"_
To the village he drove, sought young Daphne's old sire,
Counted gold by rouleaus, and bank notes by the quire,
And promised the old buck a share in't,
If his daughter he'd give--for the amorous fool
Thought of young ladies' hearts and affections the rule
Apparently rests with a parent.
Alas! his old mouth may long water in vain,
Who tries by this method a mistress to gain--
A _miss_ is the sure termination:
For a maiden's delight is to plague the old boy,
And to think sixty-five not the period for joy;
Alas! all the sex are vexation.
Daphne Brown had two eyes with the tenderest glances!
Her brain had been tickled by reading romances,
And those compounds of nonsense called novels,
Where Augustus and Ellen, or fair Isabel,
With Romeo, in sweet little cottages dwell:
_Sed meo periclo_, read hovels.
She had toiled through Clarissa; Camilla could quote;
Knew the raptures of Werter and Charlotte by rote;
Thought Smith and Sir Walter ecstatic;
And as for the novels of Miss Lefanu,
She dog's-eared them till the whole twenty looked blue;
And studied 'The Monk' in the attic.
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