A politician?—it was vain To quote the morning paper; Flat flattery was my only chance; And shawls upon her shoulder; I don't object to wealth or land; Some thousands, and a living. Sings sweetly, dances finely, Paints screens, subscribes to Sunday-schools, And sits a horse divinely. But to be linked in life to her The desperate man who tried it Might marry a Barometer And hang himself beside it! V. PORTRAIT OF A LADY .N THE EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, 1831. WHAT are you, lady?—naught is here To dub you Whig or damn you Tory; 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 Is 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; Anne 66 never saw a chin so long; And Laura thinks your dress "atrocious:" And Lady Jane, who now and then Is taken for the village steeple, Is sure you can't be four feet ten, And wonders at the taste of people." Soon pass the praises of a face; Swift fades the very best vermilion ; Fame rides a most prodigious pace; 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 When shines a new one on the morrow; That blessed the schoolboy 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, Was't in the north, or in the south A wooden or a silver ladle ? And was your first unconscious sleep By Brownie banned, or blessed by Fairy? And was your father called "Your Grace? And did he chat of commonplace? Her brave forefathers wore at Hastings? Where were you finished? tell me where? Of books and backboard, harp and physic? 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 sow The fashionable world's Arachne ? And do you love your brother James? And are you since the world began And don't you dote on Malibran ? And don't you think Tom Moore delightful? I see they've brought you flowers to-day; But carelessly you turn away From all the pinks and all the roses; Of one whose look as fondly answers? Of black and white, half joy, half sorrow? Are you to wait till you're of age? Or are you to be his to-morrow? Or do they bid you, in their scorn, Your pure and sinless flame to smother? Is he so very meanly born? Or are you married to another? Whate'er you are, at last, adieu ! Be prized by all who prize your beauty. APRIL FOOLS. -"passim Palantes error certo de tramite pellit; --HORACE. THIS day, beyond all contradiction, |