Epigrams, etc.
On Lord Dudley, who was noted for learning all his speeches by heart.
In vain my affections the ladies are seeking:
If I give up my heart, there’s an end to my speaking.
On Miss Ellen Tree, the singer.
On this Tree if a nightingale settles and sings,
The tree will return her as good as she brings.
On Moore the poet’s excuse to his guests that his servant was ill from the effects of a carousal.
Come, come, for trifles never stick,
Most servants have a failing,
Yours, it is true, are sometimes sick,
But mine are always aleing.
On being asked what “on the contrary” meant, when that phrase was used by a person charged with eating three eggs every morning, Luttrell’s ready retort was, “Laying them, I daresay.”
I hate the sight of monkeys, they remind one so of poor relations.
On a man run over by an omnibus.
Killed by an omnibus—why not?
So quick a death a boon is.
Let not his friends lament his lot—
Mors omnibus communis.
At one of the crowded receptions at Holland House, Lady Holland was requested by the guests to “make room.” “It must certainly be made, for it does not exist,” said Luttrell.
On Samuel Rogers’ poem, “Italy,” which was illustrated by Turner.
Of Rogers’ “Italy” Luttrell relates
That ’twould have been dished, if ’twere not for the plates!
Henry Luttrell (1766?-1851.)
LETTER FROM MISS BETTY FUDGE, IN PARIS, TO MISS DOROTHY——.
What a time since I wrote!—I’m a sad naughty girl—
For though, like a tee-totum, I’m all in a twirl;—
Yet ev’n (as you wittily say) a tee-totum
Between all its twirls gives a letter to note ’em.
But, Lord, such a place! and then, Dolly, my dresses,
My gowns, so divine!—there’s no language expresses,
Except just the words “superbe,” “magnifique,”
The trimmings of that which I had home last week!
It is call’d—I forget—à la—something which sounded
Like alicampane—but, in truth, I’m confounded
And bother’d, my dear, ’twixt that troublesome boy’s
(Bob’s) cookery language, and Madame Le Roi’s:
What with fillets of roses and fillets of veal,
Things garni with lace, and things garni with eel,
One’s hair and one’s cutlets both en popillote,
And a thousand more things I shall ne’er have by rote,
I can scarce tell the diff’rence, at least as to phrase,
Between beef à la Psyche and curls à la braise.—
But, in short, dear, I’m trick’d out quite à la Française,
With my bonnet—so beautiful!—high up and poking,
Like things that are put to keep chimneys from smoking.
Where shall I begin with the endless delights
Of this Eden of milliners, monkeys, and sights—
This dear busy place, where there’s nothing transacting
But dressing and dinnering, dancing and acting?
Imprimis, the opera—mercy, my ears!
Brother Bobby’s remark, t’other night, was a true one;—
“This must be the music,” said he, “of the spears,
For I’m curst if each note of it doesn’t run through one!”
Pa says (and you know, love, his Book’s to make out,
’Twas the Jacobins brought ev’ry mischief about)
That this passion for roaring has come in of late,
Since the rabble all tried for a voice in the State.—
What a frightful idea, one’s mind to o’erwhelm!
What a chorus, dear Dolly, would soon be let loose of it,
If, when of age, every man in the realm
Had a voice like old Laïs,5 and chose to make use of it;
No—never was known in this riotous sphere
Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear.
So bad, too, you’d swear that the God of both arts,
Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic
For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts,
And composing a fine rumbling base in a cholic!
But the dancing—ah! parlez-moi, Dolly, de ça—
There, indeed, is a treat that charms all but Papa.
Such beauty—such grace—oh, ye sylphs of romance!
Fly, fly to Titania, and ask her if she has
One light-footed nymph in her train, that can dance
Like divine Bigottini and sweet Fanny Bias!
Fanny Bias in Flora—dear creature!—you’d swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only par complaisance touches the ground.
And when Bigottini in Psyche dishevels
Her black flowing hair, and by demons is driven,
Oh! who does not envy those rude little devils,
That hold her and hug her, and keep her from Heaven?
Then, the music—so softly its cadences die,
So divinely—oh, Dolly! between you and I,
It’s as well for my peace that there’s nobody nigh
To make love to me then—you’ve a soul, and can judge
What a crisis ’twould be for your friend, Betty Fudge!
The next place (which Bobby has near lost his heart in)
They call it the Play-house—I think—of St. Martin;
Quite charming—and very religious—what folly
To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly,
When here one beholds, so correctly and rightly,
The Testament turned into melodrames nightly;
And, doubtless, so fond they’re of scriptural facts,
They will soon get the Pentateuch up in five acts.
Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold defiance
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuff’d lions,
While pretty young Israelites dance round the Prophet,
In very thin clothing, and but little of it;—
Here Bégrand,6 who shines in the scriptural path,
As the lovely Suzanna, without ev’n a relic
Of drapery round her, comes out of the bath
In a manner that, Bob says, is quite Eve-angelic!
But, in short, dear, ’twould take me a month to recite
All the exquisite places we’re at, day and night.
Thomas Moore (1779–1852).