Tra.You are right, and I'll follow;
'Tis high time for a "Sic me servavit Apollo."[1]
And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes,[2]
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes,
All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles
With a glass of Madeira[3] at Lady Bluebottle's.160
ECLOGUE THE SECOND.
An Apartment in the House of Lady Bluebottle.—
A Table prepared.
Sir Richard Bluebottle solus.
Was there ever a man who was married so sorry?
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry.
My life is reversed, and my quiet destroyed;
My days, which once passed in so gentle a void,
Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employed;
The twelve, do I say?—of the whole twenty-four,
Is there one which I dare call my own any more?
What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining,
- ↑ ["Sotheby is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely), but is a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a rout at Mrs. Hope's, he had fastened upon me (something about Agamemnon, or Orestes, or some of his plays), notwitnstanding my symptoms of manifest distress (for I was in love, and just nicked a minute, when neither mothers, nor husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was beautiful as the Statues of the Gallery where we stood at the time)—Sotheby I say had seized upon me by the button and the heart-strings, and spared neither. William Spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; 'for,' said he, 'I see it is all over with you.' Sotheby then went away. 'Sic me servavit Apollo.'"—Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 433.]
- ↑ [For Byron's misapprehension concerning "kibes," see Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 64, note 3.]
- ↑ ["Where can the animals who write this trash have been bred, to fancy that ladies drink bumpers of Madeira at luncheon?"—Literary Register, May 3, 1823.]
