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LXXV.

The mellow autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket:-lynx-like is his aim ;

Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers!-'Tis no sport for peasants.

LXXVI.

in the grape

sunny

An English autumn, though it hath no vines,
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along
The paths, o'er which the far festoon entwines
The red
lands of song,
Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines;
The claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her,
The very best of vineyards is the cellar.

LXXVII.

Then, if she hath not that serene decline
Which makes the southern autumn's day appear
As if 't would to a second spring resign
~The season, rather than to winter drear,—
Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,-
The sea-coal fires, the "earliest of the year;"(1)

(1) ["Gray's omitted stanza

'Here scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble here,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'

is as fine as any in the Elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart to omit it."-B. Diary, Feb. 1821.]

Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gain'd in yellow.

LXXVIII.

And for the effeminate villeggiatura —

[chase,

Rife with more horns than hounds-she hath the

So animated that it might allure a

Saint from his beads to join the jocund race; Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura, (1) And wear the Melton jacket (2) for a space: If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game.

LXXIX.

The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of- we give the sex the pas―
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;
The Ladies Scilly, Busey;-Miss Eclat,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby,
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw;

Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep,

Who look'd a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:

LXXX.

With other Countesses of Blank-but rank;
At once the "lie" and the "élite" of crowds;
Who
pass like water filter'd in a tank,

All purged and pious from their native clouds;

(1) In Assyria.

(2) [For a graphic account of Melton Mowbray, the head-quarters of the English chase, see Quarterly Review, vol. xlvii. p. 216.]

Or paper turn'd to money by the Bank:

No matter how or why, the passport shrouds The "passée" and the past; for good society Is no less famed for tolerance than piety,—

LXXXI.

That is, up to a certain point; which point
Forms the most difficult in punctuation.
Appearances appear to form the joint

On which it hinges in a higher station;
And so that no explosion cry "Aroint

Thee, witch!" (1) or each Medea has her Jason; Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci) "Omne tulit punctum, quæ miscuit utile dulci.”

LXXXII.

I can't exactly trace their rule of right,
Which hath a little leaning to a lottery.
I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite
By the mere combination of a coterie ;
Also a so-so matron boldly fight

Her way back to the world by dint of plottery, And shine the very Siria (2) of the spheres, Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.

LXXXIII.

I have seen more than I'll say:-but we will see How our villeggiatura will get on.

The party might consist of thirty-three

Of highest caste-the Brahmins of the ton.

(1) [" Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries."- Macbeth.] (2) Siria, i. e. bitch-star.

I have named a few, not foremost in degree,
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.
By way of sprinkling, scatter'd amongst these
There also were some Irish absentees.

LXXXIV.

There was Parolles, too, the legal bully,
Who limits all his battles to the bar

And senate: when invited elsewhere, truly,
He shows more appetite for words than war.
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had

newly

Come out and glimmer'd as a six weeks' star There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker; And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.

LXXXV.

There was the Duke of Dash, who was a-duke,

66

Ay, every inch a" duke; there were twelve peers Like Charlemagne's-and all such peers in look And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears For commoners had ever them mistook.

There were the six Miss Rawbolds- pretty dears! All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set Less on a convent than a coronet.

LXXXVI.

There were four Honourable Misters, whose Honour was more before their names than after; There was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse, [here, Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft

Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse;

But the clubs found it rather serious laughter, Because—such was his magic power to pleaseThe dice seem'd charm'd, too, with his repartees.

LXXXVII.

There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician,
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner;
Angle, the soi-disant mathematician;

Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.
There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian,
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner;
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,

Good at all things, but better at a bet.

LXXXVIII.

There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;
And General Fireface, famous in the field,
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman,
Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd.
There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies
Hardsman, (1)

In his grave office so completely skill'd,
That when a culprit came for condemnation,
He had his judge's joke for consolation.

LXXXIX.

Good company's a chess-board-there are kings, Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the world's a game;

Save that the puppets pull at their own strings, Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same.

(1) [George Hardinge, Esq., M.P., one of the Welsh judges, died in 1816. His works were collected, in 1818, by Mr. Nichols.]

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