["Paris est le centre du bon gout."--_Les Precieuses Ridiculis,
Scene X._]
By Jove, what festive tints you wear, _chere_ Madame!
These _fin-de-siecle_ furbelows of la dame
Would scare the very simply dressed _Pere_ ADAM.
On you they're charming;
But when the fashion spreads to distant quarters,
And far across the Channel's choppy waters
They glow on England's humble, tasteless daughters,
They'll be alarming.
Bright blue, gay green, loud lilac, yelling yellow--
Yelling for _criard_, pray forgive a fellow
For using words that time has not turned mellow--
Must not be worse made
Than in your costumes, gracefully assorted.
Think what these tints will be, transposed, distorted,
By English laundress, flower-girl, and sported
By cook or nursemaid!
Our eyes! Oh, save them then with shades or goggles!
For reason totters on its throne, which joggles.
In choosing tints the Englishwoman boggles;
"_Chacun a son gout._"
You're always _comme il faut_ from boots to bonnet.
For Paris, praised in song, and ode, and sonnet,
Is still, as when _les Precieuses_ doated on it,
"_Le centre du bon gout._"
* * * * *
"MERRY MARGIT!"--"I was at Margate last July," sang THOMAS BARHAM,
when telling of the _Little Vulgar Boy_, and so were we, this
July, for the purpose of passing a few happy hours at the renovated
Cliftonville Hotel under the government of Mr. HOLLAND, vice-regent
for Messrs. GORDON & CO. No need now to quit the shores of England
for Antwerp, Rotterdam, or any other of the Rotterdamerung Cycle, as
visitors to Margate will, on our own shore, find HOLLAND. In the
menu Sauce Hollandaise is avoided, and Politesse Hollandaise is
substituted, to the satisfaction of everybody.
"Voila ce que l'on dit de moi
Dans la Gazette de Hollande!"
Which couplet the Manageress might sing, as they are words from _The
Grand Dutchess_.
* * * * *