I now mean to be serious;—it is time, Since laughter now-a-days is deem’d too serious. A jest at Vice by Virtue ’s call’d a crime, And critically held as deleterious: Besides, the sad ’s a source of the sublime, Although when long a little apt to weary us; And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn, As an old temple dwindled to a column.
The Lady Adeline Amundeville (’Tis an old Norman name, and to be found In pedigrees, by those who wander still Along the last fields of that Gothic ground) Was high-born, wealthy by her father’s will, And beauteous, even where beauties most abound, In Britain—which of course true patriots find The goodliest soil of body and of mind.
I’ll not gainsay them; it is not my cue; I’ll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best: An eye ’s an eye, and whether black or blue, Is no great matter, so ’tis in request, ’Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue— The kindest may be taken as a test. The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there’s a plain woman.
And after that serene and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turn’d for days More quiet, when our moon ’s no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because indifference begins to lull Our passions, and we walk in wisdom’s ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that ’tis time to give the younger place.
I know that some would fain postpone this era, Reluctant as all placemen to resign Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera, For they have pass’d life’s equinoctial line: But then they have their claret and Madeira To irrigate the dryness of decline; And county meetings, and the parliament, And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.
And is there not religion, and reform, Peace, war, the taxes, and what ’s call’d the ‘Nation’? The struggle to be pilots in a storm? The landed and the monied speculation? The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm, Instead of love, that mere hallucination? Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess’d, Right honestly, ‘he liked an honest hater!’- The only truth that yet has been confest Within these latest thousand years or later. Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest:— For my part, I am but a mere spectator, And gaze where’er the palace or the hovel is, Much in the mode of Goethe’s Mephistopheles;
But neither love nor hate in much excess; Though ’twas not once so. If I sneer sometimes, It is because I cannot well do less, And now and then it also suits my rhymes. I should be very willing to redress Men’s wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.
Of all tales ’tis the saddest—and more sad, Because it makes us smile: his hero ’s right, And still pursues the right;—to curb the bad His only object, and ’gainst odds to fight His guerdon: ’tis his virtue makes him mad! But his adventures form a sorry sight; A sorrier still is the great moral taught By that real epic unto all who have thought.
Redressing injury, revenging wrong, To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:— Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere fancy’s sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought! And Socrates himself but Wisdom’s Quixote?
Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away; A single laugh demolish’d the right arm Of his own country;—seldom since that day Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm, The world gave ground before her bright array; And therefore have his volumes done such harm, That all their glory, as a composition, Was dearly purchased by his land’s perdition.
I’m ‘at my old lunes’—digression, and forget The Lady Adeline Amundeville; The fair most fatal Juan ever met, Although she was not evil nor meant ill; But Destiny and Passion spread the net (Fate is a good excuse for our own will), And caught them;—what do they not catch, methinks? But I’m not OEdipus, and life ’s a Sphinx.
I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare To venture a solution: ‘Davus sum!’ And now I will proceed upon the pair. Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world’s hum, Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that ’s fair; Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb. The last ’s a miracle, and such was reckon’d, And since that time there has not been a second.
Chaste was she, to detraction’s desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against either, and both seem’d secure— She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.
It chanced some diplomatical relations, Arising out of business, often brought Himself and Juan in their mutual stations Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught By specious seeming, Juan’s youth, and patience, And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought, And form’d a basis of esteem, which ends In making men what courtesy calls friends.
And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow In judging men—when once his judgment was Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe, Had all the pertinacity pride has, Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided, Because its own good pleasure hath decided.
His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions, Though oft well founded, which confirm’d but more His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians And Medes, would ne’er revoke what went before. His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians, Of common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at—the mere ague still Of men’s regard, the fever or the chill.
‘’Tis not in mortals to command success: But do you more, Sempronius—don’t deserve it,’ And take my word, you won’t have any less. Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it; Give gently way, when there’s too great a press; And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it, For, like a racer, or a boxer training, ’Twill make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.
Lord Henry also liked to be superior, As most men do, the little or the great; The very lowest find out an inferior, At least they think so, to exert their state Upon: for there are very few things wearier Than solitary Pride’s oppressive weight, Which mortals generously would divide, By bidding others carry while they ride.
In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal, O’er Juan he could no distinction claim; In years he had the advantage of time’s sequel; And, as he thought, in country much the same— Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill, At which all modern nations vainly aim; And the Lord Henry was a great debater, So that few members kept the house up later.
These were advantages: and then he thought— It was his foible, but by no means sinister— That few or none more than himself had caught Court mysteries, having been himself a minister: He liked to teach that which he had been taught, And greatly shone whenever there had been a stir; And reconciled all qualities which grace man, Always a patriot, and sometimes a placeman.
He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity; He almost honour’d him for his docility; Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity, Or contradicted but with proud humility. He knew the world, and would not see depravity In faults which sometimes show the soil’s fertility, If that the weeds o’erlive not the first crop— For then they are very difficult to stop.
And then he talk’d with him about Madrid, Constantinople, and such distant places; Where people always did as they were bid, Or did what they should not with foreign graces. Of coursers also spake they: Henry rid Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races; And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian, Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian.
And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs, And diplomatic dinners, or at other— For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs, As in freemasonry a higher brother. Upon his talent Henry had no doubts; His manner show’d him sprung from a high mother; And all men like to show their hospitality To him whose breeding matches with his quality.
At Blank-Blank Square;—for we will break no squares By naming streets: since men are so censorious, And apt to sow an author’s wheat with tares, Reaping allusions private and inglorious, Where none were dreamt of, unto love’s affairs, Which were, or are, or are to be notorious, That therefore do I previously declare, Lord Henry’s mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.
Also there bin another pious reason For making squares and streets anonymous; Which is, that there is scarce a single season Which doth not shake some very splendid house With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason— A topic scandal doth delight to rouse: Such I might stumble over unawares, Unless I knew the very chastest squares.
’Tis true, I might have chosen Piccadilly, A place where peccadillos are unknown; But I have motives, whether wise or silly, For letting that pure sanctuary alone. Therefore I name not square, street, place, until I Find one where nothing naughty can be shown, A vestal shrine of innocence of heart: Such are—but I have lost the London Chart.
At Henry’s mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square, Was Juan a recherche, welcome guest, As many other noble scions were; And some who had but talent for their crest; Or wealth, which is a passport every where; Or even mere fashion, which indeed ’s the best Recommendation; and to be well drest Will very often supersede the rest.
And since ‘there’s safety in a multitude Of counsellors,’ as Solomon has said, Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood;— Indeed we see the daily proof display’d In senates, at the bar, in wordy feud, Where’er collective wisdom can parade, Which is the only cause that we can guess Of Britain’s present wealth and happiness;—
But as ‘there’s safety’ grafted in the number ‘Of counsellors’ for men, thus for the sex A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber; Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex— Variety itself will more encumber. ’Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks; And thus with women: howsoe’er it shocks some’s Self-love, there’s safety in a crowd of coxcombs.
But Adeline had not the least occasion For such a shield, which leaves but little merit To virtue proper, or good education. Her chief resource was in her own high spirit, Which judged mankind at their due estimation; And for coquetry, she disdain’d to wear it: Secure of admiration, its impression Was faint, as of an every-day possession.
To all she was polite without parade; To some she show’d attention of that kind Which flatters, but is flattery convey’d In such a sort as cannot leave behind A trace unworthy either wife or maid;— A gentle, genial courtesy of mind, To those who were, or pass’d for meritorious, Just to console sad glory for being glorious;
Which is in all respects, save now and then, A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze Upon the shades of those distinguish’d men Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise, The praise of persecution; gaze again On the most favour’d; and amidst the blaze Of sunset halos o’er the laurel-brow’d, What can ye recognise?—a gilded cloud.
There also was of course in Adeline That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne’er can pass the equinoctial line Of any thing which nature would express; Just as a mandarin finds nothing fine,— At least his manner suffers not to guess That any thing he views can greatly please. Perhaps we have borrow’d this from the Chinese—
Perhaps from Horace: his ‘Nil admirari’ Was what he call’d the ‘Art of Happiness;’ An art on which the artists greatly vary, And have not yet attain’d to much success. However, ’tis expedient to be wary: Indifference certes don’t produce distress; And rash enthusiasm in good society Were nothing but a moral inebriety.
But Adeline was not indifferent: for (Now for a common-place!) beneath the snow, As a volcano holds the lava more Within—et caetera. Shall I go on?—No! I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor, So let the often-used volcano go. Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others, It hath been stirr’d up till its smoke quite smothers!
I’ll have another figure in a trice:— What say you to a bottle of champagne? Frozen into a very vinous ice, Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain, Yet in the very centre, past all price, About a liquid glassful will remain; And this is stronger than the strongest grape Could e’er express in its expanded shape:
’Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence; And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre A hidden nectar under a cold presence. And such are many—though I only meant her From whom I now deduce these moral lessons, On which the Muse has always sought to enter. And your cold people are beyond all price, When once you have broken their confounded ice.
But after all they are a North-West Passage Unto the glowing India of the soul; And as the good ships sent upon that message Have not exactly ascertain’d the Pole (Though Parry’s efforts look a lucky presage), Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal; For if the Pole ’s not open, but all frost (A chance still), ’tis a voyage or vessel lost.
And young beginners may as well commence With quiet cruising o’er the ocean woman; While those who are not beginners should have sense Enough to make for port, ere time shall summon With his grey signal-flag; and the past tense, The dreary ‘Fuimus’ of all things human, Must be declined, while life’s thin thread ’s spun out Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.
But heaven must be diverted; its diversion Is sometimes truculent—but never mind: The world upon the whole is worth the assertion (If but for comfort) that all things are kind: And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian, Of the two principles, but leaves behind As many doubts as any other doctrine Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.
The English winter—ending in July, To recommence in August—now was done. ’Tis the postilion’s paradise: wheels fly; On roads, east, south, north, west, there is a run. But for post-horses who finds sympathy? Man’s pity ’s for himself, or for his son, Always premising that said son at college Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.
The London winter ’s ended in July— Sometimes a little later. I don’t err In this: whatever other blunders lie Upon my shoulders, here I must aver My Muse a glass of weatherology; For parliament is our barometer: Let radicals its other acts attack, Its sessions form our only almanack.
When its quicksilver ’s down at zero,—lo Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage! Wheels whirl from Carlton palace to Soho, And happiest they who horses can engage; The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age; And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces, Sigh—as the postboys fasten on the traces.
They and their bills, ‘Arcadians both,’ are left To the Greek kalends of another session. Alas! to them of ready cash bereft, What hope remains? Of hope the full possession, Or generous draft, conceded as a gift, At a long date—till they can get a fresh one— Hawk’d about at a discount, small or large; Also the solace of an overcharge.
But these are trifles. Downward flies my lord, Nodding beside my lady in his carriage. Away! away! ‘Fresh horses!’ are the word, And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage; The obsequious landlord hath the change restored; The postboys have no reason to disparage Their fee; but ere the water’d wheels may hiss hence, The ostler pleads too for a reminiscence.
’Tis granted; and the valet mounts the dickey— That gentleman of lords and gentlemen; Also my lady’s gentlewoman, tricky, Trick’d out, but modest more than poet’s pen Can paint,—‘Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!’ (Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then, If but to show I’ve travell’d; and what ’s travel, Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?)
The London winter and the country summer Were well nigh over. ’Tis perhaps a pity, When nature wears the gown that doth become her, To lose those best months in a sweaty city, And wait until the nightingale grows dumber, Listening debates not very wise or witty, Ere patriots their true country can remember;— But there’s no shooting (save grouse) till September.
I’ve done with my tirade. The world was gone; The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made, Were vanish’d to be what they call alone— That is, with thirty servants for parade, As many guests, or more; before whom groan As many covers, duly, daily, laid. Let none accuse Old England’s hospitality— Its quantity is but condensed to quality.
Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline Departed like the rest of their compeers, The peerage, to a mansion very fine; The Gothic Babel of a thousand years. None than themselves could boast a longer line, Where time through heroes and through beauties steers; And oaks as olden as their pedigree Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree.
A paragraph in every paper told Of their departure: such is modern fame: ’Tis pity that it takes no farther hold Than an advertisement, or much the same; When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold. The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim— ‘Departure, for his country seat, to-day, Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.
‘We understand the splendid host intends To entertain, this autumn, a select And numerous party of his noble friends; ’Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct, With many more by rank and fashion deck’d; Also a foreigner of high condition, The envoy of the secret Russian mission.’
And thus we see—who doubts the Morning Post? (Whose articles are like the ‘Thirty-nine,’ Which those most swear to who believe them most)— Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordain’d to shine, Deck’d by the rays reflected from his host, With those who, Pope says, ‘greatly daring dine.’ ’Tis odd, but true,—last war the News abounded More with these dinners than the kill’d or wounded;—
As thus: ‘On Thursday there was a grand dinner; Present, Lords A. B. C.’—Earls, dukes, by name Announced with no less pomp than victory’s winner: Then underneath, and in the very same Column; date, ‘Falmouth. There has lately been here The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame, Whose loss in the late action we regret: The vacancies are fill’d up—see Gazette.’
To Norman Abbey whirl’d the noble pair,— An old, old monastery once, and now Still older mansion; of a rich and rare Mix’d Gothic, such as artists all allow Few specimens yet left us can compare Withal: it lies perhaps a little low, Because the monks preferr’d a hill behind, To shelter their devotion from the wind.
It stood embosom’d in a happy valley, Crown’d by high woodlands, where the Druid oak Stood like Caractacus in act to rally His host, with broad arms ’gainst the thunderstroke; And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally The dappled foresters—as day awoke, The branching stag swept down with all his herd, To quaff a brook which murmur’d like a bird.
Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its soften’d way did take In currents through the calmer water spread Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fix’d upon the flood.
Its outlet dash’d into a deep cascade, Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding, Its shriller echoes—like an infant made Quiet—sank into softer ripples, gliding Into a rivulet; and thus allay’d, Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw.
A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile (While yet the church was Rome’s) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen’d many an aisle. These last had disappear’d—a loss to art: The first yet frown’d superbly o’er the soil, And kindled feelings in the roughest heart, Which mourn’d the power of time’s or tempest’s march, In gazing on that venerable arch.
Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle, Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone; But these had fallen, not when the friars fell, But in the war which struck Charles from his throne, When each house was a fortalice, as tell The annals of full many a line undone,— The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain For those who knew not to resign or reign.
But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned, The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child, With her Son in her blessed arms, look’d round, Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil’d; She made the earth below seem holy ground. This may be superstition, weak or wild, But even the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.
A mighty window, hollow in the centre, Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings, Through which the deepen’d glories once could enter, Streaming from off the sun like seraph’s wings, Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter, The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire Lie with their hallelujahs quench’d like fire.
But in the noontide of the moon, and when The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Is musical—a dying accent driven Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again. Some deem it but the distant echo given Back to the night wind by the waterfall, And harmonised by the old choral wall:
Others, that some original shape, or form Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power (Though less than that of Memnon’s statue, warm In Egypt’s rays, to harp at a fix’d hour) To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm. Sad, but serene, it sweeps o’er tree or tower; The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such The fact:—I’ve heard it—once perhaps too much.
Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play’d, Symmetrical, but deck’d with carvings quaint— Strange faces, like to men in masquerade, And here perhaps a monster, there a saint: The spring gush’d through grim mouths of granite made, And sparkled into basins, where it spent Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles, Like man’s vain glory, and his vainer troubles.
The mansion’s self was vast and venerable, With more of the monastic than has been Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable, The cells, too, and refectory, I ween: An exquisite small chapel had been able, Still unimpair’d, to decorate the scene; The rest had been reform’d, replaced, or sunk, And spoke more of the baron than the monk.
Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join’d By no quite lawful marriage of the arts, Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined, Form’d a whole which, irregular in parts, Yet left a grand impression on the mind, At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts: We gaze upon a giant for his stature, Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.
Steel barons, molten the next generation To silken rows of gay and garter’d earls, Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation; And Lady Marys blooming into girls, With fair long locks, had also kept their station; And countesses mature in robes and pearls: Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely, Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.
Judges in very formidable ermine Were there, with brows that did not much invite The accused to think their lordships would determine His cause by leaning much from might to right: Bishops, who had not left a single sermon: Attorneys-general, awful to the sight, As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us) Of the ‘Star Chamber’ than of ‘Habeas Corpus.’
Generals, some all in armour, of the old And iron time, ere lead had ta’en the lead; Others in wigs of Marlborough’s martial fold, Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed: Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold: Nimrods, whose canvass scarce contain’d the steed; And here and there some stern high patriot stood, Who could not get the place for which he sued.
But ever and anon, to soothe your vision, Fatigued with these hereditary glories, There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian, Or wilder group of savage Salvatore’s; Here danced Albano’s boys, and here the sea shone In Vernet’s ocean lights; and there the stories Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.
Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine; There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light, Or gloomy Caravaggio’s gloomier stain Bronzed o’er some lean and stoic anchorite:— But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain, Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight: His bell-mouth’d goblet makes me feel quite Danish Or Dutch with thirst—What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.
O reader! if that thou canst read,—and know, ’Tis not enough to spell, or even to read, To constitute a reader; there must go Virtues of which both you and I have need;— Firstly, begin with the beginning (though That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed; Thirdly, commence not with the end—or, sinning In this sort, end at least with the beginning.
But, reader, thou hast patient been of late, While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. That poets were so from their earliest date, By Homer’s ‘Catalogue of ships’ is clear; But a mere modern must be moderate— I spare you then the furniture and plate.
The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket:—lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—’Tis no sport for peasants.
An English autumn, though it hath no vines, Blushing with Bacchant coronals along The paths, o’er which the far festoon entwines The red grape in the sunny lands of song, Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines; The claret light, and the Madeira strong. If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her, The very best of vineyards is the cellar.
Then, if she hath not that serene decline Which makes the southern autumn’s day appear As if ’twould to a second spring resign The season, rather than to winter drear, Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,— The sea-coal fires the ‘earliest of the year;’ Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow, As what is lost in green is gain’d in yellow.
And for the effeminate villeggiatura— Rife with more horns than hounds—she hath the chase, So animated that it might allure Saint from his beads to join the jocund race; Even Nimrod’s self might leave the plains of Dura, And wear the Melton jacket for a space: If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game.
The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey, Consisted of—we give the sex the pas— The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby; The Ladies Scilly, Busey;—Miss Eclat, Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O’Tabby, And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker’s squaw; Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep, Who look’d a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:
With other Countesses of Blank—but rank; At once the’lie’ and the ‘elite’ of crowds; Who pass like water filter’d in a tank, All purged and pious from their native clouds; Or paper turn’d to money by the Bank: No matter how or why, the passport shrouds The ‘passee’ and the past; for good society Is no less famed for tolerance than piety,—
That is, up to a certain point; which point Forms the most difficult in punctuation. Appearances appear to form the joint On which it hinges in a higher station; And so that no explosion cry ‘Aroint Thee, witch!’ or each Medea has her Jason; Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci) ‘Omne tulit punctum, quae miscuit utile dulci.’
I can’t exactly trace their rule of right, Which hath a little leaning to a lottery. I’ve seen a virtuous woman put down quite By the mere combination of a coterie; Also a so-so matron boldly fight Her way back to the world by dint of plottery, And shine the very Siria of the spheres, Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.
I have seen more than I’ll say:—but we will see How our villeggiatura will get on. The party might consist of thirty-three Of highest caste—the Brahmins of the ton. I have named a few, not foremost in degree, But ta’en at hazard as the rhyme may run. By way of sprinkling, scatter’d amongst these, There also were some Irish absentees.
There was Parolles, too, the legal bully, Who limits all his battles to the bar And senate: when invited elsewhere, truly, He shows more appetite for words than war. There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly Come out and glimmer’d as a six weeks’ star. There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker; And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.
There was the Duke of Dash, who was a—duke, ‘Ay, every inch a’ duke; there were twelve peers Like Charlemagne’s—and all such peers in look And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears For commoners had ever them mistook. There were the six Miss Rawbolds—pretty dears! All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set Less on a convent than a coronet.
There were four Honourable Misters, whose Honour was more before their names than after; There was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse, Whom France and Fortune lately deign’d to waft here, Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse; But the clubs found it rather serious laughter, Because—such was his magic power to please— The dice seem’d charm’d, too, with his repartees.
There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician, Who loved philosophy and a good dinner; Angle, the soi-disant mathematician; Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner. There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian, Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner; And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet, Good at all things, but better at a bet.
There was jack jargon, the gigantic guardsman; And General Fireface, famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill’d. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skill’d, That when a culprit came far condemnation, He had his judge’s joke for consolation.
Good company ’s a chess-board—there are kings, Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the world ’s a game; Save that the puppets pull at their own strings, Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same. My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings, Not stings, and flits through ether without aim, Alighting rarely:—were she but a hornet, Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it.
I had forgotten—but must not forget— An orator, the latest of the session, Who had deliver’d well a very set Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression Upon debate: the papers echoed yet With his debut, which made a strong impression, And rank’d with what is every day display’d— ‘The best first speech that ever yet was made.’
Proud of his ‘Hear hims!’ proud, too, of his vote And lost virginity of oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revell’d in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery, ‘His country’s pride,’ he came down to the country.
There also were two wits by acclamation, Longbow from Ireland, Strongbow from the Tweed, Both lawyers and both men of education; But Strongbow’s wit was of more polish’d breed: Longbow was rich in an imagination As beautiful and bounding as a steed, But sometimes stumbling over a potato,— While Strongbow’s best things might have come from Cato.
Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord; But Longbow wild as an AEolian harp, With which the winds of heaven can claim accord, And make a music, whether flat or sharp. Of Strongbow’s talk you would not change a word: At Longbow’s phrases you might sometimes carp: Both wits—one born so, and the other bred— This by his heart, his rival by his head.
If all these seem a heterogeneous mas To be assembled at a country seat, Yet think, a specimen of every class Is better than a humdrum tete-a-tete. The days of Comedy are gone, alas! When Congreve’s fool could vie with Moliere’s bete: Society is smooth’d to that excess, That manners hardly differ more than dress.
Our ridicules are kept in the back-ground— Ridiculous enough, but also dull; Professions, too, are no more to be found Professional; and there is nought to cull Of folly’s fruit; for though your fools abound, They’re barren, and not worth the pains to pull. Society is now one polish’d horde, Form’d of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning The scanty but right-well thresh’d ears of truth; And, gentle reader! when you gather meaning, You may be Boaz, and I—modest Ruth. Farther I’d quote, but Scripture intervening Forbids. Its great impression in my youth Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries, ‘That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies.’
But what we can we glean in this vile age Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist. I must not quite omit the talking sage, Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist, Who, in his common-place book, had a page Prepared each morn for evenings. ‘List, oh, list!’- ‘Alas, poor ghost!’—What unexpected woes Await those who have studied their bon-mots!
Firstly, they must allure the conversation By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch, But take an ell—and make a great sensation, If possible; and thirdly, never flinch When some smart talker puts them to the test, But seize the last word, which no doubt ’s the best.
Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts; The party we have touch’d on were the guests: Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts. I will not dwell upon ragouts or roasts, Albeit all human history attests That happiness for man—the hungry sinner!- Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
Witness the lands which ‘flow’d with milk and honey,’ Held out unto the hungry Israelites; To this we have added since, the love of money, The only sort of pleasure which requites. Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny; We tire of mistresses and parasites; But oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who would lose thee? When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!
The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot, Or hunt: the young, because they liked the sport— The first thing boys like after play and fruit; The middle-aged to make the day more short; For ennui is a growth of English root, Though nameless in our language:—we retort The fact for words, and let the French translate That awful yawn which sleep can not abate.
The elderly walk’d through the library, And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures, Or saunter’d through the gardens piteously, And made upon the hot-house several strictures, Or rode a nag which trotted not too high, Or on the morning papers read their lectures, Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix, Longing at sixty for the hour of six.
But none were ‘gene:’ the great hour of union Was rung by dinner’s knell; till then all were Masters of their own time—or in communion, Or solitary, as they chose to bear The hours, which how to pass is but to few known. Each rose up at his own, and had to spare What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast When, where, and how he chose for that repast.
The ladies—some rouged, some a little pale— Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode, Or walk’d; if foul, they read, or told a tale, Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad; Discuss’d the fashion which might next prevail, And settled bonnets by the newest code, Or cramm’d twelve sheets into one little letter, To make each correspondent a new debtor.
For some had absent lovers, all had friends. The earth has nothing like a she epistle, And hardly heaven—because it never ends. I love the mystery of a female missal, Which, like a creed, ne’er says all it intends, But full of cunning as Ulysses’ whistle, When he allured poor Dolon:—you had better Take care what you reply to such a letter.
Then there were billiards; cards, too, but no dice;— Save in the clubs no man of honour plays;— Boats when ’twas water, skating when ’twas ice, And the hard frost destroy’d the scenting days: And angling, too, that solitary vice, Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says; The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.
With evening came the banquet and the wine; The conversazione; the duet, Attuned by voices more or less divine (My heart or head aches with the memory yet). The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine; But the two youngest loved more to be set Down to the harp—because to music’s charms They added graceful necks, white hands and arms.
Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days, For then the gentlemen were rather tired) Display’d some sylph-like figures in its maze; Then there was small-talk ready when required; Flirtation—but decorous; the mere praise Of charms that should or should not be admired. The hunters fought their fox-hunt o’er again, And then retreated soberly—at ten.
The politicians, in a nook apart, Discuss’d the world, and settled all the spheres; The wits watch’d every loophole for their art, To introduce a bon-mot head and ears; Small is the rest of those who would be smart, A moment’s good thing may have cost them years Before they find an hour to introduce it; And then, even then, some bore may make them lose it.
But all was gentle and aristocratic In this our party; polish’d, smooth, and cold, As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic. There now are no Squire Westerns as of old; And our Sophias are not so emphatic, But fair as then, or fairer to behold. We have no accomplish’d blackguards, like Tom Jones, But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.
They separated at an early hour; That is, ere midnight—which is London’s noon: But in the country ladies seek their bower A little earlier than the waning moon. Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower— May the rose call back its true colour soon! Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters, And lower the price of rouge—at least some winters.