Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say-would you make those beauties quite so cheap? Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Her mind with these is gone, and with it go Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore forgive !-at every ball My wife now waltzes-and my daughters shall; My son (or stop-'tis needless to inquireThese little accidents should ne'er transpire; Some ages hence our genealogic tree Will wear as green a bough for him as me)— Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends, Grandsons for me-in heirs to all his friends. Notes to the Waltz. I. "Glance their many-twinkling feet."-GRAY. 2. To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephews, as the reader pleases :-the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day, "by Shrewsbury clock," without gaining anything in that country but the title of "the Great Lord," and "the Lord; which savours for profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being to whom "Te Deums" for carnage are the rankest blasphemy. It is to be presumed the general will one day return to his Sabine farm: there "To tame the genius of the stubborn plain. Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain !" The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more-we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the "great Lord's" Cincinnatian progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be "ploughing with dogs." By-the-by-one of this illustrious person's new titles is forgotten-it is, however, worth remembering-" Salvador del mundo!" credite, posteri! If this be the appellation annexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man who has not yet saved themquery-are they worth saving, even in this world? for according to the mildest modifications of any Christian creed, those three words make the odds much against them in the next-" Saviour of the world," quotha !—it were to be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it-his country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near connection between superstition and impiety, so far has its use, that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appella tion on a Protestant. I suppose next year he will be entitled the "Virgin Mary:" if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon. 3. [Among the addresses sent to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr Busby, which began by asking"When energising objects men pursue, What are the prodigies they cannot do?"] 4. The patriotic arson of our amiable allies cannot be sufficiently commended-nor subscribed for. Amongst other details omitted in the various despatches of our eloquent ambassador, he did not state (being too much occupied with the exploits of Colonel C, in swimming rivers frozen, and galloping over roads impassable), that one entire province perished by famine in the most melancholy manner, as follows:-In General Rostopchin's consummate conflagration, the consumption of tallow and train oil was so great, that the market was inadequate to the demand: and thus one hundred and thirty-three thousand persons were starved to death, by being reduced to wholesome diet! the lamplighters of London have since subscribed a pint (of oil) a piece, and the tallow-chandlers have unanimously voted a quantity of best moulds (four to the pound) to the relief of the surviving Scythians:-the scarcity will soon, by such exertions, and a proper attention to the quality rather than the quantity of provision, be totally alleviated. It is said, in return, that the untouched Ukraine has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for a day's meal to our suffering manufacturers. 5. Dancing girls who do for hire what Waltz doth gratis. 6. It cannot be complained now, as in the Lady Baussière's time, of the "Sieur de la Croix," that there be "no whiskers;" but how far these are indications of valour in the field, or elsewhere, may still be questionable. Much may be, and hath been, avouched on both sides. 66 In the olden time philosophers had whiskers, and soldiers none-Scipio himself was shaven -Hannibal thought his one eye handsome enough without a beard; but Adrian, the emperor, wore a beard (having warts on his chin, which neither the Empress Sabina nor even the courtiers could abide)--Turenne had whiskers, Marlborough none-Buonaparte is unwhiskered, the Regent whiskered; argal" greatness of mind and whiskers may or may not go together; but certainly the different occurrences, since the growth of the last mentioned, go further in behalf of whiskers than the anathema of Anselm did against long hair in the reign of Henry I.-Formerly, red was a favourite colour. See Lodowick Barrey's comedy of Ram Alley, 1661; Act I. Scene I. "Taffeta. Now for a wager-What coloured beard comes next by the window? 66 Adriana. A black man's, I think. Taffeta. I think not so: I think a red, for that is most in fashion." There is "nothing new under the sun;" but red, then a favourite, has now subsided into a favourite's colour. 7. An anachronism-Waltz and the battle of Austerlitz are before said to have opened the ball together; the bard means (if he means anything,) Waltz was not so much in vogue till the Regent attained the acme of his popularity. Waltz, the comet, whiskers, and the new government, illuminated heaven and earth, in all their glory, much about the same time: of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three continue to astonish us still.-Printer's Devil. 8. Amongst others a new ninepence-a creditable coin now forthcoming, worth a pound, in paper, at the fairest calculation. 9. "Oh that right should thus overcome might!" Who does not remember the "delicate investigation" in the "Merry Wives of Windsor?”— "Ford. Pray you, come near; if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you this? "Mrs Ford. What have you to do whither they bear it?-you were best meddle with buck-washing." IO. The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as he pleases-there are several dissylabic names at his service (being already in the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes;-a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing ones. II. "We have changed all that," says the Mock Doctor -'tis all gone-Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz., a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by force -and when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous. 12. In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous, question-literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a Waltz in Pera.-Vide Morier's Travels. |