It is beyond a poet's skill To form the slightest notion whether We e'er shall walk through one quadrille, Or look upon one moon together. You're very pretty!—all the world Are talking of your bright brow's splendour, And of your locks, so softly curled, And of your hands, so white and slender; Some think you're blooming in Bengal ; Some say you're blowing in the City; Some know you're nobody at all : I only feel you're very pretty. But, bless my heart! it's very wrong; And Laura thinks your dress" atrocious; Soon pass the praises of a face; Swift fades the very best vermilion ; Fame rides a most prodigious pace; Oblivion follows on a pillion; And all who in these sultry rooms To-day have stared, and pushed, and fainted, Will soon forget your pearls and plumes As if they never had been painted. You'll be forgotten-as old debts By persons who are used to borrow; Forgotten as the sun that sets, When shines a new one on the morrow; Forgotten-like the luscious peach That blessed the school-boy last September; Forgotten-like a maiden speech, Which all men praise, but none remember. Yet, ere you sink into the stream That whelms alike sage, saint, and martyr, And soldier's sword, and minstrel's theme, And Canning's wit, and Gatton's charter, Here of the fortunes of your youth My fancy weaves her dim conjectures, cradle ? Was't in the north or in the south And were you christened Maud or Mary? And was your father called "your Grace?" Her brave forefathers wore at Hastings? Where were you finished? tell me where? Had you the ordinary share Of books and backboard, harp and physic? And did they bid you banish pride, And mind your Oriental tinting? And did you learn how Dido died, And who found out the art of printing? And are you fond of lanes and brooks- Or do you con the little books Which Baron Brougham and Vaux diffuses? Or do you love to knit and sew The fashionable world's Arachne? And do you love your brother James? And don't you dote on Malibran? And don't you think Tom Moore delightful? I see they've brought you flowers to-day; From all the pinks, and all the roses; Of one whose look as fondly answers And is he, fairest, in the Church? Or is he ain't he-in the Lancers? And is your love a motley page Are ? Of black and white, half joy, half sorrow? Or do they bid you, in their scorn, Or are you married to another? Whate'er you are, at last, adieu! I think it is your bounden duty Be prized by all who prize your beauty. WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 66 NUMBER ONE. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY, No. I," in a collection of one thousand five hundred and eighty-three works of art, at the Exbibition of the Royal Academy. M Y favourite, you must know, 'Mid the fifteen eighty-three Very far above the line Is this favourite of mine; You may see her smiling there O'er the crowds. If you bring a good lorgnette, My enchanting little star, Have you many satellites, Do you shine so bright o' nights, That there's nothing can eclipse "Number One?" Are you constant in your loves? Are you fickle, are you leal, I sincerely envy him Who the fortune had to limn In Who could study ev'ry grace I am sure it is a shame That your pretty face and frame, |