His marriage deeds, and cordon bleu,* Requiring but a shot at one, A smile at t'other, and 'twas done ! 'That Wig" (said Monsieur, while his brow Rose proudly,) "is existing now; That Grand Perruque, amid the fall Of every other Royal glory, With curls erect survives them all, And tells in every hair their story. Of Kingly Right can France demand? To guard it, while a curl shall stand? The Imperial Cossack recommends; "Louis XIV. fit présent à la Vierge de son cordon bleu, que l'on conserve soigneusement, et lui envoya ensuite, son Contrat de Mariage et le Traité des Pyrénées, magnifiquement relié."-Mémoires, Anecdotes pour servir, &c. "Le The learned author of Recherches Historiques sur les Perruques says that the Board consisted but of Forty-the same number as the Academy. plus beau tems des perruques fut celui où Louis XIV. commenca à porter, luiinême, perruque; ... On ignore l'époque où se fit cette révolution; mais on sait qu'elle engagea Louis le Grand à y donner ses soins paternels, en créant, en 1656, quarante charges de perruquiers, suivant la cour et en 1673, il forma un corps de deux cents perruquiers pour la Ville de Paris."-P. 111. A celebrated Coiffeur of the present day. Thinking such small concessions sage, And do what best that spirit flatters, That we too, much-wronged Bourbons, know We have conceded the New Friz! Thus armed, ye gallant Ultras, say,' Can men, can Frenchmen, fear the fray? With this proud relic in our van, And D'Angoulême our worthy leader, Let rebel Spain do all she can, Let recreant England arm and feed her,Urged by that pupil of Hunt's school, That Radical, Lord Liverpool France can have nought to fear-far from it- The wig of Louis, like a Comet, Cry Vive la guerre-et la Perruque! EXTRACTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TRAVELLING MEMBER OF THE POCO-CURANTE SOCIETY, 1819. INTRODUCTORY RHYMES. Different Attitudes in which Authors compose.-Bayes, Henry Stephens, Herodotus, &c.-Writing in Bed-in the Fields.-Plato and Sir Richard Blackmore-Fiddling with Gloves and Twigs.-Madame de Staël.Rhyming on the Road, in an old Calèche. WHAT various attitudes and ways, And tricks, we authors have in writing! While some, like Henry Stephens, pour out And Richerand, a French physician, At home may, at their counters, stop; * Pleraque sua carmina equitans composuit. -Paravicin. Singular. "Mes pensées dorment, si je les assis."-Montaigne. Animus eorum qui in aperto aere ambulant, attollitur.-Pliny. And, verily, I think they're right— For, many a time, on summer eves, Just at that closing hour of light, When, like an Eastern Prince, who leaves The Sun bids farewell to the flowers, Whose heads are sunk, whose tears are flowing Even I have felt, beneath those beams, When wandering through the fields alone, If thus I've felt, how must they feel, The few, whom genuine Genius warms; Shadows of things divine appear, But this reminds me I digress ; For Plato, too, produced, 'tis said, And (if the wits don't do him wrong) Now warbling forth a lofty song, Now murdering the young Niobes. There was a hero 'mong the Danes, Nine charming odes, which, if you'll look, You'll find preserved, with a translation, *The only authority I know for imputing this practice to Plato and Herodo tus, is a Latin Poem by M. de Valois on his Bed, in which he says:Lucifer Herodotum vidit Vesperque cubantem, Desedit totos heic Plato sæpe dies. + Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician, as well as a bad poet. Eâdem curâ nec minores inter cruciatus animam infelicem agenti fuit Asbiorno Pruda Danico heroi, cum Bruso ipsum, intestina extrahens, immaniter torqueret, tunc enim novem carmina cecinit, &c.-Bartholin. de Causis Contempt. Mort In short, 'twere endless to recite The various modes in which men write. Some wits are only in the mind, When beaus and belles are round them parting; Some, when they dress for dinner, find Their muse and valet both in waiting; And manage at the self-same time, Some bards there are who cannot scribble As if the hidden founts of Fancy, By mystic tricks of rhabdomancy. To the odd way in which I write- My verses, I suspect, not ill Charged me some twenty Naps at Milan) In which I wrote them-patched up things, On weak, but rather easy springs, Jingling along, with little in 'em, And (where the road is not so rough, Too ready to take fire I own, And then, too, nearest a break-down; I haven't, in falling, far to go. With all this, light, and swift, and airy, And carrying (which is best of all) Of the Reviews to overhaul. * Made of paper, twisted up like a fan or feather. † Madame de Staël Custom-House officers. |