Each new, quite new tricks), (1) -(except some ancient New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! With vests or ribands-deck'd alike in hue, New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue : So saith the muse: my - (2), what say you? Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Gloster's mien, (1) “Oh that right should thus overcome might!" Who does not remember the " delicate investigation" in the "Merry Wives of Windsor ?"— "Ford. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you this? "Mrs. Ford. What have you to do whither they bear it? — you were best meddle with buck-washing." (2) The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as he pleasesthere are several dissyllabic names at his service (being already in the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes: a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing ones. (3) "We have changed all that," says the Mock Doctor- 'tis all gone - Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how Round all the confines of the yielded waist, The other to the shoulder no less royal Ascending with affection truly loyal! Thus front to front the partners move or stand, Morning Post" (Or if for that impartial print too late, Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date) Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow, Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, The breast thus publicly resign'd to man, -if it can. women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by forceand when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous. (1) In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous, question -literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera. Vide Morier's Travels. O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, (1) and many more! [will And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes; But ye - who never felt a single thought For what our morals are to be, or ought; Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say-would you make those beauties quite so cheap? (1) [I once heard Sheridan repeat, in a ball-room, some verses, which he had lately written on waltzing; and of which I remember the following "With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance, Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance. In such sweet posture our first parents moved, While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved, Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false, Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz. This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal authority on the subject of waltzing, was, at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles. - MOORE.] Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Another's ardent look without regret ; Approach the lip which all, without restraint, Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore, forgive !—at every ball My wife now waltzes and my daughters shall; Will wear as green a bough for him as me)— THE GIAOUR; A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE.(1) "One fatal remembrance- one sorrow that throws MOORE. It (1) [The "Giaour" was published in May 1813, and abundantly sustained the impression created by the two first cantos of Childe Harold. is obvious that in this, the first of his romantic narratives, Lord Byron's versification reflects the admiration he always avowed for Mr. Coleridge's "Christabel," — the irregular rhythm of which had already been adopted in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." The fragmentary style of the composition was suggested by the then new and popular "Columbus " of Mr. Rogers. As to the subject, it was not merely by recent travel that the author had familiarized himself with Turkish history. "Old Knolles," he said at Missolonghi, a few weeks before his death, "was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much influence on my future wishes to visit the Levant, and gave, perhaps, the oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." In the margin of his copy of Mr. D'Israeli's essay on "The Literary Character," we find the following note:-"Knolles, Cantemir, De Tott, Lady M. W. Montague, Hawkins's translation from Mignot's History of the Turks, the Arabian Nights. All travels or histories, or books upon the East, I could meet with, I had read, as well as Ricaut, before I was ten years old." - E.] |