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 Danish
Or Dutch with thirst. What ho! a flask of Rhenish.
73
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 least with the beginning.
74
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.
75
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 nutbrown partridges! Ah brilliant pheasants!
And ah ye poachers!’Tis no sport for peasants.
76
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.
77
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 indoor comforts still she hath a mine,
And sea coal fires, the earliest of the year.
Without doors too she may compete in mellow,
And what is lost in green is gained in yellow.
78
And for the effeminate villeggiatura,
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
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.
79
The noble guests assembled at the Abbey
Consisted of– we give the sex the pas –
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, the Countess Crabbey,
The ladies Scilly, Busey, Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O’Tabbey,
And Mrs Rabbi, the rich banker’s squaw,
Also the Honourable Mrs Sleep,
Who looked a white lamb, yet was a black sheep,
80
With other Countesses of Blank – but rank,
At once the lee 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 passé and the passed, for good society
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety;
81
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.
82
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.
83
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, scattered amongst these,
There also were some Irish absentees.
84
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 glimmered as a six-weeks’ star.
There was Lord Pyrrho too, the great freethinker,
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.
85
There was the Duke of Dash, 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 Rawbolds – pretty dears,
All song and sentiment – whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet.
86
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 deigned 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 seemed charmed too with his repartees.
87
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.
88
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 killed.
There was the waggish Welch Judge, Jefferies Hardsman,
In his grave office so office skilled
That when a culprit came for condemnation
He had his judge’s joke for consolation.
89
Good company’s a chessboard: 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.
90
I had forgotten, but must not forget,
An orator, the latest of the session,
Who had delivered well a very set
Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression
Upon debate. The papers echoed yet
With this début, which made a strong impression
And ranked with what is everyday displayed,
‘The best first speech that ever yet was made’.
91
Proud of his ‘hear hims!’ proud too of his vote
And lost virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote),
He revelled 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.
92
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 polished 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.
93
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.
94
If all these seem an heterogeneous mass
To be assembled at a country seat,
Yet think, a specimen of every class
Is better than an humdrum tête à tête.
The days of comedy are gone, alas,
When Congreve’s fool could vie with Moliere’s bête.
Society is smoothed to that excess
That manners hardly differ more than dress.
95
Our ridicules are kept in the background,
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 polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
96
But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning
The scanty but right-well thrashed ears of truth.
And gentle reader, when you gather meaning,
You may be Boaz, and I, modest Ruth.
Further I’d quote, but Scripture intervening
Forbids. A great impression in my youth
Was made by Mrs Adams, where she cries
That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies.
97
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 commonplace book had a page
Prepared each morn for evenings. ‘List, oh list!
Alas, poor Ghost!’ What unexpected woes
Await those who have studied their bons mots!
98
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.
99
Lord Henry and his Lady were the hosts;
The party we have touched 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.
100
Witness the lands which ‘flowed 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?
101
The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot
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 cannot abate.
102
The elderly walked through the library
And tumbled books or criticized the pictures,
Or sauntered through the gardens piteously
And made upon the hothouse 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.
103
But none were gêné. 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.
104
The ladies, some rouged, some a little pale,
Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode
Or walked; if foul, they read or told a tale,
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad,
Discussed the fashion which might next prevail
And settled bonnets by the newest code,
Or crammed twelve sheets into one little letter,
To make each correspondent a new debtor.
105
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.
106
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 destroyed 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.
107
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.
108
Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days,
For then the gentlemen were rather tired)
Displayed 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.
109
The politicians in a nook apart
Discussed the world and settled all the spheres.
The wits watched 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.
110
But all was gentle and aristocratic
In this our party, polished, 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 accomplished blackguards like Tom Jones,
But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.
111
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 colours soon!
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters
And lower the price of rouge – at least some winters.
Canto XIV
1
If from great Nature’s or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss,
But then’twould spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny,
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.
2
But System doth reverse the Titan’s breakfast
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
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