“Better have kept those places vacant, surely,

Than to have filled ’em up so very poorly.”

Oh, no, that’s not the royal way;

Things have been done for ages thus, and we

Have a deep reverence for antiquity.

Naught worse, sir, than to be, or to appear,

Wiser and better than our fathers were!

The list must be complete, e’en though you make it

Complete with asses—for the lion saw

Such had through all the ages been the law.