" Three royal Margarets, much-praised pearls of three
succeeding generations (for to the curious in these objects purity is
far from being the only measure of value) asserted charms a thought
more frank, or French, though still gracefully pedantic, with their
quaintly kerchiefed books--books of what?--in their pale hands.
Among the ladies, on the pictured wall as in life, were the poet's
male companions, stirring memories of a more material sort, though
their common interest had been poetry--memories of that "Bohemia,"
which even a prince of court poets had frequented when he was young,
of his cruder youthful vanities. [66] In some cases the date of death
was inscribed below.
One there was among them, the youngest, of whose genial fame to come
this experienced judge of men and books, two years before "St.
Bartholomew's," was confident--a crowned boy, King Charles himself.
Here perhaps was the single entirely disinterested sentiment of the
poet's life, wholly independent of a long list of benefits, or
benefices; for the younger had turned winsomely, appealingly, to the
elder, who, forty years of age, feeling chilly at the thought, had no
son.
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