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LXXVIII.

Old Johnson shone out in as fine array
As he did one night when he went to the play;
Chambaud like a beau of King Charles’s day–
Lindley Murray in like conditions–
Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task,
Appear’d in a fancy dress and a mask;–
If you wish for similar copies, ask
For Howell and James’s Editions.

LXXIX.

Novels she read to amuse her mind,
But always the affluent match-making kind
That ends with Promessi Sposi,
And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand,
He could give cheque-mate to Coutts in the Strand;
So, along with a ring and posy,
He endows the Bride with Golconda off hand,
And gives the Groom Potosi.

LXXX.

Plays she perused–but she liked the best
Those comedy gentlefolks always possess’d
Of fortunes so truly romantic–
Of money so ready that right or wrong
It always is ready to go for a song,
Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong–
They ought to have purses as green and long
As the cucumber call’d the Gigantic.

LXXXI.

Then Eastern Tales she loved for the sake
Of the Purse of Oriental make,
And the thousand pieces they put in it–
But Pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold,
For Nature with her had lost its hold,
No field but the Field of the Cloth of Gold
Would ever have caught her foot in it.

LXXXII.

What more? She learnt to sing, and dance,
To sit on a horse, although he should prance,
And to speak a French not spoken in France
Any more than at Babel’s building–
And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks,
But her great delight was in Fancy Works
That are done with gold or gilding.

LXXXIII.

Gold! still gold!–the bright and the dead,
With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread
She work’d in gold, as if for her bread;
The metal had so undermined her,
Gold ran in her thoughts and fill’d her brain,
She was golden-headed as Peter’s cane
With which he walked behind her.

HER ACCIDENT.

LXXXIV.

The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg,
And a better nether lifted leg,
Was a very rich bay, call’d Banker–
A horse of a breed and a mettle so rare,–
By Bullion out of an Ingot mare,–
That for action, the best of figures, and air,
It made many good judges hanker.

LXXXV.

And when she took a ride in the Park,
Equestrian Lord, or pedestrian Clerk,
Was thrown in an amorous fever,
To see the Heiress how well she sat,
With her groom behind her, Bob or Nat,
In green, half smother’d with gold, and a hat
With more gold lace than beaver.

LXXXVI.

And then when Banker obtain’d a pat,
To see how he arch’d his neck at that!
He snorted with pride and pleasure!
Like the Steed in the fable so lofty and grand,
Who gave the poor Ass to understand
That he didn’t carry a bag of sand,
But a burden of golden treasure.

LXXXVII.

A load of treasure?–alas! alas!
Had her horse been fed upon English grass,
And shelter’d in Yorkshire spinneys,
Had he scour’d the sand with the Desert Ass,
Or where the American whinnies–
But a hunter from Erin’s turf and gorse,
A regular thoroughbred Irish horse,
Why, he ran away, as a matter of course,
With a girl worth her weight in guineas!

LXXXVIII.

Mayhap ’tis the trick of such pamper’d nags
To shy at the sight of a beggar in rags,–
But away, like the bolt of a rabbit,–
Away went the horse in the madness of fright,
And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight–
Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light,
Or only the skirt of her habit?