His high-crown'd hat, and sattin-doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's Queen,
Tho' Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.'
Or again:
'Who prowl'd the country far and near,
Bewitch'd the children of the peasants,
Dried up the cows, and lam'd the deer,
And suck'd the eggs, and kill'd the pheasants.'
Another group of autographs in this volume had a special interest. The first was the notelet, or 'spell,' which Lady Schaub and Miss Speed left for Gray upon that first call when the nervous poet was 'not at home' to his unexpected visitors. Next to this came the poem which the note elicited—that charming 'Long Story,' with its echo of Matthew Prior, which has set their tune to so many later verse-spinners:
Does not one seem to catch in this the coming cadences of another haunter of the 'Poets' Walk' at Eton—of Winthrop Mackworth Praed; nay, an it be not lèse majesté, even of the lighter strains of Lord Tennyson himself! To the 'Long Story' followed Miss Speed's polite little acknowledgment with its invitation to dinner, and a few pages further on the verses beginning—