FROM MR. BOB FUDGE TO RICHARD ----, ESQ.
Dear DICK, while old DONALDSON'S[1] mending my stays,--
Which I _knew_ would go smash with me one of these days,
And, at yesterday's dinner, when, full to the throttle,
We lads had begun our dessert with a bottle
Of neat old Constantia, on _my_ leaning back
Just to order another, by Jove, I went crack!--
Or, as honest TOM said, in his nautical phrase,
"Damn my eyes, BOB, in _doubling_ the _Cape_ you've _missed
stays_."[2]
So, of course, as no gentleman's seen out without them,
They're now at the _Schneider's_[3]--and, while he's about them,
Here goes for a letter, post-haste, neck and crop.
Let us see--in my last I was--where did I stop?
Oh! I know--at the Boulevards, as motley a road as
Man ever would wish a day's lounging upon;
With its cafes and gardens, hotels and pagodas,
Its founts and old Counts sipping beer in the sun:
With its houses of all architectures you please,
From the Grecian and Gothic, DICK, down by degrees
To the pure Hottentot or the Brighton Chinese;
Where in temples antique you may breakfast or dinner it,
Lunch at a mosque and see Punch from a minaret.
Then, DICK, the mixture of bonnets and bowers.
Of foliage and frippery, _fiacres_ and flowers,
Green-grocers, green gardens--one hardly knows whether
'Tis country or town, they're so messed up together!
And there, if one loves the romantic, one sees
Jew clothes-men, like shepherds, reclined under trees;
Or Quidnuncs, on Sunday, just fresh from the barber's,
Enjoying their news and _groseille_[4] in those arbors;
While gayly their wigs, like the tendrils, are curling,
And founts of red currant-juice[5] round them are purling.
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