The last humble solace I wait,
Wou'd Heav'n but indulge me the boon, May some dream, less unkind than my fate, In a vision transport me to town.
"Clarissa, meantime, weds a beau,
Who decks her in golden array;
She's the finest at ev'ry fine show,
And flaunts it at Park and at Play:
Whilst I am here left in the lurch,
Forgot, and secluded from view;
Unless when some bumkin at church
Stares wistfully over the pew."
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.
SOLILOQUY OF A BEAUTY IN THE
COUNTRY.
WAS night; and Flavia to her room retir'd,
With evening chat and sober reading
tir'd;
There, melancholy, pensive, and alone,
She meditates on the forsaken town:
On her rais'd arm reclin'd her drooping head,
She sigh'd, and thus in plaintive accents said:
'Ah, what avails it to be young and fair:
To move with negligence, to dress with care? What worth have all the charms our pride can boast,
If all in envious solitude are lost?
Where none admire, 'tis useless to excell;
Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle;
Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shewn ;
Both most are valued, where they best are known.
With every grace of nature or of art,
We cannot break one stubborn country heart;
The brutes, insensible, our power defy:
To love, exceeds a 'squire's capacity.
The town, the court, is Beauty's proper sphere;
That is our Heaven, and we are angels there:
In that gay circle thousand Cupids rove,
The court of Britain is the court of Love.
How has my conscious heart with triumph glow'd,
How have my sparkling eyes their transport shew'd,
At each distinguish'd birth-night ball, to see
The homage, due to Empire, paid to me!
When every eye was fix'd on me alone,
And dreaded mine more than the Monarch's frown;
When rival statesmen for my favour strove,
Less jealous in their power than in their love.
Chang'd is the scene; and all my glories die,
Like flowers transplanted to a colder sky:
Lost is the dear delight of giving pain,
The tyrant joy of hearing slaves complain.
In stupid indolence my life is spent,
Supinely calm, and dully innocent:
Unblest I wear my useless time away;
Sleep (wretched maid!) all night, and dream all
Go at set hours to dinner, and to prayer;
For dullness ever must be regular.
Now with mamma at tedious whist I play;
Now without scandal drink insipid tea;
Or in the garden breathe the country air,
Secure from meeting any tempter there;
From books to work, from work to books, I rove,
And am (alas!) at leisure to improve!—
Is this the life a beauty ought to lead?
Were eyes so radiant only made to read?
These fingers, at whose touch e'en age would glow,
Are these of use to nothing but to sew?
Sure erring Nature never could design
To form a housewife in a mould like mine?
O Venus, queen and guardian of the fair,
Attend propitious to thy votary's prayer:
Let me revisit the dear town again:
Let me be seen!—could I that wish obtain,
All other wishes my own power would gain."
GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON.
ICCADILLY! shops, palaces, bustle,
The whirring of wheels, and the mur-
mur of trees;
By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,
Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly!
Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is streaming,
young Love is watching, and old Love is dreaming,
And Beauty is whirling to conquest, where shrilly Cremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly!
Bright days, when a stroll is my afternoon wont, And I meet all the people I do know, or don't :Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie
No wonder some pilgrims affect Piccadilly!
See yonder pair riding, how fondly they saunter,
She smiles on her poet, whose heart's in a canter!
Some envy
her spouse, and some covet her filly,
He envies them both,-he's an ass, Piccadilly!
Were I such a bride, with a slave at my feet,
I would choose me a house in my favourite street;
Yes or no-I would carry my point, willy-nilly:
If "no,"-pick a quarrel; if "yes,"-Piccadilly!
From Primrose balcony, long ages ago,
"Old Q." sat at gaze,-who now passes below?
A frolicksome statesman, the Man of the Day;
A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay;
Never darling of fortune more manfully trod,
Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod:
Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave
it more chilly-
"Old P. or old Q.,-I must quit Piccadilly ?"
Life is chequer'd; a patchwork of smiles and of frowns ;
We value its ups, let us muse on its downs; There's a side that is bright, it will then turn us
One turn, if a good one, deserves yet another. These downs are delightful, these ups are not hilly,Let us turn one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly. FREDERICK LOCKER.
ST. JAMES'S STREET.
T. JAMES'S STREET, of classic fame,
The finest people throng it.
St. James's Street? I know the name,
I think I've pass'd along it!
Why, that's where Saccharissa sigh'd
When Waller read his ditty;
Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died,
And Alvanley was witty.
A famous street! To yonder Park
Young Churchill stole in class-time ;
Come, gaze on fifty men of mark,
And then recall the past time.
The plats at White's, the play at Crock's,
The bumpers to Miss Gunning;
The bonhomie of Charlie Fox,
And Selwyn's ghastly funning.
The dear old street of clubs and cribs,
As north and south it stretches,
Still seems to smack of Rolliad squibs,
And Gillray's fiercer sketches;
The quaint old dress, the grand old style,
The mots, the racy stories;
The wine, the dice, the wit, the bile-
The hate of Whigs and Tories.
At dusk, when I am strolling there,
Dim forms will rise around me ;-
Lepel flits past me in her chair,
And Congreve's airs astound me !
And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite,
Look'd kindly when I met her;
I shook my head, perhaps,—but quite
Forgot to quite forget her.
The street is still a lively tomb
For rich, and gay, and clever; The crop of dandies bud and bloom, And die as fast as ever.
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