The London winter and the country summer Were well nigh over. ’Tis perhaps a pity, When nature wears the gown that doth become her, To lose those best months in a sweaty city, And wait until the nightingale grows dumber, Listening debates not very wise or witty, Ere patriots their true country can remember;— But there’s no shooting (save grouse) till September. I’ve done with my tirade. The world was gone; The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made, Were vanish’d to be what they call alone— That is, with thirty servants for parade, As many guests, or more; before whom groan As many covers, duly, daily, laid. Let none accuse Old England’s hospitality— Its quantity is but condensed to quality. Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline Departed like the rest of their compeers, The peerage, to a mansion very fine; The Gothic Babel of a thousand years. None than themselves could boast a longer line, Where time through heroes and through beauties steers; And oaks as olden as their pedigree Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree. A paragraph in every paper told Of their departure: such is modern fame: ’Tis pity that it takes no farther hold Than an advertisement, or much the same; When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold. The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim— ‘Departure, for his country seat, to-day, Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A. ‘We understand the splendid host intends To entertain, this autumn, a select And numerous party of his noble friends; ’Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct, With many more by rank and fashion deck’d; Also a foreigner of high condition, The envoy of the secret Russian mission.’ And thus we see—who doubts the Morning Post? (Whose articles are like the ‘Thirty-nine,’ Which those most swear to who believe them most)— Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordain’d to shine, Deck’d by the rays reflected from his host, With those who, Pope says, ‘greatly daring dine.’ ’Tis odd, but true,—last war the News abounded More with these dinners than the kill’d or wounded;— As thus: ‘On Thursday there was a grand dinner; Present, Lords A. B. C.’—Earls, dukes, by name Announced with no less pomp than victory’s winner: Then underneath, and in the very same Column; date, ‘Falmouth. There has lately been here The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame, Whose loss in the late action we regret: The vacancies are fill’d up—see Gazette.’ To Norman Abbey whirl’d the noble pair,— An old, old monastery once, and now Still older mansion; of a rich and rare Mix’d Gothic, such as artists all allow Few specimens yet left us can compare Withal: it lies perhaps a little low, Because the monks preferr’d a hill behind, To shelter their devotion from the wind.