Others in wigs of Marlborough’s martial fold,
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed:1020
Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold:
Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contained the steed;
And, here and there, some stern high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
LXXI
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:1021
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.
LXXII
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-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish1022
Or Dutch with thirst—What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.1023
LXXIII
Oh, 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 last with the beginning.
LXXIV
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.
LXXV
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 in his aim;
Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers!—’Tis no sport for peasants.
LXXVI
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;1024
The Claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her,
The very best of vineyards is the cellar.
LXXVII
Then, if she hath not that serene decline
Which makes the southern Autumn’s day appear
As if ’t would 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,1025 the “earliest of the year;”1026
Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gained in yellow.
LXXVIII
And for the effeminate villeggialura—
Rife with more horns than hounds—she hath the chase,
So animated that it might allure a
Saint from his beads to join the jocund race:
Even Nimrod’s self might leave the plains of Dura,1027
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.1028
LXXIX
The noble guests,1029 assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of—we give the sex the pas—
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;10301031
The Ladies Scilly, Busey;—Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O’Tabby,
And Mrs. Rabbi,1032 the rich banker’s squaw;
Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep,
Who looked a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:
LXXX
With other Countesses of Blank—but rank;
At once the “lie”1033 and the élite of crowds;
Who pass like water filtered in a tank,
All purged and pious from their native clouds;
Or paper turned to money by the Bank:
No matter how or why, the passport shrouds
The passée and the past; for good society
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety—
LXXXI
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!”1034 or each Medea has her Jason;
Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)1035
“Omne tulit punctum, quae miscuit utile dulci.”1036
LXXXII
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,1037
And shine the very Siria,1038 of the spheres,
Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.
LXXXIII
I have seen more than I’ll say:—but we will see1039
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, scattered amongst these,
There also were some Irish absentees.
LXXXIV
There was Parolles,1040 too, the legal bully,1041
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 glimmered as a six weeks’ star.
There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker;
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.
LXXXV
There was the Duke of Dash,1042 who was a—duke,
“Aye, 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
