500
THE WALTZ.
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme—
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resigned to man,
In private may resist himif it can.
O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick,[1] Sheridan, and many more!
And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will[2]
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou Ghost of Queensberry![3] whose judging Sprite220
- ↑ [Richard Fitzpatrick (1747-1813), second son of John, first Earl of Ossory, served in the first American War at the battles of Brandywine and Germanstown. He sat as M.P. for Tavistock for thirty-three years. The chosen friend and companion of Fox, he was a prominent member of the opposition during the close of the eighteenth century. In the ministry of "All the Talents" he was Secretary at War. He dabbled in literature, was one of the authors of the Rolliad, and in 1775 published Dorinda: A Town Eclogue. He was noted for his social gifts, and in recognition, it is said, of his "fine manners and polite address," inherited a handsome annuity from the Duke of Queensberry. Byron associates him with Sheridan as un homme galant and leader of ton of the past generation.]
- ↑ And thou my Prince whose undisputed will.—[MS. M.]
- ↑ [William Douglas, third Earl of March and fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), otherwise "old Q,," was conspicuous as a "blood" and evil liver from youth to extreme old age. He was a patron of the turf, a connoisseur of Italian Opera, and surtout an inveterate libertine. As a Whig, he held office in the Household during North's Coalition Ministry, but throughout George the Third's first illness in 1788, displayed such indecent partisanship with the Prince of Wales, that, when the king recovered, he lest his post. His
fluous question—literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a Waltz in Pera. [See A Journey through Persia, etc. By James Morier, London (1812), p. 365.]
