JAMES SMITH.

(1775-1839.)

LVI.  THE POET OF FASHION.

    From the famous Rejected Addresses.

  His book is successful, he’s steeped in renown,
  His lyric effusions have tickled the town;
  Dukes, dowagers, dandies, are eager to trace
  The fountain of verse in the verse-maker’s face: 
  While, proud as Apollo, with peers tete-a-tete,
  From Monday till Saturday dining off plate,
  His heart full of hope, and his head full of gain,
  The Poet of Fashion dines out in Park Lane.

  Now lean-jointured widows who seldom draw corks,
  Whose tea-spoons do duty for knives and for forks,
  Send forth, vellum-covered, a six-o’clock card,
  And get up a dinner to peep at the bard;
  Veal, sweetbread, boiled chickens, and tongue crown the cloth,
  And soup a la reine, little better than broth. 
  While, past his meridian, but still with some heat,
  The Poet of Fashion dines out in Sloane Street,

  Enrolled in the tribe who subsist by their wits,
  Remember’d by starts, and forgotten by fits,
  Now artists and actors, the bardling engage,
  To squib in the journals, and write for the stage. 
  Now soup a la reine bends the knee to ox-cheek,
  And chickens and tongue bow to bubble-and-squeak. 
  While, still in translation employ’d by “the Row”
  The Poet of Fashion dines out in Soho.

  Pushed down from Parnassus to Phlegethon’s brink,
  Toss’d, torn, and trunk-lining, but still with some ink,
  Now squat city misses their albums expand,
  And woo the worn rhymer for “something off-hand”;
  No longer with stinted effrontery fraught,
  Bucklersbury now seeks what St. James’s once sought,
  And (O, what a classical haunt for a bard!)
  The Poet of Fashion dines out in Barge-yard.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

(1775-1864.)

LVII.  BOSSUET AND THE DUCHESS OF FONTANGES.

    This is taken from Landor’s Imaginary Conversations, and is one
    of the best examples of his light, airy, satiric vein.

Bossuet.  Mademoiselle, it is the King’s desire that I compliment you on the elevation you have attained.

Fontanges, O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean.  His Majesty is kind and polite to everybody.  The last thing he said to me was, “Angelique! do not forget to compliment Monseigneur the Bishop on the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the Dauphiness.  I desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank sufficient to confess you, now you are Duchess.  Let him be your confessor, my little girl.”

Bossuet.  I dare not presume to ask you, mademoiselle, what was your gracious reply to the condescension of our royal master.