t red from Waterloo,
Which cut her lord's half-shattered sceptre through,
Is offered and accepted? Could a slave
Do more? or less?--and _he_ in his new grave! 760
Her eye--her cheek--betray no inward strife,
And the _Ex_-Empress grows as _Ex_ a wife!
So much for human ties in royal breasts!
Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?
XVIII.
But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home,
And sketch the group--the picture's yet to come.
My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt,
She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt![350]
While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman! 770
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar,
While all the Common Council cry "Claymore!"[351]
To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt
Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt,
She burst into a laughter so extreme,
That I awoke--and lo! it was _no_ dream!
Here, reader, will we pause:--if there's no harm in
This first--you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen."
B. J^n 10^th^ 1823.
FOOTNOTES:
[dv] {535} _Annus Mirabilis_.--MS.
[253] [It has been suggested by Dr. Garnett (late keeper of the Printed
Books in the British Museum) that the motto to _The Age of Bronze_ may,
possibly, contain a reference to the statue of Achilles, "inscribed by
the women of England to Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave
companions in arms," which was erected in Hyde Park, June 18, 1822.]
[dw] {541} _Want nothing of the little, but their_ will.--[MS.]
[254] [_Measure for Measure_, act ii. sc. 2, line 121.]
[255] [Fox used to say, "_I_ never want _a_ word, but Pitt never wants
_the_ word."]
[256] [The grave of Fox, in Westminster Abbey is within eighteen inches
of that of Pitt. Compare--
"Nor yet suppress the generous sigh.
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.
Where,--taming thought to human pride!--
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier," etc.
_Marmion_, by Sir Walter Scott, Introduction to
Canto I. lines 125-128, 184-188.
Compare, too, Macaulay on Warren Hastings: "In that temple of silenc
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