LI.

Oh that I had the art of easy writing

What should be easy reading! could I scale Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing

Those pretty poems never known to fail,

How quickly would I print (the world delighting)

A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale;

And sell you, mix'd with western sentimentalism,

Some samples of the finest Orientalism.

LII

But I am but a nameless sort of

person,

(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)

And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,

The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels,

And when I can't find that, I put a worse on,
Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils;
I've half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion-so here goes.

LIII.

The Count and Laura made their new arrangement,

Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do, For half a dozen years without estrangement; They had their little differences, too;

Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant: In such affairs there probably are few

Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble,

From sinners of high station to the rabble.

LIV.

But on the whole, they were a happy pair,

As happy as unlawful love could make them;

The gentleman was fond, the lady fair,

Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to break

them:

The world beheld them with indulgent air;

The pious only wish'd " the devil take them!"

He took them not; he very often waits,

And leaves old sinners to be young

ones' baits.

LV.

But they were young: Oh! what without our youth

Would love be! What would youth be without love! Youth lends it joy, and sweetness, vigour, truth,

Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above;

But, languishing with

years, it

grows uncouth

One of few things experience don't improve,

Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows

Are always so preposterously jealous.

LVI.

It was the Carnival, as I have said

Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so

Laura the usual preparations made,

Which do when you

your

mind's made up to go

To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,

Spectator, or partaker in the show;

The only difference known between the cases
Is-here, we have six weeks of "varnished faces."

LVII.

Laura, when drest, was (as I sang before)

A pretty woman as was ever seen, Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door,

Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,

With all the fashions which the last month wore, Coloured, and silver paper leav'd between

That and the title-page, for fear the press

Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.

LVIII.

They went to the Ridotto;-'tis a hall

Where people dance, and sup, and dance again; Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqu'd ball, But that's of no importance to my strain; "Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,

Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain: The company is "mix'd" (the phrase I quote is, As much as saying, they're below your notice);

LIX.

For a "mixt company" implies that, save

Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more, Whom you may bow to without looking grave, The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore

Of public places, where they basely brave
The fashionable stare of twenty score

Of well-bred persons, called "the World ;" but I,
Although I know them, really don't know why.

LX.

This is the case in England; at least was
During the dynasty of Dandies, now
Perchance succeeded by some other class
Of imitated imitators:-how

Irreparably soon decline, alas!

The demagogues of fashion: all below

Is frail; how easily the world is lost

By love, or war, and now and then by frost!