I confess I am disappointed with Leech's rendering of Miss Kilmansegg. I cannot see why she should be deprived of a portion of the sympathy one always feels for "beauty in distress." Why should she be represented as the commonplace, red-nosed creature who plays the part of the bride in Leech's drawing? To be sure, the contrast she affords to the sweet little bridesmaid behind her heightens that young lady's attractions; but I cannot help thinking the heiress is hardly treated.
I pass over the wedding-breakfast, which was composed of everything in season, and of much that was out of it—
"For wealthy palates there be that scout
What is in season for what is out,
And prefer all precocious savour;
For instance, early green peas, of the sort
That costs some four or five guineas a quart,
Where mint is the principal flavour."
The inevitable honeymoon follows—
"To the loving a bright and constant sphere
That makes earth's commonest scenes appear
All poetic, romantic, and tender;
Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump,
And investing a common post or a pump,
A currant-bush or a gooseberry clump,
With a halo of dream-like splendour."
"Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,
When such a bright planet governs the fate
Of a pair of united lovers!
Tis theirs, in spite of the serpent's hiss,
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss,
With as much of the old original bliss
As mortality ever recovers."
"Love at the Board."
I hope my readers will agree with me, that amongst the pleasures we receive from this delightful poem, one of the greatest is the charming little sketch which it has suggested to Leech in these two happy lovers, completely wrapped up in each other, with love in the cottage, at the board, and all about them.
But the Kilmansegg moon!