Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/89

 illness, when he was an "excellent young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing.

When he advances to make one of his conquests it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida.

"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment—

Cease, cease to ask her name, The crowned Muse's noblest theme, Whose glory by immortal fame Shall only sounded be, But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row, Who most does like an angel show You may be sure 'tis she."

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her—

When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, With eyes so bright and with that awful air, I thought my heart would durst so high aspire As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, Forth from her coral lips such folly broke; Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound."

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more