It has truly been said, as we all must deplore, That Grenville and Pitt made peers by the score; But now ’tis asserted, unless I have blundered, There’s a man who makes peeresses here by the hundred; He regards neither Grenville, nor Portland, nor Pitt, But creates them at once without patent or writ. By the stroke of the hammer, without the king’s aid, A Lady, or Countess, or Duchess is made. Yet high is the station from which they are sent, And all their great titles are got by descent; And when they are seen in a palace or shop, Their rank they preserve, and are still at the top. Yet no merit they claim from their birth or connexion, But derive their chief worth from their native complexion. And all the best judges prefer, it is said, A Countess in blue to a Duchess in red. This Countess or Lady, though crowds may be present, Submits to be dress’d by the hands of a peasant; And you’ll see, when her Grace is but once in his clutches, With how little respect he will handle a Duchess. Close united they seem, and yet all who have tried them, Soon discover how easy it is to divide them. No spirit have they, they are thin as a lath, The Countess wants life and the Duchess is flat. No passion or warmth to the Countess is known, And her Grace is as cold and as hard as a stone; And I fear you will find, if you watch them a little, That the Countess is frail, and the Duchess is brittle; Too high for a trade, without any joke, Though they never are bankrupts, they often are broke. And though not a soul either pilfers or cozens, They are daily shipped off and transported by dozens. In France, jacobinical France, we have seen How thousands have bled by the fierce guillotine; But what’s the French engine of death to compare To the engine which Greenfield and Bramah prepare, That democrat engine, by which we all know Ten thousand great Duchesses fall at a blow. And long may that engine its wonders display, Long level with ease all the rocks in its way, Till the vale of Nant Francon of slates is bereft, Nor a Lady, nor Countess, nor Duchess be left.