THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
consciousness, that she proposed to erect a philosophic system that was to oust all others. The results were not altogether happy. Under the pressure of such vast structures, her natural gift, the fresh and delicate fancy which had led her in her first volume to write charmingly of Queen Mab and fairyland, was crushed out of existence.
The palace of the Queen wherein she dwells.
Its fabric’s built all of hodmandod shells;
The hangings of a Rainbow made that’s thin,
Shew wondrous fine, when one first enters in;
The chambers made of Amber that is clear.
Do give a fine sweet smell, if fire be near;
Her bed a cherry stone, is carved throughout,
And with a butterfly’s wing hung about;
Her sheets are of the skin of Dove’s eyes made
Where on a violet bud her pillow’s laid.
So she could write when she was young. But her fairies, if they survived at all, grew up into hippopotami. Too generously her prayer was granted:
Give me the free and noble style,
Which seems uncurb’d, though it be wild.
She became capable of involutions, and contortions and conceits of which the following is among the shortest, but not the most terrific:
The human head may be likened to a town:
The mouth when full, begun
Is market day, when empty, market’s done;
The city conduct, where the water flows,
Is with two spouts, the nostrils and the nose.
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