TO A PARISIENNE.
["Paris est le centre du bon goût."—Les Précieuses Ridiculis, Scène X.]
By Jove, what festive tints you wear, chère Madame!
These fin-de-siècle furbelows of la dame
Would scare the very simply dressed Père Adam.
On you they're charming;
But when the fashion spreads to distant quarters,
And far across the Channel's choppy waters
They glow on England's humble, tasteless daughters,
They'll be alarming.
Bright blue, gay green, loud lilac, yelling yellow—
Yelling for criard, pray forgive a fellow
For using words that time has not turned mellow—
Must not be worse made
Than in your costumes, gracefully assorted.
Think what these tints will be, transposed, distorted,
By English laundress, flower-girl, and sported
By cook or nursemaid!
Our eyes! Oh, save them then with shades or goggles!
For reason totters on its throne, which joggles.
In choosing tints the Englishwoman boggles;
"Chacun à son goût."
You're always comme il faut from boots to bonnet.
For Paris, praised in song, and ode, and sonnet,
Is still, as when les Précieuses doated on it,
"Le centre du bon goût."
Merry Margit!"—"I was at Margate last July," sang Thomas Barham, when telling of the Little Vulgar Boy, and so were we, this July, for the purpose of passing a few happy hours at the renovated Cliftonville Hotel under the government of Mr. Holland, vice-regent for Messrs. Gordon & Co. No need now to quit the shores of England for Antwerp, Rotterdam, or any other of the Rotterdamerung Cycle, as visitors to Margate will, on our own shore, find Holland. In the menu Sauce Hollandaise is avoided, and Politesse Hollandaise is substituted, to the satisfaction of everybody.
"Voilà ce que l'on dit de moi
Dans la Gazette de Hollande!"
Which couplet the Manageress might sing, as they are words from The Grand Dutchess.