The tailors too have got commands
To put directly into hands
All sorts of Dulimans and Pouches,
With Sashes, Turbans and Paboutches,
(While Yarmouth's sketching out a plan
Of new Moustaches à l'Ottomane)
And all things fitting and expedient
To turkify our gracious Regent!
You therefore have no time to waste—
So, send your System.—
Yours in haste.
POSTSCRIPT.
Before I send this scrawl away,
I seize a moment just to say
There's some parts of the Turkish system
So vulgar 'twere as well you missed 'em.
For instance—in Seraglio matters—
Your Turk whom girlish fondness flatters,
Would fill his Haram (tasteless fool!)
With tittering, red-cheekt things from school.
But here (as in that fairy land,
Where Love and Age went hand in hand;[2]
Where lips, till sixty, shed no honey,
And Grandams were worth any money,)
Our Sultan has much riper notions—
So, let your list of she-promotions
Include those only plump and sage,
Who've reached the regulation-age;
That is, (as near as one can fix
From Peerage dates) full fifty-six.
This rule's for favorites—nothing more—
For, as to wives, a Grand Signor,
Tho' not decidedly without them,
Need never care one curse about them.
[1] "The truth indeed seems to be, that having lived so long abroad as evidently to have lost, in a great degree, the use of his native language, Mr. Leckie has gradually come not only to speak, but to feel, like a foreigner."—Edinburgh Review.
[2] The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place.—"A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles."—And again, "There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles."—See "Tales of the East," vol. iii. pp. 607, 608.
LETTER III.
FROM GEORGE PRINCE REGENT TO THE EARL OF YARMOUTH.[1]
We missed you last night at the "hoary old sinner's,"
Who gave us as usual the cream of good dinners;
His soups scientific, his fishes quite prime—
His pâtés superb, and his cutlets sublime!
In short, 'twas the snug sort of dinner to stir a
Stomachic orgasm in my Lord Ellenborough,
Who set to, to be sure, with miraculous force,
And exclaimed between mouthfuls, "a He-Cook, of course!—
"While you live—(what's there under that cover? pray, look)—
"While you live—(I'll just taste it)—ne'er keep a She-Cook.
"'Tis a sound Salic Law—(a small bit of that toast)—
"Which ordains that a female shall ne'er rule the roast;
"For Cookery's a secret—(this turtle's uncommon)—
"Like Masonry, never found out by a woman!"