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| LORD HARRY has written a novel, | |
| A story of elegant life; | |
| No stuff about love in a hovel, | |
| No sketch of a commoner’s wife: | |
| No trash such as pathos and passion, | 5 |
| Fine feelings, expression, and wit; | |
| But all about people of fashion, | |
| Come look at his caps how they fit! | |
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| O, Radcliffe! thou once wert the charmer | |
| Of girls who sat reading all night; | 10 |
| Thy heroes were striplings in armor, | |
| Thy heroines damsels in white. | |
| But past are thy terrible touches, | |
| Our lips in derision we curl, | |
| Unless we are told how a Duchess, | 15 |
| Conversed with her cousin, the Earl. | |
| |
| We now have each dialogue quite full | |
| Of titles—“I give you my word, | |
| My lady, you’re looking delightful.” | |
| “O dear, do you think so, my lord!” | 20 |
| “You’ve heard of the marquis’s marriage. | |
| The bride with her jewels new set, | |
| Four horses, new travelling carriage, | |
| And déjeuner à la fourchette.” | |
| |
| Haut ton finds her privacy broken, | 25 |
| We trace all her ins and her outs; | |
| The very small talk that is spoken | |
| By the very great people at routs; | |
| At Tenby Miss Jinks asks the loan of | |
| The book from the innkeeper’s wife, | 30 |
| And reads till she dreams she is one of | |
| The leaders of elegant life. | |
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