gibbet. Yes, Sir, and at White's too.”

(Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem, Act iii. Scene 2.)

Went on his way to Tyburn Tree,
With a pomp befitting his high degree.

Fielding (Covent Garden Journal, 27th April 1752) says: “This Day five Malefactors were executed at Tyburn. No Heroes within the Memory of Man ever met their Fate with more Boldness and Intrepidity, and consequently with more felonious Glory.”

Elsewhere he says (March 27): “The real Fact at present is, that instead of making the Gallows an Object of Terror, our Executions contribute to make it an Object of Contempt in the Eye of a Malefactor; and we sacrifice the Lives of Men, not for [the italics are Fielding's] the Reformation, but for the Diversion of the Populace,” Cf. also Macaulay's History of England, ed. 1864, i. 182.

Every privilege rank confers:—
Bouquet of pinks at St. Sepulchre's;

“Another curious custom observed at this Church [St. Sepulchre's] was that of presenting a nosegay to every criminal on his way to Tyburn” (Wheatley and Cunningham's London, 1891, iii. 229, 230). When, as a boy of eight [1774], J. T. Smith watched the notorious John Rann, commonly called “Sixteen-string Jack,” on his road to Tyburn, he noticed that the robber (who was gallantly clad in bright pea green) was equipped with an immense nosegay which had come to him in this way (Book for a Rainy Day, 3rd ed., 1861, pp. 29–30).

Flagon of ale at Holborn Bar;

Holborn Bar, or Bars, marks the boundary in Holborn of the City Liberties. It was on the official route from Newgate to Tyburn.

Friends (in mourning) to follow his Car—

“He [Richard Turpin, alias John Palmer, hanged at York, 7th April 1739] gave 3l. 10s. to 5 Men who were to follow the Cart as Mourners, with Hatbands and Gloves to them and several others” (Gentleman's Magazine, 1739, vol. ix. 213).

(“t” is omitted where Heroes are!)

Every one knows the speech he made;
Swore that he “rather admired the Jade!”—

Waved to the crowd with his gold-laced hat:
Talked to the Chaplain after that;

Turned to the Topsman undismayed . . .

i.e. the hangman. In the Tyburn Scene of Hogarth's Apprentice Series (Plate XI.) he may be seen sitting at the top of the triple tree.

This was the finish of “Beau Brocade”!

And this is the Ballad that seemed to hide
In the leaves of a dusty “Londoner's Guide”;

“Humbly Inscrib'd (with curls and tails)
By the Author to Frederick, Prince of Wales:—

“Published by Francis and Oliver Pine;
Ludgate-Hill, at the Blackmoor Sign.
Seventeen-Hundred-and-Thirty-Nine.”

UNE MARQUISE

A RHYMED MONOLOGUE IN THE LOUVRE

“Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour. —Molière.

I

As you sit there at your ease,
O Marquise!
And the men flock round your knees
Thick as bees,
Mute at every word you utter,
Servants to your least frill-flutter,
“Belle Marquise!”—
As you sit there growing prouder,
And your ringed hands glance and go,
And your fan's frou-frou sounds louder,
And your “beaux yeux” flash and glow;—
Ah, you used them on the Painter,
As you know,
For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter,
Bowing low,
Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy
That each sitter was not Circe,
Or at least he told you so;—

Growing proud, I say, and prouder
To the crowd that come and go,
Dainty Deity of Powder,
Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau,
As you sit where lustres strike you,
Sure to please,
Do we love you most, or like you,
“Belle Marquise?”

II

You are fair; O yes, we know it
Well, Marquise:
For he swore it, your last poet,
On his knees;
And he called all heaven to witness
Of his ballad and its fitness,
“Belle Marquise!”—
You were everything in ere
(With exception of sévère),—
You were cruelle and rebelle,
With the rest of rhymes as well;
You were “Reine,” and “Mère d' Amour”;
You were “Vénus à Cythère”;
“Sappho mise en Pompadour,”
And “Minerve en Parabère”;
You had every grace of heaven
In your most angelic face,
With the nameless finer leaven
Lent of blood and courtly race;
And he added, too, in duty,
Ninon's wit and Boufflers' beauty;

And La Vallière's yeux veloutés
Followed these;
And you liked it, when he said it
(On his knees),
And you kept it, and you read it,
“Belle Marquise!”

III

Yet with us your toilet graces
Fail to please,
And the last of your last faces,
And your mise;
For we hold you just as real,
“Belle Marquise!”
As your Bergers and Bergères,
Iles d'Amour and Batelières;
As your parcs, and your Versailles,
Gardens, grottoes, and rocailles;
As your Naiads and your trees;—
Just as near the old ideal
Calm and ease,
As the Venus there, by Coustou,
That a fan would make quite flighty,
Is to her the gods were used to,—
Is to grand Greek Aphroditè,
Sprung from seas.
You are just a porcelain trifle,
“Belle Marquise!”
Just a thing of puffs and patches,

Made for madrigals and catches,
Not for heart-wounds, but for scratches,
O Marquise!
Just a pinky porcelain trifle,
“Belle Marquise!”
Wrought in rarest rose-Dubarry,
Quick at verbal point and parry,
Clever, doubtless;—but to marry,
No, Marquise!

IV

For your Cupid, you have clipped him,
Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him,
And with chapeau-bras equipped him,
“Belle Marquise!”
Just to arm you through your wife-time,
And the languors of your life-time,
“Belle Marquise!”
Say, to trim your toilet tapers,
Or,—to twist your hair in papers,
Or,—to wean you from the vapours;—
As for these,
You are worth the love they give you,
Till a fairer face outlive you,
Or a younger grace shall please;
Till the coming of the crows' feet,
And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
“Belle Marquise!”—
Till your frothed-out life's commotion
Settles down to Ennui's ocean,
Or a dainty sham devotion,
“Belle Marquise!”

V

No: we neither like nor love you,
“Belle Marquise!”
Lesser lights we place above you,—
Milder merits better please.
We have passed from Philosophe-dom
Into plainer modern days,—
Grown contented in our oafdom,
Giving grace not all the praise;
And, en partant, Arsinoé,—
Without malice whatsoever,—
We shall counsel to our Chloë
To be rather good than clever;
For we find it hard to smother
Just one little thought, Marquise!
Wittier perhaps than any other,—
You were neither Wife nor Mother,
“Belle Marquise!”

THE STORY OF ROSINA

AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF FRANÇOIS BOUCHER

See Boucher by Arsène Houssaye, Galerie du XVIII Siècle (Cinquième Série; Sculpteurs, Peintres, Musiciens). The “incident” is, however, thus briefly referred to in Charles Blanc's Histoire des Peintres de toutes les Écoles:— “Une fois cependant Boucher se laissa prendre à un amour simple et candide. Un jour, en passant dans la Rue Ste-Anne, il aperçut une jeune fruitière dont la beauté l'éblouit. C'était au temps des cerises. Le peintre la regarda et elle se laissa regarder sans songer à ses paniers. Ses lèvres parurent plus belles que ses cerises. Un amour naïf et tendre naquit de cette échange de regards; Boucher y trouva quelque jours de délices; Rosine y trouva la mort après une rapide bonheur.”

“On ne badine pas avec l'amour.”

The scene, a wood. A shepherd tip-toe creeping,

The picture referred to is Le Panier Mystérieux by F. Boucher; engraved by R. Gaillard.

Carries a basket, whence a billet peeps,
To lay beside a silk-clad Oread sleeping
Under an urn; yet not so sound she sleeps
But that she plainly sees his graceful act;
“He thinks she thinks he thinks she sleeps,” in fact.

This, as well as another reference (in The Misogynist) to the Angel in the House, led the author of that book at first, I am afraid, to doubt whether I was an entirely sympathetic student of his works. But when, in the later years of Coventry Patmore's life, I had the advantage of his personal acquaintance, it was not difficult to convince him that he had no more devoted admirer than myself.

One hardly needs the “Peint par François Boucher.”
All the sham life comes back again,—one sees
Alcôves, Ruelles, the Lever, and the Coucher,
Patches and Ruffles, Roués and Marquises;
The little great, the infinite small thing
That ruled the hour when Louis Quinze was king.

For these were yet the days of halcyon weather,—
A “Martin's summer,” when the nation swam,
Aimless and easy as a wayward feather,
Down the full tide of jest and epigram;—
A careless time, when France's bluest blood
Beat to the tune of “After us the Flood.”

Plain Roland still was placidly “inspecting,”
Not now Camille had stirred the Café Foy;
Marat was young, and Guillotin dissecting,
Corday unborn, and Lamballe in Savoie;
No faubourg yet had heard the Tocsin ring:—
This was the summer—when Grasshoppers sing.

And far afield were sun-baked savage creatures,

See Les Caractères de La Bruyère, De l'homme, 128.

Female and male, that tilled the earth, and wrung
Want from the soil;—lean things with livid features,
Shape of bent man, and voice that never sung:
These were the Ants, for yet to Jacques Bonhomme
Tumbrils were not, nor any sound of drum.

But Boucher was a Grasshopper, and painted,—
Rose-water Raphael,—en couleur de rose,
The crowned Caprice, whose sceptre, nowise sainted,
Swayed the light realm of ballets and bons mots;—
Ruled the dim boudoir's demi-jour, or drove
Pink-ribboned flocks through some pink-flowered grove.

A laughing Dame, who sailed a laughing cargo
Of flippant loves along the Fleuve du Tender;
Whose greatest grace was jupes à la Camargo,

“C'était le beau temps où Camargo trouvait ses jupes trop longues pour danser la gargouillade.” Arsène Houssaye.

Whose gentlest merit gentiment se rendre;
Queen of the rouge-cheeked Hours, whose foot-steps fell
To Rameau's notes, in dances by Gardel;—

Her Boucher served, till Nature's self betraying,
As Wordsworth sings, the heart that loved her not,
Made of his work a land of languid Maying,
Filled with false gods and muses misbegot;—
A Versailles Eden of cosmetic youth,
Wherein most things went naked, save the Truth

Once, only once,—perhaps the last night's revels
Palled in the after-taste,—our Boucher sighed
For the first beauty, falsely named the Devil's,
Young-lipped, unlessoned, joyous, and clear-eyed;
Flung down his palette like a weary man,
And sauntered slowly through the Rue Sainte-Anne.

Wherefore, we know not; but, at times, far nearer
Things common come, and lineaments half-seen
Grow in a moment magically clearer;—
Perhaps, as he walked, the grass he called “too green”

“Il trouvait la nature trop verte et mal éclairée. Et son ami Lancret, le peintre des salons à la mode, lui répondait. ‘Je suis de votre sentiment, la nature manque d'harmonie et de séduction.’”

—Charles Blanc.

Rose and rebuked him, or the earth “ill-lighted”
Silently smote him with the charms he slighted.

But, as he walked, he tired of god and goddess,
Nymphs that deny, and shepherds that appeal;
Stale seemed the trick of kerchief and of bodice,
Folds that confess, and flutters that reveal;
Then as he grew more sad and disenchanted,
Forthwith he spied the very thing he wanted.

So, in the Louvre, the passer-by might spy some
Arch-looking head, with half-evasive air,
Start from behind the fruitage of Van Huysum,
Grape-bunch and melon, nectarine and pear:—
Here 'twas no Venus of Batavian city,
But a French girl, young, piquante, bright, and pretty.

Graceful she was, as some slim marsh-flower shaken
Among the sallows, in the breezy Spring;
Blithe as the first blithe song of birds that waken,
Fresh as a fresh young pear-tree blossoming;

“She was wel more blisful on to see
Than is the newe perjenete tree.”

—Chaucer, The Millere's Tale.

Black was her hair as any blackbird's feather;
Just for her mouth, two rose-buds grew together.

Sloes were her eyes; but her soft cheeks were peaches,
Hued like an Autumn pippin, where the red
Seems to have burned right through the skin, and reaches
E'en to the core; and if you spoke, it spread
Up till the blush had vanquished all the brown,
And, like two birds, the sudden lids dropped down.

As Boucher smiled, the bright black eyes ceased dancing;
As Boucher spoke, the dainty red eclipse
Filled all the face from cheek to brow, enhancing
Half a shy smile that dawned around the lips.
Then a shrill mother rose upon the view;
“Cerises, M'sieu? Rosine, dépéchez-vous!”

Deep in the fruit her hands Rosina buries,
Soon in the scale the ruby bunches lay.
The Painter, watching the suspended cherries,
Never had seen such little fingers play;—
As for the arm, no Hebè's could be rounder;
Low in his heart a whisper said “I've found her.”

Woo first the mother, if you'd win the daughter!”
Boucher was charmed, and turned to Madame Mère,
Almost with tears of suppliance besought her
Leave to immortalize a face so fair;
Praised and cajoled so craftily that straightway
Voici Rosina,—standing at his gateway.

Shy at the first, in time Rosina's laughter
Rang through the studio as the girlish face
Peeped from some painter's travesty, or after
Showed like an Omphale in lion's case;
Gay as a thrush, that from the morning dew
Pipes to the light its clear “Réveillez-vous.”

Just a mere child with sudden ebullitions,
Flashes of fun, and little bursts of song,
Petulant pains, and fleeting pale contritions,
Mute little moods of misery and wrong;
Only a child, of Nature's rarest making,
Wistful and sweet,—and with a heart for breaking!

Day after day the little loving creature
Came and returned; and still the Painter felt,
Day after day, the old theatric Nature
Fade from his sight, and like a shadow melt
Paniers and Powder, Pastoral and Scene,
Killed by the simple beauty of Rosine.

As for the girl, she turned to her new being,—
Came, as a bird that hears its fellow call;
Blessed, as the blind that blesses God for seeing;
Grew, as the flower on which the sun-rays fall;
Loved if you will; she never named it so:
Love comes unseen,—we only see it go.

There is a figure among Boucher's sketches,
Slim,—a child-face, the eyes as black as beads,
Head set askance, and hand that shyly stretches
Flowers to the passer, with a look that pleads.
This was no other than Rosina surely;—
None Boucher knew could else have looked so purely.

But forth her Story, for I will not tarry:
Whether he loved the little “nut-brown maid”
If, of a truth, he counted this to carry
Straight to the end, or just the whim obeyed,
Nothing we know, but only that before
More had been done, a finger tapped the door.

Opened Rosina to the unknown comer.
'Twas a young girl—“une pauvre fille,” she said,
“They had been growing poorer all the summer;
Father was lame, and mother lately dead;
Bread was so dear, and,—oh! but want was bitter,
Would Monsieur pay to have her for a sitter?

Men called her pretty.” Boucher looked a minute:
Yes, she was pretty; and her face beside
Shamed her poor clothing by a something in it,—
Grace, and a presence hard to be denied;
This was no common offer it was certain;—
“Allez, Rosina! sit behind the curtain.”

Meanwhile the Painter, with a mixed emotion,
Drew and re-drew his ill-disguised Marquise,
Passed in due time from praises to devotion;
Last when his sitter left him on his knees,
Rose in a maze of passion and surprise,—
Rose, and beheld Rosina's saddened eyes.

Thrice-happy France, whose facile sons inherit
Still in the old traditionary way,
Power to enjoy—with yet a rarer merit,
Power to forget! Our Boucher rose, I say,
With hand still prest to heart, with pulses throbbing,
And blankly stared at poor Rosina sobbing

“This was no model, M'sieu, but a lady.”
Boucher was silent, for he knew it true.
“Est-ce que vous l'aimez?” Never answer made he!
Ah, for the old love fighting with the new!
“Est-ce que vous l'aimez?” sobbed Rosina's sorrow.
“Bon!” murmured Boucher; “she will come to-morrow.”

How like a Hunter thou, O Time, dost harry
Us, thine oppressed, and pleasured with the chase,
Sparest to strike thy sorely-running quarry,
Following not less with unrelenting face.
Time, if Love hunt, and Sorrow hunt, with thee,
Woe to the Fawn! There is no way to flee.

Woe to Rosina! By To-morrow stricken,
Swift from her life the sun of gold declined.
Nothing remained but those gray shades that thicken,
Cloud and the cold,—the loneliness—the wind.
Only a little by the door she lingers,—
Waits, with wrung lip and interwoven fingers.

No, not a sign. Already with the Painter
Grace and the nymphs began recovered reign;
Truth was no more, and Nature, waxing fainter,
Paled to the old sick Artifice again.
Seeing Rosina going out to die,
How should he know what Fame had passed him by?

Going to die! For who shall waste in sadness,
Shorn of the sun, the very warmth and light,
Miss the green welcome of the sweet earth's gladness,
Lose the round life that only Love makes bright:
There is no succour if these things are taken.
None but Death loves the lips by Love forsaken.

So, in a little, when those Two had parted,—
Tired of himself, and weary as before,
Boucher remembering, sick and sorry-hearted,
Stayed for a moment by Rosina's door.
“Ah, the poor child!” the neighbours cry of her,
“Morte, M'sieu, morte! On dit,—des peines de cœur!”

Just for a second, say, the tidings shocked him;
Say, in his eye a sudden tear-drop shone,—
Just for a second, a dull feeling mocked him
With a vague sense of something priceless gone;
Then,—for at best 'twas but the empty type,
The husk of man with which the days were ripe,—

Then, he forgot her. But, for you that slew her,
You, her own sister, that with airy ease,
Just for a moment's fancy could undo her,
Pass on your way. A little while, Marquise,
Be the sky silent, be the sea serene;
A pleasant passage—à Sainte Guillotine!

As for Rosina,—for the quiet sleeper,
Whether stone hides her, or the happy grass,
If the sun quickens, if the dews beweep her,
Laid in the Madeleine or Montparnasse,
Nothing we know,—but that her heart is cold,
Poor beating heart! And so the Story's told.