VII.

He is, I take it, if the truth were known,
Merely the brother uterine of Nap.
Old Madame Mere, no doubt, would never own,
Perhaps she knew not, who begot the chap;
But in the family he's quite alone,

A worthy creature, ignorant of trap.
During his reign in Holland, the good body
Acquired a taste for smoking and gin toddy.

VIII.

No more a monarch, Louis draws from these
A consolation and a blessed balm
In the retirement of domestic ease,

In stupid meditation's drowsy calm.
Beneath the shadow of thy Switzer trees

Sleep on, thou exiled lord of Amsterdam! In that long pipe a harmless sceptre find, Enjoy your schnaps, give sorrow to the wind.

IX.

And if the stories that they tell be true,

About your sterner brother and the queen, There's others as ill off,-aye, not a few; In Italy the like has often been. Such doings seem most horrible to you,

Chiefly because the world you have not seen. By studying the Poems of Leigh Hunt, You'd learn to put a smoother face upon't.

X.

But to my tale-in Louis' capital,

In Amsterdam, there lived a certain widow, The relic of Mynheer Van Schlappsendal,

Over whose bier two years agone she sighed, "Oh!" Altho' she was not what genteel we call,

Dutch Virtuosi thought her quite the Dido;
For she was a plump, jolly, juicy lady,
And had, moreover, plenty of the ready.

XI.

Whoe'er, with knowing optics, hath beheld
The pictures of Rembrandt, or Gerard Douw ;
Of Van der Heyden, or of Van de Velde;

Of Keyser, Jan Stein, Mieris, Metzu,
Vandyke, Frank Hals, or him that all excelled,
In power, in luxury, and in beauty too,
The peerless Rubens will at once discover
What charms inflame the Dutch or Flemish lover.

XII.

The slender waist, most delicate, most slim,
Into the gentle bosom swelling slow;
The airy elegance of the light limb;

The little feet, that twinkle as they go;
The small and tapering arm, compact and trim,
These lovelinesses seem to him-so so ;-
In short, we are supposed, by Netherlanders,
To be, in point of taste, the merest ganders.

XIII.

The mistress of Mynheer must be a bouncer,
Fat is the chief commodity he seeks,

It must take scores and scores of yards to flounce her; She must have pounds of chin, and pounds of cheeks;

Shemust have fists would knock a bullock down, sir,

The Μέγεθος και καλλος of the Greeks. If she sits down upon the grass, she leaves A mark as broad as any of her beeves.

Her arms were chubby, and her bosom plump,
And every thing upon a liberal scale,
Yet she could frisk about, hop-step-and-jump,
And waltz it, or fandango without fail ;-
In short, she was, though fat, as fine a romp
As e'er an English missy, slim and pale.
She was the pride and glory of the town,
And made a conquest of one Mynheer Braun,
XX.

Originally, I have heard, from Memel,

But settled long in Holland as a banker; In most things he a native did resemble, He had a Dutchman's paunch, a Dutchman'slank hair.

The moment he beheld this charming female,

Love in his heart infixed a triple anchor, And he resolved that instant, coute ce qui'l coute, To give an ardent opening to his suit.

XXXV.

Three or four tutors, and as many minors;

Pupils and pedagogues upon a par

In every article, except the shiners;

As dull as commonly such people are, Horn ignorant, God knows, but all good diners, Travelling on the conclusion of the war, Staring about as if they'd got upon Astolfo's hippogrifo with St John.

XXXVI.

I wonder what makes decent people send
Their younkers all through Italy, and France,
And Germany, and Holland. As a friend,

One word of wholesome counsel I'll advance :
Raw lubber lads are not much like to mend,
Capering about like heroes of Romance,
Picking acquaintances with foreign belles,
And passing all their evenings at the hells.

XXXVII.

About the streets at home they're quite a drug. These gentlemen that have performed the tour, You'll recognise them by a constant shrug,

An awkward copy of a Gascon boor;
Or, it may be, that at their heels they lug
Some Naples grayhound-pretty to be sure,
But chiefly prized by its Signor Inglese,
Because it was the gift of some Marchesa.
XXXVIII.

A little paltry store of broken French is
The principal acquirement of the beau,
Patch work, which to all purposes he wrenches,
In shewing off before the untravelled low;
Two or three stories of Venetian wenches,

A few false medals purchased on the Po-
One so provided, to our home-spun nation
Is certainly a blessed importation.

THE fashionable way to make a poem,

Like other fashions, has seen may changes; Readers are now contented if you show 'em

The mere elite of what within your range is; In short, without apology or proem,

No rule of modern gout your muse infringes, Although whole days, weeks, years, she hurries by Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Wilson-why not I?

II.

We've quite exploded now the tedious style
Of writing-of describing every thing;
Great Pegasus no longer has the toil,

Like high-road hackney brutes, of journeying Through many a weary, dusty, viewless mile.

O'er open downs and wilds he now may fling, Shake his long mane in the free mountain breezes, And leap as many ditches as he pleases.

III.

Had I been born a rhymester of the breed
Of tragic Vondel, or Bucolic Noot,
"Tis very true I should have had no need

To these new-fangled modes my lyre to suit ; Poets in Holland seem to be agreed,

That 'tis a treasonous heinous sin to shoot Farther than their old fathers shot before 'em, Fine spirits! the Primitiæ Batavorum!

IV.

If e'er you chance on the Exchange to go,
At Amsterdam or Rotterdam I mean,
You'll easily gather why it should be so;
All poets copy the surrounding scene;
'Tis for those lumbering quizzes' taste must flow
Thy stream! O Netherlandish Hippocrene!
Those big-breech'd burgers, I regret it much,
Compose the Reading Public of the Dutch.

V.

A large full Ramillies, with curls most hideous,
Diverging o'er the back in many a sweep,
A single breasted coat, with skirts prodigious,
Containing pockets lodgeable and deep,
Breeches and vest to match.-King William's lieges
Still to that old costume with caution keep.
The very sight of a genteel surtout
Would make the venerable Puts look blue.

t

VI.

Their wives (it is alledged, against the grain),
Appear in equally absurd apparel;
Their gowns fly off in an enormous train,

Their waists are padded out as big's a barrel; To shew the buckle is considered vain,

To shew the ancle would produce a quarrel; Nay worse and worse, Mevrouw must wear a mutch, (That old Scotch word's still used in Nether Dutch.) VII.

But to return, and to exemplify

The modern license of the English poet : Braun married his fair widow by and bye,

And lodged her at his lust-huis, near Helvoet,

A pretty Villa in a Dutchman's eye,

For a few stivers any time they shew itA comfortable, warm, snug house withal, And built within six yards of the canal.

X.

I much approve the Continental fashion,
Of having two beds rather in one room;
'Tis near enough, heaven knows, for conversation;
And it prevents a pair from many a fume,
From many a most unpleasant altercation,

In which my wife and I much time consume.
Domnestic tyranny (my fate is hard!)
Leaves free the muse, but sorely binds the bard.
XI.

And Braun was debtor to his wife, per annum,

At least one child-sometimes she book'd him two. The first was Moll, the namesake of her grannum ; The second was called Karl; the third was Hoogh; The fourth was Girzzy (after Mrs Manheim,

An aunt that lived not far from Waterloo). Braun might give all the provinces defiance, To shew a comelier, healthier crop of scions.

They dress the infant out in solemn suits
Of customary snuff or quaker-colour;
From stiff cravat the whimpering visage shoots;
Knee breeches are ta'en down to whip the scholar.
I hate to see the little chubby brutes

Looking as sour as they were four feet taller, Their nasty dwindling gummy legs exposing, Great heavy floundering silk or worsted hose in.

XV.

How would our young M'Alisters or Campbells, Used to their native luxury of kilts,

Be horrified if put into such trammels,

Compelled to strut for ever on such stilts, Hips from the breezes barred, and legs from gambols! With what long faces would the little Celts Sigh from their fusty breeches at the Hague, "Ochon Lochaber and the philabeg!"

XVI.

Nor is young Mademoiselle's set out-less queer; At four years old she's clad with meikle pother, In Mutch, gown, petticoat, and all such gear, Enough a very elephant to smother;

A foreigner's struck dumb when he draws near, And sees Meyongvrouw dressed like her grandmother

Her little baby countenance, smooth and prim,
Looks odd in such a venerable trim.