Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/123

 INTRODUCTION cxix ���The picture of the belles at Tunbridge in 1706 is of the most sarcastic sort. The blase' indifference of the men, and the too willing, too grateful reception of slight masculine attentions on the part of the maidens aroused Lady Win- chilsea's indignation. The pert, shallow, forward hoydens of the fashionable watering-place were even more obnoxious to her than the trifling fops whose admiration they were courting. Especially open to Ardelia's scorn is the wife of the rich parvenu, who, without birth or breeding, displays her husband's wealth by wearing more gold and lace than a duchess. In her rooms, which are "drest anew at every Christ'ning," �Grinning Malottos in true Ermin stare, �The best Japan, and clearest China-ware �Are but as common Delft and English Laquer there. �Such is the contemptuous triplet with which Ardelia dis- misses this lady's pretension to gentility. The foolish old owl in the fable is a playful but searching portrayal of many a doating mother. The wrangling woman with the " eternal clack " in Reformation is the typical vulgar scold and busy-body. And so on through the slight portraits which show that Ardelia, howsoever "gentle," had yet a keen eye and quick word for all that fell below her standards. �A second general topic never touched upon without severity is the mobile. Lady Winchilsea was an aristocrat and a royalist. She always deprecates an appeal to the public. " How can we," she exclaims, �with their opinions join, Who to promote some interest would define, The People's Voice to be the Voice Divine. �She pities the man of sense who must be judged by a " Crowd of Fools." "The Vulgar Throng," she says, must not be cajoled or reasoned with, but governed " by stated laws." L'Estrange searched through the beast-world for ��� �