CANTO THIRD

FRESCATI

CANTO THIRD

FRESCATI

Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease,
Where, all forgotten but the power to please,
Each maid may give a loose to genial thought,
Each swain may teach new SYSTEMS, and be taught:
There the blithe youngster, just return'd from Spain,
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main;
The jovial caster's set, and seven's the nick,
Or-done! - a thousand on the coming trick!

BYRON.

Oh! what a beautiful piece of sin is there:
They fabled well who said that woman won
Man to perdition.

BARRY CORNWALL.

I

FRESCATI reached-all liveried and laced, (7) Spruce, powdered, pleasant fellows, wait your call In wide saloons with glass and gilding graced, Lamps, sofas, statued niches—indeed all

That can indulge the most voluptuous taste; Where now and then they give a splendid ball, At which you meet, and mighty well it answers, Nymphs of the buskin, vestals, Opera dancers.

с

II

Flocks crowd to game, to waltz, to flirt; some serve

An hour's apprenticeship to each; a few

To lull, if not forget, the aching nerve
That throbs in troubled bosoms; one or two
(Myself of course included) to observe:
The last is much the safest to pursue :

But, should it be your object, let the eye
Contemplate like a painter, not a spy.

III

Oh, 'twere a scene for Hogarth's laughing pencil

To execute! for it alone could seize

The comic moral, that supreme essential

In throwing back the veil from scenes like these.
Here Englishmen meet cold and consequential;
There French are free with their antipodes;
Whilst Beauty, kind, and yet resolved to kill,
Flies round the waltz, and floats thro' the quadrille.