Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine; There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light, Or gloomy Caravaggio’s gloomier stain Bronzed o’er some lean and stoic anchorite:— But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain, Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight: His bell-mouth’d goblet makes me feel quite Danish Or Dutch with thirst—What, ho! a flask of Rhenish. O reader! if that thou canst read,—and know, ’Tis not enough to spell, or even to read, To constitute a reader; there must go Virtues of which both you and I have need;— Firstly, begin with the beginning (though That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed; Thirdly, commence not with the end—or, sinning In this sort, end at least with the beginning. But, reader, thou hast patient been of late, While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear, Have built and laid out ground at such a rate, Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer. That poets were so from their earliest date, By Homer’s ‘Catalogue of ships’ is clear; But a mere modern must be moderate— I spare you then the furniture and plate. The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket:—lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—’Tis no sport for peasants. An English autumn, though it hath no vines, Blushing with Bacchant coronals along The paths, o’er which the far festoon entwines The red grape in the sunny lands of song, Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines; The claret light, and the Madeira strong. If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her, The very best of vineyards is the cellar. Then, if she hath not that serene decline Which makes the southern autumn’s day appear As if ’twould to a second spring resign The season, rather than to winter drear, Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,— The sea-coal fires the ‘earliest of the year;’ Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow, As what is lost in green is gain’d in yellow. And for the effeminate villeggiatura— Rife with more horns than hounds—she hath the chase, So animated that it might allure Saint from his beads to join the jocund race; Even Nimrod’s self might leave the plains of Dura, And wear the Melton jacket for a space: If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game. The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey, Consisted of—we give the sex the pas— The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby; The Ladies Scilly, Busey;—Miss Eclat, Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O’Tabby, And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker’s squaw; Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep, Who look’d a white lamb, yet was a black sheep: